Z1 premium brake lines installed - details inside
09-14-2012, 04:30 PM
#1
Z1 premium brake lines installed - details inside
Brakes matter to me as a performance device. I've been working to get a good DD setup with strong torque, consistent behavior across street temps, and excellent pedal feel. I will have a separate track setup consisting of track-spec pads running off of the factory Akebono rotors. One day I may go to two-piece rotors but not until I wear these down or come into a lot of money!
The latest mod was switching the factory rubber lines to teflon/SS braided premium lines from Z1 Motorsport. The premium lines differ from the standard lines only by being two-piece jobs up front linked by a brass adapter block that mounts in the factory strut location. Their standard kit doesn't have this feature so it will hang a little more loosely, but the theoretical performance is no different. In fact, were I to do it again I might consider the standards for the reason I'm about to get into...
The more complex a system is, the more likely it is to fail. In this case, I had leaks galore that I had to chase down with multiple leakdown tests, and eventually found and addressed them all. Some of the leaks were at the aforementioned strut-mounted brass blocks. I'm used to working with copper crush washers, so I wasn't prepared for the amount of torque needed to "crush" the brass fittings. You really want them tight.
The second, and more problematic leak to deal with was between the front factory chassis-side hard line and the first portion of the SS line. The factory fitting is a flared tube mating to a nipple inside the SS line end fitting. Flare ends like these are susceptible to leakage if they are not perfectly parallel to the soft line. I had to loosen, realign, and re-bleed the front right to get the seepage to stop under pressure.
Eventually I succeeded and confirmed it with a 15 psi leakdown using a motive power bleeder, as well as good ole foot pressure (separately). All is well now but I will do one more bleed after driving it around for a while which can knock bubbles loose from the walls of the hydraulic system. Then I should be good to go.
Right now, I don't feel much of a difference from the stock rubber lines. In fact, the main reason to do this on a modern car is for safety at the track. A flying rock can tear through a rubber line much easier than SS, and that's the last place you want your braking system to fail.
Will report back after tomorrow's bleed and more aggressive driving.
The latest mod was switching the factory rubber lines to teflon/SS braided premium lines from Z1 Motorsport. The premium lines differ from the standard lines only by being two-piece jobs up front linked by a brass adapter block that mounts in the factory strut location. Their standard kit doesn't have this feature so it will hang a little more loosely, but the theoretical performance is no different. In fact, were I to do it again I might consider the standards for the reason I'm about to get into...
The more complex a system is, the more likely it is to fail. In this case, I had leaks galore that I had to chase down with multiple leakdown tests, and eventually found and addressed them all. Some of the leaks were at the aforementioned strut-mounted brass blocks. I'm used to working with copper crush washers, so I wasn't prepared for the amount of torque needed to "crush" the brass fittings. You really want them tight.
The second, and more problematic leak to deal with was between the front factory chassis-side hard line and the first portion of the SS line. The factory fitting is a flared tube mating to a nipple inside the SS line end fitting. Flare ends like these are susceptible to leakage if they are not perfectly parallel to the soft line. I had to loosen, realign, and re-bleed the front right to get the seepage to stop under pressure.
Eventually I succeeded and confirmed it with a 15 psi leakdown using a motive power bleeder, as well as good ole foot pressure (separately). All is well now but I will do one more bleed after driving it around for a while which can knock bubbles loose from the walls of the hydraulic system. Then I should be good to go.
Right now, I don't feel much of a difference from the stock rubber lines. In fact, the main reason to do this on a modern car is for safety at the track. A flying rock can tear through a rubber line much easier than SS, and that's the last place you want your braking system to fail.
Will report back after tomorrow's bleed and more aggressive driving.
09-16-2012, 04:17 PM
#2
Brakes matter to me as a performance device. I've been working to get a good DD setup with strong torque, consistent behavior across street temps, and excellent pedal feel. I will have a separate track setup consisting of track-spec pads running off of the factory Akebono rotors. One day I may go to two-piece rotors but not until I wear these down or come into a lot of money!
The latest mod was switching the factory rubber lines to teflon/SS braided premium lines from Z1 Motorsport. The premium lines differ from the standard lines only by being two-piece jobs up front linked by a brass adapter block that mounts in the factory strut location. Their standard kit doesn't have this feature so it will hang a little more loosely, but the theoretical performance is no different. In fact, were I to do it again I might consider the standards for the reason I'm about to get into...
