Our current project car, a 1965 Plymouth Belvedere II, spent most of it’s life riding around on 15-inch steel wheels with factory drum brakes all the way around. Most people build these early Mopar B-bodies to take them in a straight line down the quarter mile, but we had other plans for the car.

It’s a compact brake system that packs a big punch with four-piston billet calipers and cross-drilled/slotted rotors that fit behind most 15-inch wheels.

Last year, we took the car to Willow Springs and raced it on a road course, but back then we didn’t have any modifications to the suspension or brakes other than a set of Hellwig Products sway bars. We upgraded the front brakes to the popular factory style disc brakes found on the 1973-76 A-body cars, but those brakes weren’t up to par for high performance driving on a road course.

A couple of months ago, we decided to do a brake upgrade, and we called on our friends at Master Power Brakes to get a set of their new Rallye Series front disc brakes. We went with the Rallye Series because these four-piston brakes are designed to fit behind a 15-inch wheel, and MP Brakes says that they will perform just like a big brake kit but in a smaller package.

We wanted to find out just how well these brakes would perform, so we made a few more upgrades to the suspension, wheels and tires and headed out to the track. Our upgrades to the suspension included a set of low profile tires and 18-inch wheels for performance, and that meant that we were going to be going faster in the turns, and relying on the brakes a lot more than we did last year.

So how did these small, four-piston billet calipers and 11-inch rotors work for us? In a word, flawlessly. We approached some of the turns at over 100 miles per hour and got on the binders hard; we went into some of the tighter turns with a quick hit of the brakes to drop our speed and each and every lap we had the confidence that we needed.

When you’re hitting speeds over 100 mph and getting on the brakes hard, the last thing you want is brake fade and finding yourself in a dust bath at the end of the straight.

Our old brakes picked up heat rather quickly, and brake fade was evident after a couple of laps. Hard braking felt more like stopping on ice because the heat was too much, and our brakes smoked a bit. But with the new Rallye Series brakes from MP Brakes, the car did what we needed it to do: it gave us great braking performance and kept us from making mistakes in the turns.

So the answer is: Yes, big things can come in small packages. MP Brakes’ new Rallye Series will fit behind your 15-inch wheels just fine, and they’ll also help your car fit into the corners when the bar is raised and you need performance you can count on. They’re great brakes for a daily driver, and reliable brakes when you step it up a notch. You may never hit the race track with these brakes, but it’s always a good thing to know that you can.

Check out the Master Power Brakes web site and see their full line of disc brake conversions. They have kits from most American musclecars, and offer the brake kits in three flavors: Legend Series, Rallye Series, and their Pro Driver Series for that big brake look to fill up 17-inch or larger wheels.