I’d been waiting a long time for my new Wilwood brake setup to arrive from the states, and when it got here there was a box missing. After another long wait I got the replacement bits and was ready to put it all together. The rotors and the hib are seperate on Wilwood brakes, and the bolts need to be safety wired which I’d never done before. After 4 or 5 test runs, I was happy I was getting the hang of it and set about putting them together. I have moved to a manual master cylinder, which has given me enough room to get rid of the "fish" on the Procharger inlet, but I now need to move the vacuum feeds and the catch can. With everything prepared, I pulled the drop spindles and brakes off to fit the new ones. It all went together painlessly, and with the new master cylinder bolted up and new brake lines made up I was ready to bleed it all. Pedal feels really good, but I found a small weep on the rears and will re-make the rear axle line as I’m not happy with it. With it all back on the ground, I was sat up in the sky with about 6" of toe. I got it back up again, dropped the coilovers down an inch and set the toe roughly by eye. Once I’ve driven it up and down the street and allowed it to settle I’ll check it and set it up properly. Looking forward to seeing if it was worth all the pain!

Unfortunately after driving a bit more my brakes went back to being poor, so after triple checking all the pipework I decided to replace the master cylinder. After a bit of searching, I found one that was the right bore on ebay, and it was chrome as well so will look pretty. After bench bleeding it, I fitted it and started bleeding again. The rears were perfect, but I could not get the fronts to push out much fluid with the bleeders open. I re-bled the master and gave it another go but still wasnt moving much fluid at the front. A quick test and I could lock one of the fronts, and the car stops better than ever but I’m not convinced they are working as well as they could. A check of the pin to master distance with some play-doh showed it to be about a mm out so I’m at a loss what can be doing it now. I’d well and truly had enough of messing with brake fluid, including emptying a container over myself coming out from under the car, so decided to have a tidy up of some of the loose wiring instead. I cut the fuel pump relay feed down to the right length, and gaffer taped all the rear loom down. I did the same inside the car and re-connected the reversing lights while I was at it. I also made a bracket for the inner wing to hold it in place as it was missing and did some general tidying up. Not exactly a great day but I’m getting somewhere at least.

I decided against leaving the brakes as they were and started looking at what I could do to improve them. After a bit of research I decided on either a dual 7″ or a 9″ to replace the existing booster. After a few emails I got hold of a dual 7″ in the UK so I was set for the weekend to work on it. The original one came off without any hassle, but was slow going due to not being able to get a spanner into the bracket and only turning about half a flat at a time. With the master tied up out of the way I did a quick test fit of the new one.

No problems fitting it on the outside, but the rod that connects to the clevis was about 3″ or so too short. I had a dig through my big washing up bowl of old bolts looking for an NF bolt to weld on with no luck. I did find a joiner sleeve though, so decided to use a long bolt with thread on about a third of it and cut it down to suit. I cut a new thread, and after a little trimming screwed it all togetherand put it on for a test fit. The bottom two bolts needed trimming slighlty, but apart from that it all went together easily if a little slowly. A quick test by driving in and out of the garage and they are superb. The only downside is the Procharger inlet is too close to use the rubber pipe I had previously, so the plan of making a U shape to bring the filter up alongside will have to come forward a bit. I had planned to do this so I wasnt drawing hot air from above the headers, just not yet. I’ll get the measurements to Zane and see what he can do.