Mushy brake pedal, Help!
Thread Starter
Le Mans Master
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 9,260
Likes: 1
From: PDX PNW
St. Jude Donor '03-'05-'06
Mushy brake pedal, Help!
After running my 01 Zo6 at the track for the first time (road coarse). The factory brakes went away. Meaning the pedal is very soft. The day after the track day I flushed the system w/new fluid to get out the old dirty fluid and all the air. This didnt help. The pedal was still soft and the brakes barely worked. So I decided to take it to the dealer so they could put it on their machine and flush the system for me. When I got it back yesterday (after they did the work). It was still messed up :confused:. What do you guys think? Could it be a bad booster or master cylinder? Please help! :(
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Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 98
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From: Chelmsford MA
Re: Mushy brake pedal, Help! (ZEE FREAK)
Your problems could very well be related to 3 simple issues:
1. Standard brake fluid generally won't hold up to serious use. You're putting a lot of heat into your brakes which can degrade the compressability of the fluid. There's lot's of high priced performance brake fluid, but we use the Ford Heavy Duty Dot 3 in our T1 Z06 and it works fine.
2. Brake pads. Ditto. If you're running stock pads they're not up to the task. We run the full race pads in our Z, but if you don't want to swap the noisy pads out, their are some in between varieties. Hawk Blues come to mind.
3. Brake lines. Swap out your stock brake lines for the braided stainless. The rubber lines flex especially when they get hot.
That said, even with all of that, my pedal is still not what you'd call rock hard. Additional thing you might try are the stainless brake pistons. Once you've already got all of the above covered, then you may want to start looking for gremlins.
1. Standard brake fluid generally won't hold up to serious use. You're putting a lot of heat into your brakes which can degrade the compressability of the fluid. There's lot's of high priced performance brake fluid, but we use the Ford Heavy Duty Dot 3 in our T1 Z06 and it works fine.
2. Brake pads. Ditto. If you're running stock pads they're not up to the task. We run the full race pads in our Z, but if you don't want to swap the noisy pads out, their are some in between varieties. Hawk Blues come to mind.
3. Brake lines. Swap out your stock brake lines for the braided stainless. The rubber lines flex especially when they get hot.
That said, even with all of that, my pedal is still not what you'd call rock hard. Additional thing you might try are the stainless brake pistons. Once you've already got all of the above covered, then you may want to start looking for gremlins.
Thread Starter
Le Mans Master
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 9,260
Likes: 1
From: PDX PNW
St. Jude Donor '03-'05-'06
Re: Mushy brake pedal, Help! (blackshark)
Thanks but that doesnt really answer my question. As I said above I already changed out my fluid (w/high temp race fluid). That didnt work. I havnt replaced the lines or pads yet, but that shouldnt make my pedal mushy on the street (not heavy race use). What gives fellas. Anybody else have any ideas? Thanks in advance :confused:
Tech Contributor
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 41,057
Likes: 9,817
From: Charlotte, NC (formerly Endicott, NY)
Re: Mushy brake pedal, Help! (ZEE FREAK)
Are you equating increased pedal travel with mushy? What it sounds like to me is that you have severely tapered front pads. If you replace them with new stock pads you should get your pedal back. The OEM pads do not get hot enough to boil your brake fluid when you are doing a track event. However, you do have to push on the pedal quite a bit to make them work. When you do this the caliper can flex and cause the pad to wear more on one side vs the other. I have sis sets of GM front pads in the garage right now. They are all tapered and once replaced with a new set my low pedal went away. Back in 97 when I did my first track event with my C5 the pedal went low after a couple of sessions. When I took the car into the dealer they replaced all the pads under warranty since they were all tapered (I only had 2200 miles on the car).
Bill
Bill
Le Mans Master
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 5,331
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Re: Mushy brake pedal, Help! (Bill Dearborn)
I agree with bill on the tapered pads. I have done a lot with my brakes and I still don't think they are where they need to be. I'm having my ABS unit bled with the tech 2 unit just to be sure there is no air in the ABS system (I think I got some in when I put on the DRM bias spring
Tech Contributor
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 41,057
Likes: 9,817
From: Charlotte, NC (formerly Endicott, NY)
Re: Mushy brake pedal, Help! (Gary2KC5)
Gary,
I thought I had screwed up and gotten air into the system also. Took a lot of convincing to get the dealer to run the Tech 2 even though I was going to pay them. Turned out they were right. This was right after I had tried Hawk HP Plusses on the track. It didn't help, replacing the pads did.
Bill
I thought I had screwed up and gotten air into the system also. Took a lot of convincing to get the dealer to run the Tech 2 even though I was going to pay them. Turned out they were right. This was right after I had tried Hawk HP Plusses on the track. It didn't help, replacing the pads did.
Bill
