Stop is just as important as go when you’re shoving more horsepower into a car, so this latest episode of Scotty’s rebuild of his dad’s VE Valiant ute sees him upgrading the front brakes and shock absorbers.

Up until now, the ute only had drum brakes all ’round, and the idea of pulling up 400hp worth of 318 small-block from a 12-second pass on those didn’t sit well.

Luckily, these VEs could also be had with front disc brakes, so Scotty robbed the discs from the Lockdown Wagon and set about rebuilding them for duties in the ute.

He already had the discs machined and had belted in some new bearing cups in a previous episode, so this time he shows us the age-old technique of greasing the wheel bearings by hand.

The good blokes at Australian Automotive Parts also hooked Scotty up with a fresh set of Ultima shocks to go in all corners of the old Val to keep it straight and true at high speed.

The calipers Scotty sourced were original Valiant units and therefore around 40-odd years old, so before slapping them on he treated them to a quick rebuild – and it’s a good thing he did. He found that the cylinders in one of the calipers were rusted and pitted, so some new cylinders and fresh seals were slotted in for reliable stopping power.

To complete the swap, a fresh master cylinder and pair of front brake lines were bolted onto the Valiant before a final bleed. These old Vals didn’t run a brake booster from factory, so at some point in the future, Scotty is going to look into using an offset remote booster to give the brakes some modern feel, because this thing will be getting used as a genuine street car.

At the time of writing, Victoria has been put into another five-day lockdown, meaning progress on the Valiant rebuild will have to be paused until we can safely return to the workshop – where we can finally hook into building the 318 small-block and hear it roar to life in the Valiant.