i installed my 30mm iron front calipers, blead the whole system and when i took her for a rip, i found that the brake peddle needed a lot of travel before it was stopping my s13! i drove it like that for the summer. than i put a new top mount turbo setup on my car. took it for a rip only to find out that the super hot turbine housing melted the resevoir to absolute nothingness. so i put a new resevoir on and protected it from the turbine housing. at that point i blead the brakes again thinking that i might have pumped some air into the lines as it was melting. after this i found that the brakes were even worse. i would have to pump the brake twice before i could feel the peddle getting stiff. so i figured because my abs doesn’t work any way i would pitch it thinking that i melted some parts in my master cylinder during the engine fire! so i replaced the lines to the front and rear. i bench blead the master cylinder before installing it on to the booster. i installed everything and blead the system. still no immediate peddle feel. i still had to pump the brake twice to get it to firm up. once firm i let it go and 5 seconds later i tried it again and it still bottoms out. so i figured the booster might have somthing to do with it. so took the one off of my parts car. through it on my car and did the whole process again. with no surprise the same thing is still happening. so now i figure the only link left untouched is the calipers. currnently i have them completely disassembled. just seeing if there is any crud in there. i know that the engine fire was kinda inexcusable but the brakes have never been good from the get go.
do i NEED the z32 master cylinder? i have seen others use the stock master on these things and noticed that they are breaking well enough. has any one had this same problem? can anyone tell me what i might be doing wrong? or if there are solutions to this problem.
As far as I’ve read, you need the 300zx master cylinder, the stock 240sx one is not enough… at least this is what i read… I wouldn’t know… it being more piston per caliper than the stock…
I am restoring my car and I’ll have to repair my brakes too… there is basically no feel its like frickin suicide on wheels, brake pedal travels so far and still doesnt stop… its scary as hell.
I think I need new pads and lines at least… i intend to upgrade brake cylinder too i hope… and well i hpoe nothing else is wrong… the stock brake lines as ive read suck as they are rubber hose… my car has all stock 15 year old parts as far as i know except the rotors (which are oem anyawys but replaced)… hmm… I don’t have ABS either… at leats the ABS unit isnt in place… and the non-abs ones have even smaller rotors argh…
i put on the stainless lines in the front…i have only the rears as rubber lines left on the whole setup. i believe that the z32 master cylinder has a 1 1/16 piston in it as opposed to the 7/8 unit on the stocker. but that shouldn’t be that much of a difference! I think i will purchase one anyway, its just i think that it should still firm up! thanks for the info though, any one else with any thoughts?
What did you see when you opened up the caipers and pulled the pistons out, are the seals melted or hardened? The system could be loosing pressure there.
Maybe the booster has something wrong with it? There are lots of meltable parts in there.
Also, check for vacuum leaks in the whole system, if you have a vacuum leak or a boost leak, your brakes will be shit.
im going to assume that the seals are good because there is no fluid coming out, or any kind of dampness around that area. they didn’t look cracked iether. they still felt like a working seal. we checked for the boost leaks and found that the hose going to the check valve was junked, we replaced it. im pretty certain that there is no boost or vacuum leaks at that point.
i am going to try it out again and see if i can get them to firm up. back in a sec.
Just so you know the only reason I’m asking is because I had problems with my PDM’s they had slow leaks at almost evey fitting keeping me from getting pedal. I had to re-teflon all the fittings. Brake fittings should be double flared and shouldn’t need teflon.
yah they are pdm’s. i checked to see if they were leaking. i sprayed the fittings with brake cleaner and then blew them of with air. i pumped them up and found that no leaks were present. however, i did some MORE bleeding starting with the rears and found that there was a little more air in the lines. we than pumped the brakes and found that it was getting better. i then pumped them again leaving my foot on the peddle. i waited like 15 seconds and pressed the brake again and low and behold the brake was there! so i tested a theory by taking my foot completly off of the peddle after pumping. than i pumped and bottomed out the peddle. than i pumped it again leaving my foot on the peddle. waited 15 seconds and pressed the brake again. the brake was there. so i found that there was some play in the peddle and that there are two sensor plugs there with bolts attached to them to govern brake peddle play. i adjusted the one and now i am going back to see if the peddle is there immediatly.
shit I forgot about adjusting the booster (arm) from inside… I read this yesterday and was stumped… I had to this also, I used an ABS booster because it is larger, but may interfere with topmount turbo set ups
True that!! If anyone needs lines, I will be doing a group buy including all lines ever needed for the stock brakes and all Z brakes. Just waiting on one more price.