Except for the price, could this, part #10-59, be the ultimate Master Cylinder, power booster, metering/proportioning valve, hydralic stop light switch? Chcck this out. www.abspowerbrake.com/ElectricHPpage.html. Has anybody used this system in a classic Mustang? Does it work as good as it sounds like it should?
Ultimate Master / Booster?
- Thread starter Blue Oval Man
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jikelly
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Hum that could solve a few problems I'm experiencing. Hey someone get one and test it out for us. How much does it cost? Oh wow 1200 bucks. Whew.
Cannoball888
New Member
reenmachine
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Well, I bought it, installed it on the red 'vert (see sticky thread above), and it's sitting in a pile on my floor right now.
I'll give them some benefit of the doubt first. I've seen the setup on vehicles at shows and heard great things about it. I've also seen it set up on the bench at their display booth at the 2005 Hot Rod & Restoration trade show with pressure gauges and everything and that's what convinced me to try it.
The background is simple. With the 4.6 DOHC in the '67 I didn't have the room for a vacuum booster, and had problems even fitting the hydroboost because of where I placed the engine. I saw this system and thought it would be the ultimate solution -- a master cylinder about like a manual one, with very strong power brakes, and something like 25 stops after power failure.
The booster/accumulator unit is fairly large. The only place I could find for it was up in the driver's side fenderwell. It's heavy too, so I didn't want to just mount it through the thin apron sheet metal. I made a thick steel backing plate for the other side, which was nicely hidden behind my remote oil filter. Here's what the unit looks like:
I had first tried to use the remote reservoir master cylinder because of the aforementioned clearance problem with the cam cover. I couldn't find anywhere good to mount the large cylindrical reservoir though that would be above the master, and due to that and another configuration issue I sent it back. They also came up with the idea of using their billet reservoir but offsetting it away from the engine, so that's what I tried next:
There are many ports on the master, some of which are unused, so you can specify how you want the fittings done and they plug the others with pipe plugs. I needed my fittings to come out of the side away from the engine, so that worked out well.
Once I mounted the master, the first issue that came up was pedal height. It comes with an adjustable pushrod, but adjusted all the way down the pedal was still waaaay to high, like 4 inches. I tried both a power and manual pedal. They say it's designed to use the manual pedal, but it was still mega-high. Soooo, the master came back out and I cut the threaded part of the pushrod down. That made the pushrod length right, but they had supplied a "teardrop" type part that connects to the pedal, and I needed a straight one (like an original manual master cylinder) to get everything to line up straight. Luckily, I had one in my junk collection and was able to proceed with a nice pedal height.
Since they had configured the ports custom for me, they directly labeled the master cylinder indicating which port was for the front brakes, which was for the rear, and which was for the pressure line coming from the booster unit. This configuration was different from the instruction sheet that came with the kit as well as from the instruction sheet on their website. I figured it was due to my special configuration, and after all the master cylinder was labeled right on it. I made up all of the lines and plumbed it as you can see in the pic.
I filled the reservoir with fluid, pumped the pedal a few times, and the thing leaked everywhere. The two unused ports on the master cylinder that were plugged from the factory leaked very badly. Out comes the master...
After tons of screwing around with the plugs I got them to seal. Thinking I was finally out of the woods I started to bleed the brakes. The rears went fine, but I couldn't get a drop of fluid out of the fronts. I pulled the "front" fitting from the master cylinder and had someone push the pedal. Not only did no fluid squirt out, but that port had suction on the downstroke of the pedal! It must have been one of the ports that could have been used for the power line from the booster.
Instead of giving up at that point, I figured I'd try one of the "plugged" ports to see if it was one of the options for the front brake circuit. I plugged the bogus front port and used the only one of the "plugged" ones I could access. It provided fluid pressure, but drew out of the same half of the reservoir as the rear circuit...must be one of the other plumbing options for the rear.
