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Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 09/10/2019 in all areas

  1. 55trucker

    Booster Upgrade for 88-93 cars

    For as long as my wife & I have owned the GP the brakes have always been a ? (question mark), I have never liked the way they responded when applied, the fronts have always done more than what they were designed to do & the rears have always just *gone along for the ride*. In the past I have had the booster recalibrated to try & make it more effective, I've had the master apart to get a good look inside it to see just what the engineers at Delco Moraine were thinking of when they came up with this design. For those of you who drive a pre 94 car with no ABS you probably are suffering with the same issues that my car has been crippled with. I am in the process of a 4 corner upgrade for the brakes, all corners will get near 12" rotors, the fronts will keep the dual piston caliper as it is a decent piece, the rears are getting a set of late model Ford Explorer/Flex/Taurus large 1.9" dia piston calipers that will be mounted to a custom support that I am designing to fit the rear knuckles. The front rotors are donated by Ford (late model Fusion front rotors), the rear rotors are courtesy of a 2005 Pontiac Montana 2wd drive vehicle (shallow hat). These custom items have been sitting on my workbench for some time now waiting for me to get started on this job. The nice thing about the Ford rear calipers is that the GM rear parking brake cables are a near match for the mechanical parking brake lever on the calipers. But for now I wanted to get at the damned booster, I have upgraded the old small booster for the booster that GM installed on all of the post 93 cars. It is a significantly larger booster in both diameter and depth. The old booster is 9" in dia whereas the newer version is 12". To get this into the engine bay was no small feat, it's not just a case of out with the old & in with the new, aside the air intake assembly coming out if one's car is fitted with the LQ1 engine the intake plenum has to come off, the exhaust crossover comes out, the drivers side shock tower has to be cleared of all the items attached to it, the fuel lines disconnected & swung out of the way & the master cylinder is removed on it's own. Before the larger booster can fit in the suction side a/c piping has to be changed, the old design will accommodate the smaller booster but not the larger piece. One has to order the 94+ suction pipe as it's shape is reconfigured to allow clearance along the bottom for the large booster. I did this, ordered from Rockauto, but there's more to it than that, seeing as I kept the a/c receiver dryer that is in the car I had to cut off the end of the pipe & swap the fittings & a trip to a friend's welding shop allowed me to tig the end of the pipe back on because the receiver dryer was altered for the 94 year & the fitting thread pitch changed. Once that was out of the way the pipe went back into the car, & I then could go about drawing a vacuum for the a/c system to test for leaks. Next on the menu was the reconfiguring of the heater core inlet side piping. I had to cut the pipe in several places to *extend* it to reshape the pipe to get around the new booster. After getting what I needed I brazed the assembly back together again. This involved the booster going o n/coming off multiple times to get the angles I was looking for for clearance sake. The pipe at the engine end actually is now approx 3/4" higher, I had to reconfig the small bracket & braze it back on at the corner & cut the upper section off to clear the cowl seal. With that all of the *heavy* construction is out of the way, painted what was needed to be painted & started reassembling things, the a/c line is in.... the booster can go in also, With the booster in place the pedal is reconnected to the pushrod under the dash. From here it was just a matter of putting everything back into where it lives, fill the coolant again, run the engine to bleed it, pull the wheels to bleed the brakes & test the new booster for what should be a pleasant surprise. This was not a cut&dry install, the booster cam-lock gave me fits, I had to in small amounts bend the tabs on the back of the booster multiple times to get them to align with the firewall cam-lock (I spent about 5 hrs adjusting-test fit-adjust - test fit etc before it freely went into place). But in the end it was all worth the effort, the difference in the pedal force needed to be applied is like night & day, the old booster would force you to push & push to get the calipers to respond, and then one could not get the calipers to *instant bite*. The new booster is a whole different story, the pedal effort is so light you could stop the car using your hand on the pedal. The car now comes to a near instant stop, the calipers react sooner & harder on the rotors, they never did this before. To say I'm pleased is an understatement.......,
    1 point
  2. 55trucker

    Booster Upgrade for 88-93 cars

    Well, when the situation gets to the point where ones tolerance of the issue wears thin ones determination takes over. The wife won't drive the car (her tag line has become..*sell it*), I don't enjoy being behind the wheel, when on the road a more than average amount of space is has to be maintained from the vehicle in front of you. All the fun goes out the window just because the vehicle won't slow down in an appropriate manner. But you don't blame the entire vehicle because one single part isn't functioning properly. Hopefully now she will have a renewed confidence in the car once again. *yep ...that's the relay cover you sent to me*
    1 point
  3. digitaloutsider

    Booster Upgrade for 88-93 cars

    Pretty sure that shithouse came from Advance.
    1 point
  4. 55trucker

    Booster Upgrade for 88-93 cars

    No, I have other plans for the front knuckle assembly, I am keeping my older knuckles ,it will involve cutting/removing the welds that hold the caliper support to the the knuckle, then I have to reconfigure the caliper support by shearing off the end, fabbing a section from some high strength alloy to be welded into the support at the cut points, then the support will be re-welded back onto the knuckle so as to place the caliper in the proper location for the 12" rotor. (essentially doing what GM did when they installed the 11 1/4" rotors in place of the 10 1/2"..of course their support was a ready made stamped piece that fits the application)
    1 point
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