The more complex a system is, the more likely it is to fail. In this case, I had leaks galore that I had to chase down with multiple leakdown tests, and eventually found and addressed them all. Some of the leaks were at the aforementioned strut-mounted brass blocks. I'm used to working with copper crush washers, so I wasn't prepared for the amount of torque needed to "crush" the brass fittings. You really want them tight.
The second, and more problematic leak to deal with was between the front factory chassis-side hard line and the first portion of the SS line. The factory fitting is a flared tube mating to a nipple inside the SS line end fitting. Flare ends like these are susceptible to leakage if they are not perfectly parallel to the soft line. I had to loosen, realign, and re-bleed the front right to get the seepage to stop under pressure.
Eventually I succeeded and confirmed it with a 15 psi leakdown using a motive power bleeder, as well as good ole foot pressure (separately). All is well now but I will do one more bleed after driving it around for a while which can knock bubbles loose from the walls of the hydraulic system. Then I should be good to go.
Right now, I don't feel much of a difference from the stock rubber lines. In fact, the main reason to do this on a modern car is for safety at the track. A flying rock can tear through a rubber line much easier than SS, and that's the last place you want your braking system to fail.
Will report back after tomorrow's bleed and more aggressive driving.
The latest mod was switching the factory rubber lines to teflon/SS braided premium lines from Z1 Motorsport. The premium lines differ from the standard lines only by being two-piece jobs up front linked by a brass adapter block that mounts in the factory strut location. Their standard kit doesn't have this feature so it will hang a little more loosely, but the theoretical performance is no different. In fact, were I to do it again I might consider the standards for the reason I'm about to get into...
The more complex a system is, the more likely it is to fail. In this case, I had leaks galore that I had to chase down with multiple leakdown tests, and eventually found and addressed them all. Some of the leaks were at the aforementioned strut-mounted brass blocks. I'm used to working with copper crush washers, so I wasn't prepared for the amount of torque needed to "crush" the brass fittings. You really want them tight.
The second, and more problematic leak to deal with was between the front factory chassis-side hard line and the first portion of the SS line. The factory fitting is a flared tube mating to a nipple inside the SS line end fitting. Flare ends like these are susceptible to leakage if they are not perfectly parallel to the soft line. I had to loosen, realign, and re-bleed the front right to get the seepage to stop under pressure.
Eventually I succeeded and confirmed it with a 15 psi leakdown using a motive power bleeder, as well as good ole foot pressure (separately). All is well now but I will do one more bleed after driving it around for a while which can knock bubbles loose from the walls of the hydraulic system. Then I should be good to go.
Right now, I don't feel much of a difference from the stock rubber lines. In fact, the main reason to do this on a modern car is for safety at the track. A flying rock can tear through a rubber line much easier than SS, and that's the last place you want your braking system to fail.
Will report back after tomorrow's bleed and more aggressive driving.
09-16-2012, 08:09 PM
#4
Sorry folks, I picked up (and still have) a horrible cold this weekend while working on the car and didn't take any snaps yet. I will though- should have thought of that but my mind was cloudy.
In the meantime, I can say the following to help with your questions about fitment:
1) the lines overall fitment is very good. All the line lengths are very close to stock. One section was slightly longer but I believe that's intentional due to a slightly stiffer nature. The routing is *exactly* the same as stock. You can tune the routing if you want on the front seeing as the two-piece nature means you can pic your line angle out of the center block. I stuck with the stock 45 degree-ish angle.
2) which leads me to the material- robust. These are teflon lines wrapped in stainless braid, wrapped in another hard plasticized sheath which is translucent and slightly brown in color. An attractive product and you can see the braid underneath so inspection is possible.
3) These lines use the same block type construction on the strut mounts as stock, but they are two-piece whereas the stock lines are contiguous and can't be separated at the blocks. This is an area where you should make sure to apply a good amount of torque to get a quality seal and DEFINITELY do a leakdown test (this applies to any line replacement). Only the fronts are two piece. If you don't have akebonos this doesn't apply to you as I believe the base setup will require more pieces- I don't have direct experience with those.
4) re-bled the lines yesterday and all leaks are gone. Interestingly, initial bite is more noticeably changed than hard stomps. This makes sense as the stock rubber lines probably expand more initially and then hold their shape once the limit of pliancy is reached. Kind of like a rubber band that, when stretched really far suddenly stops wanting to stretch more. I'm happy with the mod and again, appreciate the security it will award me on the track.
