Firm up Pedal Feel

ChaunceyM

ChaunceyM

Greenie N00B Member
Is there any way to firm up my brake pedal feel? Maybe it's just perception, but the pedal feels softer than I'd like and then I remember.
As a parallel, is this actually a brake component (master or slave cylinder) warning me that it's about to fail? I have very little experience with brake systems outside of routine maintenance like pad changes and fluid changes/bleeding.
 
Soft pedal feel is not usually indicative of pending hydraulic failure (that's typically more of a slowly sinking pedal under firm pressure). But in any case, replacing your brake fluid and bleeding the brakes works wonders

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Nah, I've done a couple times myself and had my mechanic do it last month during my pre-track inspection. So there isn't any air in the system; it's just not as hard as I want (to quote my wife. HI-YO!)
 
Haha, well your next step is to go to stainless brake lines and more aggressive pads

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They've been bled like 5 times, once by a really good shop, so I'm confident it's not air.
Next time will be to flush in SRF with my motive power bleeder.
I was really hoping there was some adjustment I'd never heard of. Like 'oh yeah, you turn this screw that no one ever uses because it's stupid'.
 
without seeing the car, hard to say if something is actually wrong. I would disassemble and clean the caliper pistons when you're in there next. Sometimes what can happen is the caliper piston seals can catch on the pistons themselves. So then the seal acts kind of like a spring and draws the piston back into the bore a little bit. This can give a mushy/spongy feel.

Good luck!
 
I did that over the winter. It was shockingly easy on the wilwoods. Hardest part was clamping 3 pistons while popping out the 4th in a controlled fashion. Everything was shiny and clean and the seals were all in perfect shape.
 
I'd say stainless lines are in your future then, my man.

When I did the nissin 4 piston calipers on my motorcycle, I jammed a compressed air nozzle into the caliper. Once a piston popped out, I'd put it back in without the seal and zip tie it to hold it. Then pop the next one out. They all came out pretty easily. Dunno if that would work on car calipers though.
 
mangosmoothie said:
I'd say stainless lines are in your future then, my man.

When I did the nissin 4 piston calipers on my motorcycle, I jammed a compressed air nozzle into the caliper. Once a piston popped out, I'd put it back in without the seal and zip tie it to hold it. Then pop the next one out. They all came out pretty easily. Dunno if that would work on car calipers though.
Click to expand...
Yep definitely works on car calipers. Did this on a 99 f250 super duty with quad pot calipers.

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Yeah, I had all my clamps out and drug my air compressor into the basement. The hardest part was not using too much air and blasting the piston out. I had a wood block there to 'catch' it, but it was loud as shit if I got too aggressive.
And I've already got stainless lines all around. I think we can all agree it's just in my head. There's nothing actually wrong with my shit and there's no way to change it.
 
Well if you ever want a really firm pedal, just disconnect and plug the line from the brake booster to the intake manifold.

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ChaunceyM said:
They've been bled like 5 times, once by a really good shop, so I'm confident it's not air.
Next time will be to flush in SRF with my motive power bleeder.
I was really hoping there was some adjustment I'd never heard of. Like 'oh yeah, you turn this screw that no one ever uses because it's stupid'.
Click to expand...

ChaunceyM said:
And I've already got stainless lines all around. I think we can all agree it's just in my head. There's nothing actually wrong with my shit and there's no way to change it.
Click to expand...

No seriously you have air in the lines
 
I'm going to trust you on this one and just be super super anal on the next bleed.

For the guys that use the power bleeder, what's the best way to do it without wasting a shit-ton of racing fluid? I really don't want to waste any SRF, but obviously a bunch extra has to go in the bottle for it to work.
 
You can cut get by with less fluid in the power bleeder by marking the outside of it where the pickup hose is and tilting the power bleeder to either submerge or raise the hose out of the brake fluid.

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