RA65 with 4 more extra cylinders

[CELEXUS84]

Fill a container with brake fluid part way. Put a vacuum line over the bleeder screw. Stick the other end of the vacuum line into the bottle with fluid so the end is submerged. Crack the bleeder and pump the brakes. Basically air is pushed out which rises in the bottle and escapes. When you let your foot bake off the brake it sucks in fluid from the bottle instead of air. usually that gets me 90% of the way bled then I gravity bleed the rest of the way.

For some reason the gravity bleed doesn't seem to work well on empty systems. If you don't care about mess you can also crack the bleeder on an empty system and pump a few times until it spits fluid out then usually gravity bleeding works after that. Anyway try it next time those vacuum bleeders are a pain in the ass.

Yea Ive learned they are a good grip exercise and good for getting the old fluid out of the reservoir but pretty useless for bleeding properly. Thanks for the tip! Usually I just hire the wife for a bit to pump it up etc. She gets some exercise and I get free help. 'It goes like this "hey babe I need your help..o and can you bring me a beer when you come out!

[CELEXUS84]

Man this thing is pissing me off. So the system consists of...front and rear brakes (calipers,rotors) from a 94 ish 300zxTT, Master cylinder from a 88 supra NON-abs. (1 in bore to match 300zx) Adjustable propo valve from summit.. I cannot get a pedal. The first master cylinder immediately kept going to the floor and halfway through the travel it would "skip" then hit the floor. Figured it was bypassing internally. Ordered another one and after bench bleeding I installed it and had a good pedal. So i was like sweet!

 Bled rear brakes..fine..started on the fronts and pedal kept going to the floor with the same "skip"..I keep getting black fluid out of the front calipers though. Thinking something is wrong with the used calipers I got. Maybe sitting around too long and seals dried out. No visible leaks etc. Drove it back and forth on my side street and it will lock up the fronts but only at the last inch of travel before bottoming out.

[RedCar]

still looks like a sweet mod though! I bet steel brake lines could yield some pedal margin if one really wanted too.

That seems really lucky that the calipers can mount on flat brackets... or did you use a spacer between the hub and the rotor?
Are those brackets aluminum?

[sirdan]

If those are 4 piston front calipers perhaps there is debris in there blocking the one side from getting fluid and the popping is some fluid pushing past it? Perhaps you could plug the front brake lines and see if you could get a nice pedal without the front calipers in the system. It will have to be plugged tight to get a strong pedal though.

I used a summit prop valve on my truck and it works well. I wasn't crazy about how the actual block has pipe threads and an adapter to brake line style fittings. Seemed really weird and I had to put teflon tape on the threads of the pipe threads to get a good seal.

[CELEXUS84]

still looks like a sweet mod though! I bet steel brake lines could yield some pedal margin if one really wanted too.

That seems really lucky that the calipers can mount on flat brackets... or did you use a spacer between the hub and the rotor?
Are those brackets aluminum?

I have a AE86 braided line kit on the car. I will post a more detailed thread once it all works well. The brackets are 3/8 aluminum and are flat but I made a 3mm offset bushing to push the caliper outwards to center it over the rotor. Instead of milling a offset into the bracket which would have cost more and needed thicker material.

[CELEXUS84]

If those are 4 piston front calipers perhaps there is debris in there blocking the one side from getting fluid and the popping is some fluid pushing past it? Perhaps you could plug the front brake lines and see if you could get a nice pedal without the front calipers in the system. It will have to be plugged tight to get a strong pedal though.

I used a summit prop valve on my truck and it works well. I wasn't crazy about how the actual block has pipe threads and an adapter to brake line style fittings. Seemed really weird and I had to put teflon tape on the threads of the pipe threads to get a good seal.

I am thinking something has to be wrong with calipers. Your'e theory does make sense. Was told they were rebuilt but who knows how long. Just ordered two kits so we will see. Yea it was seeping the first few bleeds, I was trying to find one that accepted M10 x 1.0 but none on the affordable options. Wish I had a bubble flare tool to not use the adapters as well but nobody had one I could borrow. Was not buying one either to just use it once. I will report back after the rebuild and go from there.

[Teranfirbt]

There's an adjustment to the rod between the brake booster and the master cylinder, probably need to run that out a bit. Could be the piston in the Supra master is different enough that the rod doesn't engage until further in the stroke.

[CELEXUS84]

There's an adjustment to the rod between the brake booster and the master cylinder, probably need to run that out a bit. Could be the piston in the Supra master is different enough that the rod doesn't engage until further in the stroke.

That makes a lot of sense. Half way down the pedal stroke it does feel like it almost starts engaging even though the pedal has pressure throughout the complete stroke...I will try and measure and keep fingers crossed.

[CELEXUS84]

So been a bit busy with the house and getting the lemons car back and running. But here is some new pix. Next race is March 9-10 up at sonoma raceway. Weather is going to suck. After a lot of fiddling and trial and error, I go tthe 300zx brakes installed and working. So hopefully wont have melting brakes this time. Now just to hope the engine doesn't melt down.



