Removing the d/s seat is great advice. I had no prob slipping the brake booster in on my 91 w/o bossing out the mounting holes and pounding the strut tower. I pulled as much wiring and vaccum lines out of the way.
Who's done this on an 86. I totally admit to being one of, "TehFailz" when it comes to putting this off due to teh PITA factor. One other thing... I have seen mention before, about more humane methods of adjusting the shock tower (if necessary), than smacking it with a large hammer. Anyone have information on this?
I have not done this job yet but when I asked a guy with a very nice fox body show car he said he drilled a small hole in the strut tower and pulled it from the outside with a slide hammer. I guess if you dont want to drill another hole you could weld a piece of something on the tower and and pull it with that and then cut it off and grind it smooth. But then again if your going to do all of that you may as well just weld the hole shut after you drill it.
Good advice here and the picture of the two boosters side by side is amazing. The Cobra booster is the last link in my Cobra front and rear disk brake install. The pedal effort is tolerable but there was one low speed semi-panic stop that left me wanting for more boost. And I know I'm not getting the good out of the setup. Guess I'll put the Cobra booster in when one floats my way one day.
Well this all started with the 93 cobra rear disks. then of course brake pressure was poop and i started reading all the options. I gathered up a v6 booster/mc. That wasnt the ticket for me. Said screw it and changed from my street car mechanic hat to the race car mechanic hat and decided to go manual with a nice prop valve. i chose the standard issue dual chamber cast mc and adapter from UPR. Very simple. Then i chose the new Wilwood PV/distribution unit. So nice! I did some simple rerouting on the pv to incorperate the hurst line lock. Very clean. I made a bracket to attach the whole mess to the mc. I'm not a huge fan of bending lines and such. Even though its proving to be kind of expensive, I'm running all ss braided lines...everywhere. Coming from circle track racing its second nature to use AN fittings. I converted the mc, pv and all calipers to -3an. Again a slight pia figuring out line legnths but worth it to me. You can sorta see in the one pic that im using some nice stainless -3an "thru the frame" fittings to get to the wheel well. Just trying to keep it clean and tight as possible. RF line will run thru the cowl. Yes manual brakes take some getting used to. With some fine tuning of the pv and pedal position it should be fairly decent. Cant express how happy i am to have that dang booster out of there! I will keep you up to date with pics as i work on it. I dont get to work on it as much as i would like. Common problem for most im sure. Feel free to ask more questions or better yet, suggestions btw...all ss lines are custom ordered from Fragola. they will make whatever you want.
I'm not sure how this particular set up will feel but it will deff take more effort. Like i said hopefully i can dial it in so it has a decent feel. Pedal geometry has a lot to do with it. I'm sure there are others on this board that have manual brakes on the street. Anyone care to comment? ...and for the holy chit stops.... throw the laundry out the back ...oh wait...street car....i forgot.
Parts store, rock auto.com, eBay. They tend to be expensive because they are usually available new since there were only 5000 cobras made. http://www.google.com/search?q=1993...=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=shop:1&source=og&sa=N&tab=wf
I spend a few hours today trying to make the lower left hole long enough to fit the 94 booster I got. That firewall is some thick ****!! I ended up bending a dremel bit and breaking my dremel lol. If I return the 94 booster and get a 93 Cobra booster does this mean that I don't have to elongate the holes in the firewall?
Still gonna have to slot. I used a drill bit, put in the hole and then angled it over using the side of the bit to remove material
Never thought about that, seems my fire wall is at least 1/2 inch thick I was expecting just thin sheetmetal, I was wrong lol. Is the bottom left the only one requiring slotting?
I slotted all 4. The firewall is thin, but the pedal quadrant metal is thicker. Needs to be strong to support the force of braking. Use a nice sharp bit and it goes pretty easy. Little tip i did...thread the nuts on and cut the studs. Intook about 1/2" off if I remember. Double check how much you need though. Don't cut too much if you trim them, and make sure the it's thread on and off. Last thing you want to do is fight threading the nuts on when you finally get it in. I did not beat my strut tower in either
Me personally i see no use for a different booster. I drove around for years with the stock booster and upgraded brakes. Pedal feel may be different, but performance isn't. The feel of the pedal is like anything else, you get used to it. Now i have a hydroboost and i really don't think it feels much different either.
And some people don't like it. Like you said..it's personal. I did try a stock booster with my Cobra brakes. I hated it. The car stopped fine, but i had to really put my leg into it. Was a problem if i was crusing on the highway and traffic suddenly stopped as i usually needed more pedal than I gave. After a few "Oh ****, press harder" types of stops, i swapped the booster. I noticed a big difference. Much more assist and no more panic during an emergency stop when i wasn't ready to jump on the brakes so hard. I just didn't like it.
