Ekohler

The Right Stuff front disc brake conversion on my '68 Olds Cutlass went OK, but not great so far . . .

The brakes will not quickly slow down the car or even come close to locking up the brakes - even with full pedal. I am still not comfortable driving over 15-20 miles an hour until I can figure out a way to get them working better.

I have searched through the forum and a couple of people suggested Wagner Thermo Quiet Ceramic pads to replace the disc brake pads that came packaged with the kit.

My problem is that I am not having any luck finding out what is the original vehicle model & year for the repackaged Right Stuff Detailing BC72 caliper to buy the new pads.

I can call the Right Stuff help line but I wanted to ask here first since it seems to be a common upgrade to ask what others may think or if they have any other suggestions.

Thanks

70sgeek

Aret their kit components styled after standard GM A-body components - In your case, 68-72 (chevelle, cutlass, etc.)?

I'd have thought they'd be oem style-replacement parts (calipers, pads, spindles, etc.)

acavagnaro

Sounds very familiar!
About a year ago I upgraded the front drums on my '69 Cutlass S with a Right Stuff disc conversion kit. It's a non-power car so I kept it that way. Everything in the kit was good quality, in my opinion, and it went together without any major problems. I had two issues that took a while to resolve: 1) the master would not bleed properly, and 2) the proportioning valve(s) were faulty and leaked.
I thought I had the original master they sent me bench bled properly but I had a hell of a time getting the rest of the system to bleed. I thought the proportioning valve was also bad but ultimately diagnosed it as a bad master. They were easy to deal with and supplied me with a second master which worked properly. While I was struggling with this and trying to diagnose the problem I drove the car carefully on a back road and it did what you're describing. Very little braking power and forget about any kind of panic stop or being able to lock up the brakes.
I went through four (4!) separate proportioning valves before I got one that worked and didn't leak. Search the forum for many posts regarding this. I detailed my own problems in a post at the time. These appear to be mass produced by one vendor and used by multiple brake companies. A lot of complaints out their and they're easy to spot because they all look identical.
Their tech guys were helpful and they gave me no trouble with replacing the master and proportioning valve. It took some work to debug the issues but the car stops great now. I'm happy with the kit and would recommend it but you need to be on the lookout for some common problems.
The rotors, brackets, calipers, etc. all are based on the original GM stuff. I can't guarantee the pads are the same but I'd be very surprised if they're not. It'll be quite some time before I need to replace them on my application so I can't really provide you with any better information than that. Good luck and keep an eye on that proportioning valve.
One last thing if you can do it - go with DOT5 fluid rather than DOT3. It'll save any paint or finishes you have on the left front corner of the car as you're debugging these parts. I replaced the rest of the lines when I did my installation so I went DOT5. Thank God I did because changing the master a couple of times and dealing with that #%$@ proportioning valve left a lot of brake fluid on my newly painted frame. If I used DOT3 I would have had a tremendous mess on my hands.

Ekohler

I ended up calling the Right Stuff tech line this morning and they were very helpful and gave me a couple of things to look at before I replace the pads.

You are correct, tt turns out the original application for the calipers are from the 1985 Chevrolet Celebrity.

Thanks for your reply and I hope you are enjoying your Olds.

70cutty

They have other kits that come with smaller calipers (not sure on rotor size) that clear 14" wheels. I believe that's the kit that OP has.
Their standard conversion has factory A-body parts.