talon77
15+ Year Contributor
- 254
- 100
- Sep 12, 2004
-
annapolis,
Maryland
Hey All,
Just wanted to pick your thoughts on my situation. My dedicated roadcourse car has developed a weird brake-pull issue that I am noticing within the past year, that I've never noticed before. At the track or on the road, when I'm on the brakes medium-to-hard, the car pulls very aggressively to the right. The car exhibited the pull behavior at my last track outing slowing down after the front straights at around 130mph and it was kind of *puckering*. Has anyone experienced this on their dsm before?
Background:
My mods are in my profile. In attempt to fix this, so far I've replaced all (4) brake calipers and (while I was at it) I also installed the 3g MC. The car pulled to the right before the new parts and continues to do so now. Relatively fresh brake bleed, new tires, newish alignment and the car still pulls. The old tires wore relatively evenly and the brake pads wear evenly at the front from left side to the right side (even though the pads suffer from pad taper on both front sides, but they are still even between left to right). Rear pads wear evenly between left and right as well. The brake sliders are in good shape and well lubricated. The only things brake-related that haven't been replaced are the front (14-year old though) stainless flex brake lines (rear lines are new) and the proportioning valve, but I have no reason to suspect either of those things. There is minimal brake "drag" that I can detect when I spin the wheel by hand when the car is lifted.
I called Baer brakes (I have their big brake kit) asking about this issue and the tech responded that 99% of these type of brake pull issues are related to worn out SUSPENSION parts (where suspension/pull issues are magnified severely under hard braking). Suspension-wise my car has 1-year old rebuilt JIC shocks/struts, no detectable play in inner/outer tie rods by shaking wheels or pulling the rods. No detectable play in front lower balljoints. The suspension bushings were swapped out to poly bushings years ago and I don't detect any play in them either. While in the air, I pried around the front lower control arm for play in the control arm bushings, but no detectable play there either. No weird play in the front wheel bearings either.
I recall years ago, when I replaced the poly bushings for the front lower control arms, that the rear shaft at the control arm (where the big marshmallow-looking bushing goes) looked a little corroded and not smooth. I suspected maybe the corrosion got worse maybe causing some play, so I pried around that area with a pry bar, but again no detectable play. I may just buy a new set of 1aauto control arms and install poly bushings on them and call it a day to rule out the control arm and ball joint, but I'm starting to run out of ideas besides blindly buying replacement parts or another new set of calipers (I would upgrade, of course, but that's beside the point here). Thoughts from anyone that has experienced brake pull before, and how you fixed it?
Just wanted to pick your thoughts on my situation. My dedicated roadcourse car has developed a weird brake-pull issue that I am noticing within the past year, that I've never noticed before. At the track or on the road, when I'm on the brakes medium-to-hard, the car pulls very aggressively to the right. The car exhibited the pull behavior at my last track outing slowing down after the front straights at around 130mph and it was kind of *puckering*. Has anyone experienced this on their dsm before?
Background:
My mods are in my profile. In attempt to fix this, so far I've replaced all (4) brake calipers and (while I was at it) I also installed the 3g MC. The car pulled to the right before the new parts and continues to do so now. Relatively fresh brake bleed, new tires, newish alignment and the car still pulls. The old tires wore relatively evenly and the brake pads wear evenly at the front from left side to the right side (even though the pads suffer from pad taper on both front sides, but they are still even between left to right). Rear pads wear evenly between left and right as well. The brake sliders are in good shape and well lubricated. The only things brake-related that haven't been replaced are the front (14-year old though) stainless flex brake lines (rear lines are new) and the proportioning valve, but I have no reason to suspect either of those things. There is minimal brake "drag" that I can detect when I spin the wheel by hand when the car is lifted.
I called Baer brakes (I have their big brake kit) asking about this issue and the tech responded that 99% of these type of brake pull issues are related to worn out SUSPENSION parts (where suspension/pull issues are magnified severely under hard braking). Suspension-wise my car has 1-year old rebuilt JIC shocks/struts, no detectable play in inner/outer tie rods by shaking wheels or pulling the rods. No detectable play in front lower balljoints. The suspension bushings were swapped out to poly bushings years ago and I don't detect any play in them either. While in the air, I pried around the front lower control arm for play in the control arm bushings, but no detectable play there either. No weird play in the front wheel bearings either.
I recall years ago, when I replaced the poly bushings for the front lower control arms, that the rear shaft at the control arm (where the big marshmallow-looking bushing goes) looked a little corroded and not smooth. I suspected maybe the corrosion got worse maybe causing some play, so I pried around that area with a pry bar, but again no detectable play. I may just buy a new set of 1aauto control arms and install poly bushings on them and call it a day to rule out the control arm and ball joint, but I'm starting to run out of ideas besides blindly buying replacement parts or another new set of calipers (I would upgrade, of course, but that's beside the point here). Thoughts from anyone that has experienced brake pull before, and how you fixed it?