Hydroboost or manual brakes?

[Jasper Jones]

I'm trying to make a decision on my brakes as far as power assist. I have the Wilwood 6 piston fronts, and four piston rear calipers. The car will be mostly street driving, hopefully I can get some track time. Would I be better off with no power assist and wilwood master cylinder, or Hydroboost with the factory master cylinder? I am interested in good (relatively stiff) pedal feel, consistent pedal feel, and good performance. Is hydroboost still good for a performance setup, or is it mostly for cruising? Will I regret going with no power assist even if my master cylinders are properly sized according to Wilwood? Thanks.

[rocketrod]

Over the winter i converted from power drum to power disc (Baer) znd while there was a noticable improvement in braking I happened to have some extra $$ and upgraded to a hydraboost from Hydratech. The difference was night and day. I have yet to do an emergency stop with the Hydraboost, and quite frankily I am afraid to as the difference in stopping power is AMAZING!

If money is not an issue I would definitely go with a Hydraboost. It was the best investment I have made on my build so far and ALL of my future projects will have one. Click on the Hydratech sponsor link on the right side of the page and talk to Paul. You will be glad you did, his customer service and knowledge are unmatched.

[JayBird]

Diddo on what Rod said! Its a must have, not a maybe when I get the extra $$. Paul is great to work with. Customer service the way its supposed to be done.

You will not regret it.

[toofun]

Gee do you think I like the Hydroboost unit??? DEFINATELY worth it. I run stock discs in the front and 11 inch DRUMS in the rear and my car still stops better than alot of 4 disc brake cars with the old power brake system. If you can swing the price it is worth it!!!! NUF SAID!!

Mark
TOOFUN

[Jasper Jones]

Will it take away from the performance feel at all? I have another Camaro with Hydroboost on it, and basically drag-type wilwood discs, and it is really easy to lock up all four. I am just wondering if the hydroboost will make it too easy to lock up the wheels when I am driving hard?

[CarlC]

Pedal feel and modulation with a hydroboost can be very good if the SYSTEM components are properly matched. This may mean trying several MC's to get the feel right.

For example, I use a Mustang HB and MC. Similar calipers are are also used by Ford, so the SYSTEM is well balanced, and has better feel and modulation than any other power assisted setup I have tried or driven. I will not build another performance-oriented street car without one.

[LTorres]

Pedal feel and modulation with a hydroboost can be very good if the SYSTEM components are properly matched. This may mean trying several MC's to get the feel right.

For example, I use a Mustang HB and MC. Similar calipers are are also used by Ford, so the SYSTEM is well balanced, and has better feel and modulation than any other power assisted setup I have tried or driven. I will not build another performance-oriented street car without one.

I agree with Carl here. In the vast amount of inquiries we get and customer input on this topic, we have found that other factors can help alter the pedal effort and feel to the driver. More and more we are hearing that hands down the Hydroboost system is heavily favored in pedal effort and feel concerning "Street Performance". I have not heard the same from any class of the "Race Industry".

[Hydratech®]

Thank you Carl and Laramie for chiming in here. There is no question that brake system feel is most definitely related to how well matched the overall brake system components are. It really brakes my heart when I see occasional misinformed forum posts speaking of vague pedal feel and overly aggressive operations being associated with hydraulic brake assist systems, as this just simply isn't true. One of the largest pitfalls a typical customer makes during the installation of one of our systems is to install a master cylinder with an inadequate bore sizing. For instance - just about daily we have to advise a customer against the use of the Baer supplied master cylinder (they received with their brake kit) when installing one of our systems. Why? The smallish 15/16" bore mc supplied is targetted more so towards a manual brake environment, and also does function well in a typical vac assisted setup. The hydraulic brake assist units are so much more powerful than any vacuum booster could ever hope to be, which means that the mc bore sizing needs to be bumped up a few notches to prevent overly aggressive brake actuations. Conventional wisdoms dictate that a 1 1/8" or larger bore sizing would produce a rock hard pedal in a typical muscle car application, though we have determined that it just so happens to be right on the money for use with a hydraulic brake assist unit. The large mc bore keeps pedal travel to a minimum, resulting in a clean / crisp pedal response, yet the assist units have plenty enough power to muscle through the combo = excellent pedal feel which can rival some of the best manual brake setups out there. This results in what everybody seems to be looking for in a modern high performance braking system these days: Excellent modulation, higher and firmer linear pedal response, ultimately manifesting as much more of a pedal pressure sensitive environment as opposed to a pedal travel sensitive response. Since these types of assist units are as potent as they are, you can actually tune the pedal response as desired through the use of alternate mc bore sizes without suffering the typical "stepping on a rock" feeling that large bore mc's typically induce.

Summary? Typically, and generally, if you are running one of our systems: If you do want a very aggressive and potent pedal, go with a smallish mc bore. If you want a high firm pedal response with much less aggressiveness and much improved modulation, up the bore size! You can literally transform the pedal feel and response of the entire system with a quick, fast, cheap, and easy mc swap. Tastes are a very subjective discussion, with no hope for any possible fitz all solution, though we generally tell people to go with the largest available mc bore sizes that would work with their particular combo, finding the customers calling back reporting resolute perfection in 99.9% of the call backs received.