Do Steel Braided Brake Lines Make Your Car Stop Be

[EricTheCarGuy]

I wish the titles of these topics would let me put in the entire title sometimes. Do Steel Braided Brake Lines Make Your Car Stop Better? is what it should read.

That said, I wanted to try and experiment and BuyBrakes.com was there to help me do that with my Acura Vigor. As you’ll see in the video I didn’t get everything I wanted out of this installation, but after a few other upgrades, it got even better. I also shot video of those upgrades. They’ll show up at some point.

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[Rereonehundred]

Don’t underestimate the manufacturing quality and all the DOT and SAE specifications out there for brake hose. All derived from safety requirements, these hoses are a highly engineered product.

Also, there is still a hose inside the steel braided brake lines. And the steel braiding does little to contain the radial expansion of the hose that occurs with internal pressure.

From day one, the steel braided brake line was just an armoured brake line to prevent chaffing and other things like rock hits that might “wound” a rubber hose. Better braking or braking feel has just been a convenient advertizing myth which entirely suits the vendors.

[Kazuo Kuroi]

I’d argue that with better pedal feel, you can better control the car during a stop, and if your car doesn’t have ABS, then you can better threshold brake instead of inefficient pumping.

[David]

[quote=”Rereonehundred” post=162124]Also, there is still a hose inside the steel braided brake lines.[/quote]Correct – and that hose is PTFE – the stress/strain characteristics of PTFE are radically different than the rubber used in brake lines – for say a 1 ksi tensile load, the deformation of a nitrile rubber is 400 times greater (or more) – so while the PTFE line does expand, it doesn’t expand anywhere near as much as a rubber line does. The rubber is a heavier wall, and has some reinforcement, but even at a stress of 50 psi, the deformation that the rubber would see at 50 psi is on the order of 100 times greater than the PTFE would see at 1 ksi… it’s the fluid carrying line – the PTFE – that restrains the fluid – the steel braid protects it.

[Author]

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