Hydraulic Handbrake setup.

[Phil Morrison]

Hi , I never know if I'm posting in the right forum here, if it's wrong appologies..

Anyway, I'm quite new to the motorsport scene, and the only way I afford to continue, is by doing all work on the car myself, and learning as I go (I'm sure much the same as others here)..
I would like to fit a hydraulic handbrake, the most suitable for my needs appears to be this upright assembly: http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/resour...il/RIX278U.jpg

What I would like to know is: what else am I going to need to plumb this in? I'm obviously going to have to have the lines made up, but once plumbed into the rear brake lines, am I going to need some form of one way valve or something similar? If it makes any difference, the car has ABS..

Any help would be much appreciated

[Anuauto]

What car is it? (and is there just one brake line from orig master cylinder to rear brakes?). There are usually far cheaper alternatives to latest "upright" type - using standard lever with a girling master cylinder mounted behind. Lines may need unified thread unions for the new M'cyl and metric unions on other end to orig car fittings. What are you using car for? - hydraulic hand brakes are not necessaarily all the advantage they are claimed to be or even necessary if on limited funds.

[Tim Falce]

If it's for a road car it won't pass the MOT and I don't bother with a handbrake on my race car

[Phil Morrison]

Sorry, didn't really give enough detail there..
It's a Nissan 200sx, it has 276bhp at the rear hubs, it's my drift car and also my daily driver. Drifting is basically RWD cars driving a course trying to never gain traction, probably sounds daft to some of you that drive in normal motorsport series, but it's great fun

Anyway, The 200sx has an unbelievably **** handbrake mechanism, this hydraulic handbrake will be in addition to the normal parking handbrake. The car has dual lines to the rear from the ABS unit

[StephenRae]

.....and I thought truck racing was pointless....

[Phil Morrison]

okay, at the risk of taking this off topic slightly, watch this and tell me it doesn't look like fun..Right Click And Save As

[StephenRae]

Fair enough I spoke too soon...the tyre shops must love you lot!!!

[Phil Morrison]

lol they certainly do I usually use between 4 and 10 tyres an event..

So back to this Hydraulic Handbrake, is it just a simple case of:

single pipe out of the master cylinder on the handbrake, a Y splitter to make it 2 pipes, then a T piece in each of the original lines to the rear brakes,connect it all and bleed for about 6 hours?

[Anuauto]

I'm thrown by 2 pipes from orig m/cyl to rear. On other aspects, you need to ensure you get an adaptor for the new h/brake m/cyl to take a normal brake line union - the std inlet point is bigger, wider hole/ thread (normally for reservoir). Bleeding method for normal single line system is : pump foot pedal and hold down then pump handbrake. there should not be any high point airlock formed at the h/brake m/cyl but if there is crack bleeding at that point may be only solution.

[boyracer]

Go the drifter.
In rallying we use "Centre valve master cylinder" for hydraulic handbrake, but we have only one line from m/cyl to hyd. handbrake, then splits into the two rear circuits after this. Centre valve m/cyl takes care of all your valving issues and trust me they work a treat
They did at one stage appear in old land rover 4WD's. Talk to your local brake shop they should be able to help you out with the m/cyl, the brackets and everything to mount it can be done by yourself or whip out the credit card and talk to demon tweeks or wilwood, tyton. They all do the kit, comes with a nice lightweight aluminum bracket and handle, and NO you won't brake it. With a hyd hand brake you can spin the car with one finger on the lever. They will probably need to know what size brakes you have on the rear to get volume sizing right, not sure on that one.
Not really legal for road use, they have to actually ratchet lock for road use over here, where in a race car you want it to fly off, or drop back as soon as you let it go.

[alfasud]

Many road cars with two rear circuits have a diagonal split hydraulic system - that's to say that they have one hydraulic circuit feeding the Front-Left brake calipers and the Rear-Right and the other hydraulic circuit feeding Front-Right and Rear-Left.

Most racing and rally cars have a simple front-rear split, with a single line feeding the rear hydralic circuit. In a rally car the hydralic handbrake is only acting on that single brake line. While you could modify a diagonal split system to front-rear, I don't know if this would be legal for road use. I'm guessing not legal in many countries?

I'm told that the hydraulic handbrake on the Fiat Uno Turbo rally cars (late 1980's?) used a second set of brake calipers and pads acting on the rear disk rotors. This allows the stock setup to be left alone and creates an independant circuit for the hydraulic handbrake. Could this be an option for your Nissan 200sx drift car?

Drifting seems a bit like the motorsport equivalent of synchronized swimming - waste of a decent car if you ask me - but have fun anyway.

[Phil Morrison]

lol yep synchronized swimming or figure skating, take your pick , but it is fantastic fun, as many 'real' racing drivers that have entered our series will vouch..

200sx is has twin lines, one that splits straight after the master cylinder, left to right for the front brakes, and one that goes to the rear and splits at the back left or rear. I'm just about to order all the components to remove the ABS install the hydraulic handbrake and replace all the pipework with braided hoses.
Cheers for everyones help

[dtype38]

Hmmm, not sure about replacing all the pipework. Copper and Copper/Nickle pipes have no "give" when you apply hundreds of pounds of pressure to them when you brake. Hoses, even modern braided hoses, do expand slightly when you brake. For a firm pedal the object is to minimise the amoumt of hose in the system, preferably to just the bit from the chassis to the callipers.