Braided brake line recomendataion (ADR approved)

[Minke]

Hi,

Has anyone replaced their lines and gone to braided?  Thinking that my 20 year old car with unknown brake line history might be good idea to replace them and then thought about braided lines to help firm u the pedal.

any thoughts / comments welcome

[Matt_IXII]

I got a set of these for my 87 Carrera and am very happy with them. 

 

https://au.helperformance.com/porsche-911-carrera-3-2-targa-brake-lines-hel-stainless-steel-braided

[Mike737]

If you don't know the history of the fluid I'd start with that. Upgrading to a high temp fluid will help you if you're finding the pedal going soft after a short bit of hard driving. For street I'd use something like RBF600 or RBF660 for track. I found that the regular fluid just gets a bit too heat soaked with corner after corner of full application of brakes with less than 100m to the next corner. I also upgraded from the 996 brake air ducts to 997 series cup ducts and between these two my confidence in the brakes grew immensely as the pedal felt consistently firm enough. 

There's a bit of firewall flex when you're using the brake, but not as much as other cars. From my understanding only the Carrera (2) suffers from this since there's less welds and possibly some missing bracing through the body of the car compared to the C4, GT3 and turbo. Normally you would buy a brake master cylinder stopper/brace to fix this, but I don't know of any available for 996's.

HEL are generally the brand that I buy for braided lines. Anywhere that stocks them would be able to order in a set for you.

Cheap pads could also be an issue once they're exceeding their temp, so I'd look at changing these out if they're below half wear. I've never had an issue pushing on the stock pads, but if you're going for ten tenths on track then I'd be using project mu's.

[Minke]

17 hours ago, Mike737 said:

If you don't know the history of the fluid I'd start with that. Upgrading to a high temp fluid will help you if you're finding the pedal going soft after a short bit of hard driving. For street I'd use something like RBF600 or RBF660 for track. I found that the regular fluid just gets a bit too heat soaked with corner after corner of full application of brakes with less than 100m to the next corner. I also upgraded from the 996 brake air ducts to 997 series cup ducts and between these two my confidence in the brakes grew immensely as the pedal felt consistently firm enough. 

There's a bit of firewall flex when you're using the brake, but not as much as other cars. From my understanding only the Carrera (2) suffers from this since there's less welds and possibly some missing bracing through the body of the car compared to the C4, GT3 and turbo. Normally you would buy a brake master cylinder stopper/brace to fix this, but I don't know of any available for 996's.

HEL are generally the brand that I buy for braided lines. Anywhere that stocks them would be able to order in a set for you.

Cheap pads could also be an issue once they're exceeding their temp, so I'd look at changing these out if they're below half wear. I've never had an issue pushing on the stock pads, but if you're going for ten tenths on track then I'd be using project mu's.

Hi Mike,

I just completed a full brake bleed (as the book stated 2021) and it certainly helped a little with the feel and I stopped pinching the front left at ABS threshold.  The Indie used Ate (no idea on flavour).

The previous owner was big on Porsche parts. Everything was Porsche and nothing OEM so I suspect the pads/rotors are genuine.  Rotors are scored and lipped a little. I'd say 50% of pad life left. So I'll let that run for the moment (just approved $7500 on full suspension refresh - Just waiting on Shockworks to build the dampers) 

I was thinking more the lines are old and I wouldn't want to lean on them and have an issue and may as well go braided. ?