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Brake upgrade installed

sawood12

New member
Well I installed my recently purchased Big Black upgrade kit. I've never done anything more than replace discs and pads when it comes to brakes so was a bit intimidated by the whole draining the brake fluid and bleeding thing. However I made a sound £15 investment in a Gunson Ezibleed kit from Halfords which pressurises your brake lines from the spare wheel so you can bleed the brakes on your own and I must say it was the dogs cahoonas - it definately does what it says on the tin and it is a kit I would recommend. Other than that the job was surprisingly easy with the only pain in the backside thing being having to cut away the shroud that sits behind the disc. It looks a bit messy but my ultimate intension is to replace my steering knuckle and hubs from one off a 250 turbo if I can ever find a pair.

The kit consists of an adapter braket which seems to work very well. Although the bracket is made from Aluminium Alloy I gave the studs that bolt the caliper to it a very good tightening up without fear of stripping the threads. Iwas planning to wire lock the studs but the allen heads are sunk into the caliper so I used some locktight to ensure the studs wont go anywhere in a hurry. One of the most impressive things about the big blacks is the weight. I was a bit concerned about adding weight with the calipers being significatly larger and the discs are much bigger, but the calipers and the discs don't seem that much heavier than the standard setup at all, in fact I couldn't detect any noticable wieght increase in the calipers by my one-in-each hand weighing method so any real weight increase is fairly small. If I'd gone for the 2-piece disc option, which is lighter and was an extra $250 (ish), I reckon the overall weight increase is negligable.

There are only two things I am concerned with- one is that the Stainless Steel Braided lines I installed appear to be slightly twisted in order to get them attached to the caliper. I messed around for some time with the union to try to get the line to feel more relaxed but couldn't get all the twist out of it. I will have to keep an eye on this for signs of the braid wearing prematurely. In fact the line could do with being a bit shorter. It's exactly the same lenght as the rubber line I removed but it seams to snake aroung much more - braided lines don't like tight radiuses so that could be the reason why they feel stiffer. The only other thing i'm concerned with is that the caliper adapter seems to position the caliper at slightly too large a radius. I tried the adapter in every possible orientation but the pads slightly overlaps the rim of the disc by about 0.5mm. My ultimate intention is to get the 250 tubo hubs but I think in the meantime i'll get 0.75mm or so shaved off the adapters to pull the caliper in a bit.

Initial impressions of the on-road behavious is limited at the moment as i've not bedded in the pads but there is more pedal travel, which I was expecting, and the EBC yellows do seem to have better cold bite than the EBC reds I had installed before.

Anyway it's an easy mod for the average DIY mechanic to tackle and i'm looking forward to putting them through their paces on track. Just got the rear brakes to sort out now! I've attached the 'after' pic below.
 
ORIGINAL: sawood12

the Stainless Steel Braided lines I installed appear to be slightly twisted in order to get them attached to the caliper. I messed around for some time with the union to try to get the line to feel more relaxed but couldn't get all the twist out of it. I will have to keep an eye on this for signs of the braid wearing prematurely. In fact the line could do with being a bit shorter. It's exactly the same lenght as the rubber line I removed but it seams to snake aroung much more - braided lines don't like tight radiuses so that could be the reason why they feel stiffer.

I had the same concerns when I fitted mine and I'm still not convinced they are correct. The rubber hoses pass through a grommet on the bottom of the strut and I think the braided lines should use the same grommet.

Hope you enjoy your new brake setup.

Phil
 
Carl, I think I must have degreased the discs 10 times through the whole process. I was paranoid that I had a coppaslip thumbprint somewhere on the disc. The first test drives have been fairly successful though.

Phil - I acutally re-used the rubber gromet from the old lines but the dia of braided line is smaller than the rubber hose so i'm not sure how effective it'll be. I think i'll have a rummage in the parts bin at work and see if I can dig up a suitable P-clip I might be able to utilise. One thing that got on my nerves was that on the passenger side he brake pipe union was a real pig to get to as it is behind the plastic wheel arch liner, but on the drivers side there is a nice little cut-out to give you easy access. Whats that all about???