20181127_184828 by RJ S, on Flickr


20181213_060559 by RJ S, on Flickr

20181213_060717 by RJ S, on Flickr

20181213_060728 by RJ S, on Flickr

20181013_140742 by RJ S, on Flickr

20181013_123847_002 by RJ S, on Flickr

20181208_123118 by RJ S, on Flickr

20181102_180850 by RJ S, on Flickr

IMG_20190227_152536_438 by RJ S, on Flickr

[twotone_ra64]

Well well, look who I spotted at Hooptiecon while at RADwood today! Feel free to use these pics however you like.























When the rain was really comin' down.

[CELEXUS84]

Well well, look who I spotted at Hooptiecon while at RADwood today! Feel free to use these pics however you like.

O HELL YEA!!! Should have came and found us in the paddock! The weather for surely sucked but we had fun, Kept the car from overheating haha. I was picked to drive both mornings on a wet track since im most likely to keep it on the track Luckily something happened which led me to drive the last hour and a half on sunday on a pretty dry track so I atleast got a little dry track time . Completely smoked the brakes. All 4 rotors were completely smoked half way through saturday. Could not find any spares either. I will be putting together a short little video soon and the whole car shake was crazy!

BUT WE FINISHED!!!!



20190310_163109_039_01 by RJ S, on Flickr



Here is two little snippits

https://youtu.be/YqKxLktnpXs

https://youtu.be/xr9FE1Xckn8

[twotone_ra64]

O HELL YEA!!! Should have came and found us in the paddock! The weather for surely sucked but we had fun, Kept the car from overheating haha. I was picked to drive both mornings on a wet track since im most likely to keep it on the track Luckily something happened which led me to drive the last hour and a half on sunday on a pretty dry track so I atleast got a little dry track time . Completely smoked the brakes. All 4 rotors were completely smoked half way through saturday. Could not find any spares either. I will be putting together a short little video soon and the whole car shake was crazy!

BUT WE FINISHED!!!!

Here is two little snippits

https://youtu.be/YqKxLktnpXs

https://youtu.be/xr9FE1Xckn8

Awesome!! Kudos on finishing! Do you know who won? My coworker was racing in the dirt brown E30, they thought the Cervesa car came out on top. Yeah, I didn't make it to the paddocks because it was pretty cold and miserable, and I had a date with the Pick n Pull in Fairfield after the show. But awesome man, it was so cool to see you out there!!

Wow, looks like the 300ZX upgrade didn't hold up... maybe higher quality pads and rotors would help? Or just not enough airflow for cooling? Also, what rotors were you running for the rear? It looks like you drilled out a 5-lug rotor for the 4-lug Celica hub. If possible, could you perhaps send the design for the rear caliper bracket? I'd like to try replicating that setup for my car.

[sirdan]

I think some big brake ducts would be the most cost effective help to the brakes. There seems to be some good tidbits of info in this website http://www.singularmotorsports.com/write-ups/tech-article-brake-cooling/

The key for the inlet is for it to be in a high-pressure location. Any inlet on the front of the car will work to a degree. They will be more effective the closer to the center of the bumper you can put them.

Brake rotors are designed to vent air from their center outwards, so the closer to the center of the rotor you can get the air, the better.

[Teranfirbt]

Brakes are always the bane of the endurance car... Pad selection has a lot to do with rotor life, a lot of race pads are very aggressive on rotor life :\

[CELEXUS84]

Awesome!! Kudos on finishing! Do you know who won? My coworker was racing in the dirt brown E30, they thought the Cervesa car came out on top. Yeah, I didn't make it to the paddocks because it was pretty cold and miserable, and I had a date with the Pick n Pull in Fairfield after the show. But awesome man, it was so cool to see you out there!!

Wow, looks like the 300ZX upgrade didn't hold up... maybe higher quality pads and rotors would help? Or just not enough airflow for cooling? Also, what rotors were you running for the rear? It looks like you drilled out a 5-lug rotor for the 4-lug Celica hub. If possible, could you perhaps send the design for the rear caliper bracket? I'd like to try replicating that setup for my car.

I do believe #2 cerveza racing won class A total laps. Not 100% sure though. I missed the first couple minutes of the awards ceremony. Was a hectic last 2.5 hrs for us with the second to last driver still being drunk in me and 1 other teammates opinion and eventually he was put in the car and lasted about 15 minutes before he pitted and proceeded to throw up, was pretty pissed that nobody had my back, so that put us from the 50s into almost 70th place I think.

Yea I agree, not fun walking around in the rain. I don't mind the cold..its this freaking rain. Seriously though..this winter it has rained every event that I have had planned outside. Pretty annoyed. I know we need it but yea.

So I never measured the thickness of the rotors. They were only suppose to be test pieces, But eventually they ended up just being used. So I had them machined...which I think they might have already been machined when we purchased them. So they were too thin. I wanted to get some EBC yellows or something moderate but unfortunately I am just the mechanic and not the money so some Hawk HPS race pads were purchased. So full race pads with stock too thin rotors...yea not a great idea. I contacted 3 companies to make us rotors and all three said they could but never got back to me in time for pricing etc.

 BUT HOLY SHIT if you needed to stop....they freaking stopped you. Just shook the wheel out of your hands.

The rotors are factory 92-95 300zx rotors hand drilled to a 4 x 114.3 pattern. Shoot me an email at heyitsrj88@gmail.com and I can forward you the info.