Stupid Fargin Brakes!?!?!

[larryd]

So after spending about 6 hours (almost 3 of which bleeding the brakes) my wilwood kit is installed and I have no brakes.. man.. I have no peddle pressure at all.. I can push it to the floor like its nothing.. We have bled the brakes like 15x.. no joke.. the resevoir is full and everything seems fine but I get no brakes.. If I pump the brakes pedal a couple times then Ill hve pressure but the second I let off if I try and go down again Ill have no pressure again.. man.. does anyone have an idea whats wrong.. there do not appear to be any leaks and everything should be fine.. this is driving me insane..

 

[larryd]

incase anyone cares this is now fixed.. the calipers were on upside down.. Midas told me that and I fixed it and then they bleeded the system for me and its all good now

 

[Ludachris]

Thank god! I'd hate to see Larry flying down the street without being able to stop!

 

[Blixx]

Heh... good way to see how inadequate rear brakes REALLY are =)

 

[larryd]

wow man.. try using your parking brake to stop the car in the rain going around corners.. lets just say I did some drifting today..

 

[psyjoniz]

damn larry - glad 2 hear no incidents from that trip!

 

[Atari007]

Scary!! Hope you like your new brakes!

 

[larryd]

there alright.. i dont know if Id say there worth the $$.. they look great but performance wise there ok

 

[dsmnate]

Damn Larry, You seem to have a nack at putting things on upside down....didn't you tell me you put your coilover sleeves on upside down too.

 

[psyjoniz]

performancewise they are just 'ok'?... didn't that setup set u back a pretty penny?...

 

[larryd]

more then a pretty penny.. but ofcourse Im not a performance brake enthusiast so I dont really know how to rate them.. I mean it was alot of $$, they do the job well.. I just expected more.. But remember my last car had big brakes and only weighed 2500lbs.. it was comparable to stopping like a Porche 911

 

[L2RTSiAWD]

Well I have no experience with big brakes on any of my cars but I have been in my AWD with the stock brakes which are good. I have also been in a 1G AWD with the wilwood kit and on an eclipse stock brakes vs wilwood was a huge difference. I thought I would fly thru the winshield on a hard stop IMO the kit is AWESOME compared to stock eclipse brakes.

Later,

 

[2-0turbo]

I just finished my install of the 13" Baer kit. Wow! I am impressed. I am still learning how to modulate the brakes and get really good numbers--they are MUCH different than stock. I upgraded to SST lines front and back, and Porterfield R4S in the rear too. My pedal travel to stop is about 1". I can usually stop the car in city-type driving with only about 1/4-1/2 inch of pedal travel. Yeah baby!

The neatest thing, when I went to bed my pads and had to do 8 back-to-back stops from 60 mph....they felt the best on the last stop! No fade, excellent modulation and those Performance Friction Z-rated pads rock. I did about 1/2 dozen stops on my puny 10" rotors with G'tech before I did the upgrade. On factory pads, the best I could muster was 138 feet. After the 4the stop from 60 mph, they were gone. (like 190 feet, with the pedal on the floor)

I have a little more break-in to do on the Baer setup and then I will post some 60-0 numbers. I really hope to be around 110 feet (or less) . I'll let you know.

Matt

 

[NDgsx]

Originally posted by larryd
more then a pretty penny.. but ofcourse Im not a performance brake enthusiast so I dont really know how to rate them.. I mean it was alot of $$, they do the job well.. I just expected more.. But remember my last car had big brakes and only weighed 2500lbs.. it was comparable to stopping like a Porche 911

I'm guessing that when you bled them you pushed the brake pedal all the way to the floor?

 

[larryd]

actally i didnt bleed them, midas did becuase I was by myself and didnt have anyone to bleed them with me.. I may do it again soon though

 

[RACER-X]

hey larry so what size are your rotors? did you get there calipers also? what kind of pads did the kit come with? last but not least when are you going to take some pictures of them so we can see. as you may know i have aem big break kit, but if i keep my car i'm thinking about switching.... patrical to brembo havent made up my mind yet

 

[NDgsx]

Originally posted by larryd
actally i didnt bleed them, midas did becuase I was by myself and didnt have anyone to bleed them with me.. I may do it again soon though

Sometimes if are bleeding pumping the brake pedal and you push it to the floor you can damage the seal on the master cylinder piston. I always put a block of wood under the pedal so that I don't do that.
It's a pretty common mistake. I spent 3 months trying to track down a crappy pedal feel, finally swapped master cylinders and used a pressure bleeding system. No probem after that.
Also you have to make sure that the bleed screws on the wilwood calipers are pointing straight up so that no air gets trapped (per recomendation of wilwood).