I just can't get a decent pedal and I don't know why. I have a TCI chassis under a '40 Ford coupe. It came with 11" front discs with the typical 2.38" bore S10 calipers and 11" x 2.25" rear drums. Also has a 7" dual diaphragm booster with a Corvette style 1" master. Since the master is lower than the brakes it had the required 2lb front and 10lb rear inline residual valves, and an adjustable prop valve in the rear line.*

I could never get what I would call a high pedal, and under hard braking wondered if I was going to run out of pedal travel before running out of brakes. I'm aware of the issues with bleeding a master under the floor and have used a power bleeder and also gone to the trouble of jacking each end of the car way up to get the low side brakes lower than the master while bleeding. *I'm fairly confident I got all the air out of the system.*

I've also replaced the master - three times.*

I've adjusted the pushrod between the pedal and booster. There's only about 1/8" of travel from being adjusted all the way out, to the point where the brakes start locking up after driving for a few miles (I believe the fluid is heating up and applying the brakes because there's no free play in the linkage).*

I thought I'd just have to live with this seeing as it appears that the way the linkage is designed means a lot more brake travel is required than normal to push the pushrod into the booster due to the cantilever design.*

So, I thought I'd try another approach - increase braking force for given pedal travel. I upgraded to 2.75" calipers up front, and a rear disc setup in back (11-1/8" rotors with 2 - 1/8" calipers). I changed my rear 10lb residual valve to a 2lb. I also went up to a 1-1/8" master cylinder. All else being equal the master should have raised the pedal and required more effort to press. *This is not the case. I think it's even lower than before.*

I investigated installing a 8" dual diaphragm booster, but there's just no way no how it's going to fit in the frame.*

I figured I'd ask if anybody has any tips, seeing as a good number of cars here have the same style brakes.

Help!