Paul- i'm ejoying them already. They look 10 times better than the battered old ones but still can't wait to get them on the track. The jury is still out on the EBC yellows, i'll have to see how I get on with them as EBC pads seem to get a bit of a slating and I wasn't impressed with my EBC reds, but the guy who recommended them to me reckons they are the business.
 
I seem to recall reading somewhere that, when fitting Big Reds to a '44, they have to be turned upside down (ie the cross over pipe has to be swapped end for end) to ensure the leading edge is the correct. This is because they were fitted in front of the hub not behind it.

Is this also necessary with Big Blacks?
 
No. Big Blacks were for the 928 GTS and it has calipers mounted behind the disk as on the 944. It's only on the 911 where lots of things are backwards that they mount in front.
 
ORIGINAL: Fen

....... It's only on the 911 where lots of things are backwards .........

So true [:D].

I had thought it would be OK with Big Blacks but it was worth checking.
 
Bedding in brakes is important especially with new discs.

Preferred method is accelerate to 60 and brake v hard and ease off as you stop then repeat 5 times....job done.

Done this loads of times, it works. Once done then drive it like you stole it once you have allowed them to cool off cos they will stink [;)]

Go too easy on them and they will never bed properly and glaze etc etc. I am unconvinced re EBC bedding in layer on the pads.
 
I didn't notice any bed in layer as such on the pad surface so it might not be a feature on the yellows, but I will give your bedding in process a go as i'm dying to stamp on the middle pedal to test them out - all this tip-toeing about is getting boring.

After my drive to and from work today the EBC yellows do seem to have the cold temperature bite I felt I was missing with the EBC reds, therefore so far so good. The longer pedal travel will take a bit of getting used to and I will have to start again with my heal and toeing just as I had got it down to a fine art! I might even look into the feasibility of replacing the brake master cylinder with one from a 993 turbo or 928GTS if I don't get on with it.

John - the big blacks just fit on with no modification or adjustment as Fen said. They are identical to the big reds but black and mounted the right way round! By the way with reference to a previous thread on this subject I had about 1/4" clearance between the back face of the disc and the track rod end so am happy with that level of clearance.
 
Scott, I had been using ebc yellows up until last week and I thought ok this is what brake pads are like even though I was starting to explore new master cylinder setups and I bought a different brake proportioning valve. Well mainly upon Fens recomendation I switched to PFC pads. I went for 01's f and 97's rear. What an astounding difference! My advice is to keep the ebc's for street and definitely without hesitation buy some PFC's. They not only pull the car up in half the time and distance and I mean half, they have changed the whole feel of the pedal which I wouldn't have thought possible. Just sensational! The downside is they throw a lot more dust, but I am only going to be using these for the track and I clean my wheels after each lot of laps, and they will probably eat through discs a bit faster. Oh, and I've also just added a whole new suspension setup. Gone from Mo30 / 968cs to 2-way race KW's which of course could change the brake dynamics. Having said that the rate of bobbing up and down under braking and acceleration is not much different to the Mo30's as I had had them modified with stiffer springs and shortened the front strut stems.
So anyway everyone who is serious about their track work should get PFC's as far as I'm concerned. There's no need to spruik the KW's on this site of course. This is where I first found out about them and they are everything and more than I expected. Wish I had them all season. Look out '07!
Patrick
 
I've been a bit harder on the brakes today and had a go at Hilux's bedding in process. Wow. The brakes are ALOT more powerful and the EBC yellows feel fine for road use at least, and with the longer pedal travel there is so much more feel. In about 8 months time when my wife goes back to work she'll be getting a new car and i'll be inheriting the Focus and my 944 can be relegated from my daily driver to my toy therfore I can start making it a bit more track focussed and a more hardcore pad might be on the cards.
 

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