What do you mean by bypass the proportion valve? Your adjustable valve is only in the rear, and I thought you said you were not running front valve anymore at all. Is that not correct?
And presuming that this is a pre-76 bronco, it would not have had a proportioning valve from the factory so, if there was one at some point, you would’ve added it originally when you did the swap presumably.
But you stated that nothing is in the front lines anymore. So what exactly are you bypassing?
You can certainly block off a port of the master, or the lines to the rear or front for testing. Just didn’t sound like you had anything in the front to bypass.
So a 1 inch went to the floor, but 1 1/8 inch was firm? I know there’s a detectable difference between the two, but I wouldn’t have thought it would be that drastic.
It might come down to putting a pressure cage on the ports. See what fluid pressure you’re actually putting out.
Seems like it’s going to be a booster Issue (still very possible), a friction coefficient on the pad material (seems very unlikely), or something wrong with all four calipers (also seems very low on the list).
Getting a couple of bad masters in a row doesn’t seem far-fetched, but it doesn’t seem likely either. Considering that you got them from different sources, likely different brands, and different sizes.
Can you post up some pictures of your whole system? From master, down the lines, down to the calipers?
Maybe somebody can see something.