More cost effective Brake upgrades ??

[Lightning]

Some people confuse initial "bite" or "grab" with ultimate stopping power because it is very noticeable. The easiest way to increase "bite" on a road car is to increase cold pad friction and rotor diameter. Although it is entertaining (and somewhat reassuring) in dry conditions, too much "bite" can actually be a safety hazard in wet or slick conditions. It is actually more important to have a system with a fairly wide modulation window, rather than on/off like a light switch.

To complicate matters, many race pads have to be warmed up to get to their optimal stopping power, through repeated braking cycles, something that is less frequent in street driving. Some of the best enduro race pads have very low friction in the first application out of the garage (or driveway).

Any good "sport" pad will help a lot on the street, but it will probably be slightly noisier and dustier. Oh well. Also make sure your fluid is properly bled and that the rotors have NO grease on them. If you still have a problem, you might still have a sticky piston.

All the modern Porsches already come with great brakes that have been fade tested well beyond most other car manufacturers (as well as suspensions that are capable of more cornering speed than you could ever safely use on public roads). All the Boxster brakes are made by Brembo, and there are actually VW and Audi guys (and some older Porsche owners) waiting for you to take the brakes off of your car so that they can put it on their cars.

For the street, focus on getting great tires and great pads, and the rest is tweaking.

p.s. As far as putting base model front calipers on the rear, you should listen to insite, as he is a pretty smart guy. It did not occur to me that both the base model and the S use the same brake piston diameters (fronts 40/36mm, rears 30/28mm), so I checked, and he's right. Unless you have a way to adjust brake bias (and most street cars don't), putting the same size pistons front and rear will cause massive rear wheel lock-up (or massive puttering, with ABS). Not fast, either on the street or the track...

[Roy_Josef]

How about a brake bias valve off another car? We used to do this (a lot!) right or wrong back in the day for both the 914 and the 944.

Originally Posted by insite

you CAN do this, but DON'T! the brake system is designed to have smaller caliper pistons in back than up front. the pistons on the boxster front are the same size as the boxster s front. this means that by putting the front calipers on the back, you change the brake bias.....a lot.

since the car dives when you brake, roughly 70% of the car's weight is over the front tires during a heavy stop. this means that about 70% of the car's braking power is designed into the front brake system. if the rear brakes are too big, the rears will lock up well before the fronts (particularly if braking in corners). the potential for spins is very real. just ask pedro.

[shlim8]

For the Boxster S front brake conversion - do I just need the S calipers + rotors or do I need something else ??

[insite]

Originally Posted by Roy_Josef

How about a brake bias valve off another car? We used to do this (a lot!) right or wrong back in the day for both the 914 and the 944.

this is actually okay. rather than use one from another car, you can replace the proportioning valve with an adjustable one. they allow 'full force' to the fronts & let you limit pressure to the rear until appropriate bias is achieved.

just be sure you know what you're doing first. rear-bias settings that seem fine in a straight line on dry pavement may be to aggressive for wet weather & curves.

[Roy_Josef]

Thanks, good to know! I have all the bits necessary to do this and was thinking of doing it when I have everything apart to install my coil overs when warmer weather finally arrives. Any suggestions on a 'perfect fit' bias valve? I remember when we did 'Medium Red' brakes from the 944 Turbo 'S' on the regular 944 we would use the 928 S4 bias valve and when we did did the BMW 320i front brakes on the 914 we would completely take out the factory bias valve and install a VW 'Tee' bias valve fitting instead. Does nothing with a Porsche part number on it work?

Originally Posted by insite

this is actually okay. rather than use one from another car, you can replace the proportioning valve with an adjustable one. they allow 'full force' to the fronts & let you limit pressure to the rear until appropriate bias is achieved.

just be sure you know what you're doing first. rear-bias settings that seem fine in a straight line on dry pavement may be to aggressive for wet weather & curves.

[insite]

roy -

you'd have to scale the pressure back proportionally to the area of the total piston size for the calipers.


BEGIN ENGINEER SPEAK:

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the fronts, if you put them on the back, will now have 40mm leading pistons and 36mm trailing pistons. the OEM rears have 30mm leading pistons & 28mm trailing. the difference in disk diameter is only 6mm and negligeble.

so, the new rears would have total area of 9100 square mm (remember, two of each piston per caliper) and the old rears would be 5300 square mm.

now let's consider the OLD system. the fronts were 9100, the rears were 5300 and the OEM proportioning valve has a .46 reduction factor. if we multiply the 5300 by .54, we get 2860 sq mm equivalent area from the rears.

back of the envelope to check our work: roughly 75% of the braking is done by the front. what is 9100/(9100+2860)? it's about 76%, so we are spot on.

now let's calculate the reduction factor required to give us the same proportion as OEM, front to rear.

our NEW boxster S calipers have, believe it or not, the SAME piston sizes as the base boxster. the disks are 20mm bigger, though, so first we need to calculate the EQUIVALENT area at the OLD disk diameter. let's assume that the center of the brake pad works on roughly the outer 40mm of the disk. this means that the OLD lever arm is 109 mm and the NEW lever arm is 119mm. the increase in braking torque is then 10/109 = 9% with equivalent piston sizes & system pressure.

so now we increase our 9100 by 9% to get the EQUIVALENT piston area in terms of the old system: 9920.

so what proportioning valve reduction will get us from 9920. to keep the same bias as before, we need our rears to be reduced to (9920 / .74)*.26 = 3485.

we need to reduce our new 9100 sq mm effective rear piston size to 3485. this is a reduction of 5615, or .62.

BTW, proportioning valves keep the F/R bias at 1.0 (NO reduction to rear force) until some pre-set pressure value. porsche's factory valve begins biasing at 25bar / 360PSI.
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END ENGINEER SPEAK


you want: proportioning valve w/ a reduction factor of .62 and a divergence pressure of 25bar.

or an adjustable valve like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Wilwood-260-8419-Adjustable-Proportioning-Valve/dp/tech-data/B002G37IEA

take care.

[R-J]

Awesome explanation! I had to read it a couple of times but it makes sense. Do you teach this stuff, because you do it well...

I was hoping for a Porsche bolt in solution to get away from re-plumbing/bending the brake lines to use this aftermarket solution or is it less complicated than it seems?

[insite]

glad you enjoyed it. :-)

the bottom line is this: there is no real reason to upgrade the rears. upgrade the fronts & be done with it. if you track the car, play with different compounds front to rear & find a bias you like.

if you do change the proportioning valve, it's in the driver's side fender. not too tough. plumbing an adjustable proportioning valve isn't that tough, either, but it does take some special tools.

[shlim8]

Had my abs checked out last week. It is working but it doesn't kill all of the brake lock, but it does make the car controllable. According to my mechanic, it's to "optimize" braking without losing control of the direction of the car.

Is this normal ?? Or is my mechanic explaining away a problem ? I still get loud screeching noise from the tires (lock), but car direction is controllable. Locks pretty easily but it does stop on time.

WIll it help if I use wider tires upfront (lock is from the front) - I am still on the standard 205 upfront (PS3) and 255 rear tires (PS2). WOuld seem logical since the rears are so much wider but then isn't the brake pressure proportioning valve supposed to help on this ? These are standard 986 17" tire sizes.

Anyone have the same issue ? Or is there something wrong with my car ?

[insite]

shlim8 -

the charictaristic function of boxster ABS is pulsation. when the ABS kicks in, you will feel the car pulse the brakes a couple times a second. this is very obvious through the pedal. if the tires lock up and stay locked up for more than a split second, your ABS is not working properly.