10" vs 11" Rear Drum Brakes

[Sal C]

Is there an advantage to 11" vs 10" rear drum brakes besides the size difference? This is for a '71 Cuda build, street car.

On my 8 3/4 rear end, I have stock back plates but no drums, how can I tell if they are for 10" or 11" drums? I measured the diameter of the back plates to be 11". Attached is a pic of my back plate.

Thanks...

 

[Katfish]

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[Xcudame]

If you have disc brakes on the front with really good pads (something that generates a lot of dust), I doubt you'd notice much of a difference between 10" or 11" drums on the rear. 65-70% of braking is done by disc brakes in front. If you got drums in front (why???) then the 11" rears might show some improvement in braking ability over the 10" - more surface area for braking.

On my 98 Dakota, 198,000 miles, I'm on my third set of rotors, seventh or eighth set of disc pads and only my second set of rear brake shoes.

 

[Katfish]

I went to 11.75 discs up front, later on swapped to 11" drums in rear.
Only reason I did that was because I hate the small drum look on larger rims.
The 11" drums with fins, are closer to 13-14" in diameter, and look better behind my 18" rims. Are they needed? No, I had to go to smaller brake cylinders AND put 2" pads instead of the 2.5" pads to reduce rear lockup.

 

[TIMINATOR]

If you are a dragracer, as I am, you have better holding power on the line and a higher footbrake stall with larger rear drums. I typically use a 9" Ford rearend and add a heavy half ton rear drum setup on my GM cars.
On my street Nova, (reasonably big pump gas HP, ran 9.68 @ 141 in full street trim and got kicked out after the first pass) I could stall a Hughes 3000 stall convertor to 36-3800 on the foot brake. Wheelies were better too!
On my many street/strip cars that ran 9s, 10s and 11s, I never ran a trans brake and did well at the drags. All of those cars could stall the convertor higher than the mfgrs. rating and could cut good lights too.
The Nova was originally a 6 cyl. car and had small front drums on it. I didn't have any trouble stopping it at all.
Just a different approach.
TIMINATOR