At this point I was quite frustrated, and was facing pulling the master cylinder again and sending it back to them again for reconfiguration, and eating another couple of weeks delay on the car. Thus why the system is in a pile on the shop floor.
I spent a little time finding the right size and configuration master cylinder for manual brakes and bolted it in. With the 4-piston Wilwoods at all four corners it stops great!
YMMV, but that was my experience, for what it's worth.
I'll give them some benefit of the doubt first. I've seen the setup on vehicles at shows and heard great things about it. I've also seen it set up on the bench at their display booth at the 2005 Hot Rod & Restoration trade show with pressure gauges and everything and that's what convinced me to try it.
The background is simple. With the 4.6 DOHC in the '67 I didn't have the room for a vacuum booster, and had problems even fitting the hydroboost because of where I placed the engine. I saw this system and thought it would be the ultimate solution -- a master cylinder about like a manual one, with very strong power brakes, and something like 25 stops after power failure.
The booster/accumulator unit is fairly large. The only place I could find for it was up in the driver's side fenderwell. It's heavy too, so I didn't want to just mount it through the thin apron sheet metal. I made a thick steel backing plate for the other side, which was nicely hidden behind my remote oil filter. Here's what the unit looks like:
I had first tried to use the remote reservoir master cylinder because of the aforementioned clearance problem with the cam cover. I couldn't find anywhere good to mount the large cylindrical reservoir though that would be above the master, and due to that and another configuration issue I sent it back. They also came up with the idea of using their billet reservoir but offsetting it away from the engine, so that's what I tried next:
There are many ports on the master, some of which are unused, so you can specify how you want the fittings done and they plug the others with pipe plugs. I needed my fittings to come out of the side away from the engine, so that worked out well.
Once I mounted the master, the first issue that came up was pedal height. It comes with an adjustable pushrod, but adjusted all the way down the pedal was still waaaay to high, like 4 inches. I tried both a power and manual pedal. They say it's designed to use the manual pedal, but it was still mega-high. Soooo, the master came back out and I cut the threaded part of the pushrod down. That made the pushrod length right, but they had supplied a "teardrop" type part that connects to the pedal, and I needed a straight one (like an original manual master cylinder) to get everything to line up straight. Luckily, I had one in my junk collection and was able to proceed with a nice pedal height.
Since they had configured the ports custom for me, they directly labeled the master cylinder indicating which port was for the front brakes, which was for the rear, and which was for the pressure line coming from the booster unit. This configuration was different from the instruction sheet that came with the kit as well as from the instruction sheet on their website. I figured it was due to my special configuration, and after all the master cylinder was labeled right on it. I made up all of the lines and plumbed it as you can see in the pic.
I filled the reservoir with fluid, pumped the pedal a few times, and the thing leaked everywhere. The two unused ports on the master cylinder that were plugged from the factory leaked very badly. Out comes the master...
After tons of screwing around with the plugs I got them to seal. Thinking I was finally out of the woods I started to bleed the brakes. The rears went fine, but I couldn't get a drop of fluid out of the fronts. I pulled the "front" fitting from the master cylinder and had someone push the pedal. Not only did no fluid squirt out, but that port had suction on the downstroke of the pedal! It must have been one of the ports that could have been used for the power line from the booster.
Instead of giving up at that point, I figured I'd try one of the "plugged" ports to see if it was one of the options for the front brake circuit. I plugged the bogus front port and used the only one of the "plugged" ones I could access. It provided fluid pressure, but drew out of the same half of the reservoir as the rear circuit...must be one of the other plumbing options for the rear.
At this point I was quite frustrated, and was facing pulling the master cylinder again and sending it back to them again for reconfiguration, and eating another couple of weeks delay on the car. Thus why the system is in a pile on the shop floor.
I spent a little time finding the right size and configuration master cylinder for manual brakes and bolted it in. With the 4-piston Wilwoods at all four corners it stops great!
