SS brake lines benefits?
 

what benefits will you see with stainless steal brake lines in autox and road racing? are the stock ones not stainless steal? if not what material are they?

Stock ones are rubber which can expand under heat and pressure creating a mushy pedal feel. SS ones are stronger and wont expand.

^to add to that, typically you wont realize any real benefit in typical daily driving situations. when you start auto-x'n and going on track day events your brakes are the most important part of your whole setup imo. you dont want a brake line to blow and lose all brake pressure in the middle of a turn.

SS brake lines
 

Not likely to see much benefit if your Z is a DD.

Under track conditions, the repeated brake temps will continue to increase, thereby increasing the brake fluid temps that evenually will find it way to the weakest line in the brake system. At that point, when you need the brake to work flawlessly, the brake pedal will, at best feel mushy, or at worst, the brake pedal will simply bottom out and one will not be able to stop!

BBK are great safety peace of mind, even for DD conditions. You will likely not see a significant decrease in stopping distance but brake fade should be reduced. A benefit of two-piece rotors is reduction on unsprung weight. Also, chaning from DOT 3 brake fluid to DOT 4 will lessen the when the brake fluid boiling point.

Additionally, the brake booster should be sized appropriately to take advantage of the BBK. :ugh2:

To add what the guys have said. SS lines are a safety factor for those who track their cars. I have seen on multiple occasions where the brake hose will explode or the fitting will expand and come off it housing. Its a scary feeling doing 120mph into a 70mph turn... You see God! I tell you what.

anyone here have any ss brake line on their 370z? i heard they havnt come out with any yet.

one downside is that for safety ss lines need to be replaced more often... rubber you can replace only when needed from visual inspection... b/c ss can't be as easily inspected for wear, i've heard of racers replacing every season or more

I am waiting on a set of SS lines from Challenge for final test fitment. Should be here soon hopefully.

CZP has had a set out for a while, and Goodrich/Stillen announced one a while back, not sure if that's released yet.

i read that you have the cpz. how do you like them?

So far we know of two "styles" of SS brake lines for this car. The Stillen/Goodrich set looks to be a direct OEM replacement, fitting exactly the same way to the same brackets, but with the rubber tube (and hard tube I think) sections replaced with quality braided SS line.

The CZP one is basically a single straight piece of braided SS brake line with appropriate connectors at each end and a sliding mounting tab in the middle. You ditch the OEM setup and all of the associated brackets, etc, and just mount this direct line from the hard line at the top of the wheel well straight down to the caliper (the sliding mounting bracket bolts into one of the leftover holes from the removed OEM brackets). Being a much simpler design, that's why they were able to get it to market quicker. It's been working fine for me so far.

Leaving aside the track durability issues with blown rubber hoses, for street use, even when the brakes aren't super-heated, you do get a difference in pedal feel at all temperatures. Without the inherent flex of the rubber lines, the brake system is firmer overall, which means it responds quicker to slight touches at the brake pedal without having the mushy takeup feel of the stock lines. It can feel a little weird at first (well, it did to me when I put them on my last car several years ago, I'm used to it now), as it seems like your brake pedal hits a hard floor pressure-wise at a much shallower depth.

nice, so you would recommend this brand to me?

Well it works fine for me, and I imagine the other kind will work fine too. The real differences are probably going to be cost, and whether you prefer to stay as close to OEM as possible or not.

i just ordered my lines from stillens site. I am contimplating bbk. so expensive. if i do go for it. what would be the best bang for my buck. Im looking for atleast 4 piston fronts and 2 piston year with 15" rotor front and 14 rear.

I agree 100% when I changed my brake lines on my bike to ss I felt a huge difference. Much less fade when you put on the brakes.

We have a set in production now and will be releasing them soon. We already have a prototype set we have been testing on our shop 370Z. Look for these to be released shorltly!

Sweet. Looking forward to updates! :happydance:

Just letting you guys know, I have just added our SS Brake line kits to the website under the classified section.

You can read more about them here:
http://www.the370z.com/suspension-br...torsports.html

Back in July I had the G-Spec SS brake lines put in along with Motul 660 brake fluid and I definitely recommend the setup.

I highly recommend this upgrade. I've done it on every car I've owned (that I could find quality SS lines for). Short of a BBK, there is nothing that gives a bigger difference in feel and control that stainless steel braided lines and fresh, high-quality brake fluid. Even for my DD's, I could never go back to the squishy, vague rubber lines -- ever!

Just be sure you by from a recognized manufacturer that has tested them for TÜV certification, DOT compliance and FMVSS 106 standards. Make them prove this. There are a lot of cheap line kits being imported that are below par at best. Other have purchased do-it-yourself equipment that could be OK, but without testing the results from that specific piece of equipment and that specific process (not a generalized test done by the machine's manufacturer), you don't really know what you are getting.

For the above reasons, I'd recommend the Stillen/Goodridge lines. These have all the bases covered, along with a lifetime guarantee.

Chris

The brake lines themselves are steel from the master cylinder and around to the areas near the wheels, but the lines going from there to your calipers are rubber, like they are in most vehicles.

Getting stainless-steel ones won't expand under pressure, as the weave around the hoses expand very little.

The result/benfit is a "snappier" brake, as there is less pressure loss in the rubber part due to expansion. It also looks better IMO. :)

I want to add...your brake lines are not something you want to cheap out on. Failure in that area could result in some very bad happening!

+1 to that! I had a rear line failure two years ago on the freeway. It looked like I ran over something that kick up and sliced a rubber line. I had just upgraded the front lines, but the rears in the kit weren't correct. While I was waiting for the replacements, the left rear got cut. Cost me one BMW E34 540i M-Technic 6-speed in pristine condition, but we were lucky no one was hurt. It happened right in front of a highway patrol car. Fortunately, he was a vehicle inspector who signed off on my equipment damage explanation. I was about 4 feet from taking out his car too...

The benefits were perfectly clear at the track yesterday.