tramminc

or is it mainly for looks, I know rubber flexes.

vsocks1

You will get a firmer pedal.

olefam

Hi,
I'm planning to do this same upgrade myself in the next week. Just received my Goodrich lines and am looking forward to the improvement. I have a friend who amateur races his 2006 Z06 and states that the SS lines are the best PERFORMANCE improvement for the money you can do to the braking system. Drilled / slotted discs are primarily for bling. Very hard ceramic pads may actually hurt braking in a street-driven car.
Best wishes.
Glen

clif

Yes, I also have a firmer pedal. I love the way my brakes feel now!

tiojames

I put them on my vert when I went to the big brakes. Honestly couldn't see much difference other than a little firmer pedal. They are a safety factor and I think some one who auto crosses or road races their car a lot could tell the difference.

Jaxian

When I switched to the SS lines you do get a firmer pedal which is nice but mostly I noticed after driving up in the mountains for a while the SS lines stayed very linear in how they felt when I pressed on them.

The rubber lines would kind of become non linear in how they reacted to my inputs, the unpredictability made me drive slower and with much less confidence. The SS lines felt exactly the same the whole time. Press the pedal a certain distance, get a certain amount of stopping power each and every time.

Much more confidence inspiring. I guess if you where just driving around or doing occasionaly short blasts to speed you would only notice the firmer pedal and not get the real benefit of this modification.

c5blkvetteguy

Stainless lines going on after my leaky butt fix. After 12 years I feel better about having stainless lines.

Point & Shoot

....with the above post about a firmer and more linear pedal. I installed the Goodrich lines 2 months ago and absolutley love them !!

The next thing is to swap out my ceramic pads for Hawk HPS.

So you know, the lines with the 90 degree bends go on the front and the 45 degree bends go on the back. Make sure you take the time so you have no kinks or weird bends in them before tightening them down.

clif

Hey guys, I got my lines from Mike Yeager. He now has them on sale! Check them out at this link:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...-99-a-set.html

Eric D

They are primarily for look. If there was truly any improvement they need to give a percent improvement in volumetric expansion over stock brake hoses. What most people fail to understand, the stock brake hoses have a steel braid in them that has a rubber coating. The rubber coating is to protect the hose braid from corrosion and from chafing. Any brake hose should meet or exceed a number of SAE spec’s.

B-ras

If they're just an appearance mod, people are going to have to look pretty darn hard to appreciate them.

Any more info on this? I hadn't heard that before. I did some searching and only found this:

This I definitely agree with. While stainless lines may be more resistant to impact or rubbing damage in racing applications, they actually require more maintenance checking for abrasion and periodic replacement.

I put a set on my last C5 and felt like I could better modulate braking pressure at the limit, but it could very well have been placebo effect. I also know a lot of guys who track their C5s, and are faster than I, who stick with stock rubber lines.

Eric D

Yep, do a search on SAE J1401. FMVSS 106-74. Contains carbon steel wire braid.
It is always nice to have at least one thing to agree on.

No, I believe your improvements you felt are real. No placebo...but, I also believe that doing a good and complete brake bleed will greatly improve pedal feel. Something everyone attempts to do after installing new brake lines and maybe attribute to the new hoses.

B-ras

Thanks

Purerock105

Yep. How does one accurately measure a firmer pedal when other factors are involved as in anyone who replaces brake lines are forced into bleeding the system. Obviously, thats a variable for a firmer pedal.

dpw41285

90% of what you feel is from bleeding the system, 8% is justifiaction on spending your money, and 2% is marketing bs imo

Eric D

I guess one way might be to do a thorough bleed the brake system prior to hose replacement, drive the car enough to get a good feel for pedal effort and then change the lines. Maybe the better way would be to compare the SAE J1401 results for the replacement compared to the originals.

To the original poster, I believe most people change the lines thinking they are changing a rubber hose with a stainless steel part. The improvements most folks report is at least in part due to bleeding the brake system.

B-ras

I agree with the sentiment you guys are expressing in general.

FWIW, in my case brake fluid never spends more than a few weeks in the system. I do a full flush after every track day, roughly monthly. The only variable I was assessing was the lines.

ljthe2nd

This is just my opinion, no fact to back it up, just over 40 years of fixing my own cars.

I think the age of the brake lines when you change them to the new SS lines might be the reason some people say they feel a difference and others say no difference, its just for show. As rubber and other materials in the brake lines get old they can stretch out from all the years of high pressure use

I bought my car new, with only 5k miles on it I changed the brakes to drilled and slotted rotors, Z06 calipers, ceramic pads and Goodrich SS brake lines. The car was basically new and I didn't feel any difference at all over the stock stuff.

The people that are changing out brake lines that are 7,8,9,10 years old etc. and put on SS lines and bleed the brakes are feeling a firmer pedal, but I bet if you were to put on a new OEM rubber hose you would feel the same thing.

man00dude

A friend of mine swapped out his OEM lines with SS on his C5. He swears that his braking performance has increased two-fold. His car is a garage queen, doesn't drive hard, doesn't track. He also swapped out the OEM pads with GM Ceramics and replaced the OEM calipers with red painted ones.

I believe this is one of those personal satisfaction (and "I can") factors. We all do it, no matter what it entails. Wheather it is on our cars, home, clothes, etc.

Enjoy life and go for it.