As I said, will get pics up as soon as I can. I'm sick as a dog right now and going to bed soon...
In the meantime, I can say the following to help with your questions about fitment:
1) the lines overall fitment is very good. All the line lengths are very close to stock. One section was slightly longer but I believe that's intentional due to a slightly stiffer nature. The routing is *exactly* the same as stock. You can tune the routing if you want on the front seeing as the two-piece nature means you can pic your line angle out of the center block. I stuck with the stock 45 degree-ish angle.
2) which leads me to the material- robust. These are teflon lines wrapped in stainless braid, wrapped in another hard plasticized sheath which is translucent and slightly brown in color. An attractive product and you can see the braid underneath so inspection is possible.
3) These lines use the same block type construction on the strut mounts as stock, but they are two-piece whereas the stock lines are contiguous and can't be separated at the blocks. This is an area where you should make sure to apply a good amount of torque to get a quality seal and DEFINITELY do a leakdown test (this applies to any line replacement). Only the fronts are two piece. If you don't have akebonos this doesn't apply to you as I believe the base setup will require more pieces- I don't have direct experience with those.
4) re-bled the lines yesterday and all leaks are gone. Interestingly, initial bite is more noticeably changed than hard stomps. This makes sense as the stock rubber lines probably expand more initially and then hold their shape once the limit of pliancy is reached. Kind of like a rubber band that, when stretched really far suddenly stops wanting to stretch more. I'm happy with the mod and again, appreciate the security it will award me on the track.
As I said, will get pics up as soon as I can. I'm sick as a dog right now and going to bed soon...
Last edited by ashmostro; 09-16-2012 at 08:18 PM.
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ChefMatt (06-03-2023)
09-16-2012, 08:16 PM
#5
Oh, one more thing. The one criticism I have of the blocks is that, on the front, the middle (strut) block is wider then the stock block and on the strut are two indexing detents, one of which wont index the new block anymore. It doesn't really matter in practice though, so long as you tighten the retaining bolt enough. The soft brass and aluminum permit the block to hold just fine. All in all, a minor criticism that IMO doesn't cause any issues, but I was surprised that this wasn't caught in QC and corrected during product development.
09-16-2012, 08:20 PM
#6
Or at least get one in 10mm. Normal box wrenches won't give you the torque you need and/or you are more likely to strip the nuts using one. I was able to do it but had to be *really* careful and then bought one of these anyway for insurance.
09-19-2012, 01:41 AM
#7
pick yourself up some of these.
Or at least get one in 10mm. Normal box wrenches won't give you the torque you need and/or you are more likely to strip the nuts using one. I was able to do it but had to be *really* careful and then bought one of these anyway for insurance.
Or at least get one in 10mm. Normal box wrenches won't give you the torque you need and/or you are more likely to strip the nuts using one. I was able to do it but had to be *really* careful and then bought one of these anyway for insurance.
Yeah, I've been burned by that in the past (on my old WRX). Thanks though!
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10-23-2012, 01:09 AM
#9
I used the BF Goodridge brake line kit for the G37S coupe and they are constructed slightly different from yours. They are built almost identical to the stock lines except for the stainless teflon lines where the rubber use to be, the AN fitting on one block, and bolt right in just like the stock units. I only had two or three connections per line just like the factory. See pictures below.
As you can see it's duplicated except for the AN fitting on the last block which makes fitting without any twist a snap. Also the block fitted just like the stock setup on the shock or caliper bracket just like the stock unit. This allows the line to flex in the same fashion which I believe is what Nissan thinks will meet the DOT spec. for safety. So far no leaks and works like a champ.
Al
As you can see it's duplicated except for the AN fitting on the last block which makes fitting without any twist a snap. Also the block fitted just like the stock setup on the shock or caliper bracket just like the stock unit. This allows the line to flex in the same fashion which I believe is what Nissan thinks will meet the DOT spec. for safety. So far no leaks and works like a champ.
Al
Last edited by Track Bandit; 10-23-2012 at 01:28 AM.
10-23-2012, 06:57 AM
#10
Looking good bud! FWIW the Z1 lines also use an AN-style fitting so you don't get any twist either. I think the main difference is the size of the intermediate block, which as I said on the Z1 is just a tad too large. Practically speaking, there's really no detriment though.
Thanks for the pics
Thanks for the pics
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brake, coupe, diy, g37, install, installation, installing, line, lines, motorsports, my350z, premium, review, ss, z1