YMMV, but that was my experience, for what it's worth.
jcode68
Active Member
Pricey for sure at $1200 bucks, but really does address all the issues. Maybe some competition will soon spark and the prices will drop to a more reasonable level. I paid ~$400 for a power booster, cylinder and brake pedal (OEM style), but would have paid somewhere in the $600 range for a setup like this, even in plain cast aluminum. Twice that? Not a chance.
I've been over to ABS and have seen this arrangement. Several of the guys at ABS have the system on their own personal cars. Possibly some of reenmachine's problems comes from his unique customization of the system. Regarding the price, keep in mind that the mastercylinder is a custom made item, and the pump and resevoir are GM components. not an "off the shelf" master cylinder and booster. However, I do believe that they should have got the ports labeled correctly for reenmachine. They did set up our 4-wheel disc brake system on our '65
Rusty67
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
I'm sorry but no matter how you slice it, IMHO, that sucker is NOT worth 1200 bux. Its snazzy looking and a kewl idea. Using an electric vaccume pump and not having an external booster on the back of the MC is a great trick. There are a lot of people who can afford 1200 dollars for an MC but that price is plain rediculous. The price per unit cost for producing the entire kit they sell you can't be that high. As has been said, I'm sure someone else will come out with a resonably priced competative product.
reenmachine
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Just for the record, it's not an electric vacuum pump. It's an electric hydraulic pump that directly pressurizes the brake fluid -- there is no vacuum involved.Rusty67 said:
I did acknowledge that this may be the case -- my problems probably stemmed from the custom work and the fact that there's really no great place to mount this thing on a vintage Mustang. However, if you're going to claim to be able to do custom work for unique applications, I would hope you'd be able to come through.truck90278 said:
I know you acknowledged that to be the case. I 200% agree with you that when someone is going to claim to do custom work then it should be done correctly, but as you well know it is really tough to find people to do the work right the first time. How many times do we hear "it'll bolt right in" and then we spend numerous hours making the part fit!!reenmachine said:
reenmachine
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Not really. The steel pressure line wouldn't be so much of a problem, but you also need to run a ~3/8" hose from the fluid reservoir to the booster unit to supply it with fluid. You can see this line in both of the pics above -- it has a dark braided sheath. The booster needs to be lower than the reservoir as well. I guess maybe you could run 2 reservoirs -- one for the master cylinder and another in the trunk for the booster...hmmmm...Blue Oval Man said:
reenmachine
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Now that I think about it, the two reservoir idea might not work. I think maybe the fluid needs to circulate from the reservoir to the booster to the master and back into the reservoir again. You'd have to ask them.
It's based on the "Powermaster" master cylinder, I think. That was used on 85-87' Buick Grand National and other GM cars.Blue Oval Man said:
Remanufactured Powermaster 500$ here: http://seturbo.com/cat-buick/catalo...17&PHPSESSID=cff6d42a4c7493417fe842172c16bcdf
Powermaster tech: http://users.california.com/~eagle/powermaster.html
Rusty67
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Another thing to consider about this MC is the bore size. Does that company make these MCs with different bore sizes or do they have the one size fits all approach ?
reenmachine
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
I don't remember the bore size specifically, but I remember thinking that it was huge. 1-5/16" or something. I think that the booster puts out so much pressure that it doesn't really matter.
Rusty67
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
The nice thing about the ABS booster/master/ prop valve is that the front to rear bias is totally adjustable, so with the added pressure of the electric over hydralic system, bore size shouldn't matter as much. So far, except for the price, the main concern seems to be the weight of the system and where to mount the electric booster assembly.
Rusty67
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Ford used aluminum body MCs later. I'm using the SVO master in my car which is aluminum. Compaired to one of those old cast iron MCs it doesn't even wiegh anything. The bore and fluid resivior on that MC are both huge. The only disadvantage is the passenger side exits and the physically larger size of the MC. If you have the space its definately the ticket, but Reen obviously doesn't have a place for it with that monster sized engine of his.
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