How much difference do SS brake lines make?

Well, I will fall back on "it depends". It will not reduce pedal effort. If your oem brake lines are original to the car, or more than say 10 years old, you will find that you get a firmer feeling pedal....seems easier to modulate to me. Less spongy feel.

I put them on a two year old BMW and it made absolutely no difference. Put them on my (then) 17 year old 328GTS, and it made a huge difference in pedal feel, getting rid of those old rubber lines.

You just missed out on the sale over at Demon Tweeks in the UK. I picked up four sets of lines for my 355 and a few friends...with shipping, worked out to $111 per set!! When I ordered the ones for my 328GTS from
Demon Tweeks, it was under $100, but that was three years ago or so.

 

I've put them on my 328 about 2-3 months ago. They do improve the pedal feel a bit but not by any huge amount that you'll get terribly excited about I think. I suppose the pedal is just a bit more consistent.

I replaced all the brake fluid at the same time & on top of that I did a basic service of the calipers & generally cleaned things up a lot & regreased the slider pins (different caliper to a 308 I think). So its hard to know how much was down to the lines & how much to the new fluid & the general brake service. I only took the pistons out the front calipers because the dust boots had come out of place & it was the only way I could find to re-install them properly.

The whole lot was worth doing though - my brakes just feel a lot better & more consistent and after 4 years & 3 or 4 attempts at trying to get other people to stop them squealing they are now silent

I changed my lines just because they were 16 years old & for general peace of mind. The ones that came off definitly have rigor-mortis!. So if you are of a mind to change the lines anyway I'd put the Goodrich hoses on simply because they are undoubtedly a bit better than standard & there is very little in the way of a price difference between them & OEM.

Oh, and they look nice too

HTH

I.

 

Yes, get the Goodridge ones, that is what Demon Tweeks sells. On my BMW I purchased the StopTech brand, an equally good product.

 

here's my post about my brake oddessy.

for my car it was about 110 bucks delivered.


"wanted to give the group an update on my brake situation. I think I got this issue solved. here's what I did.

1. had the brakes bled and put in new DOT fluid. frankly that didn't do much. still couldn't make a quick hard stop.

2. moved up from my 14" wheels to 16" BBS (already had the rims, all I had to do was buy the tires. That made a big difference in the handling, per the common wisdom on the site.

3. put on goodrich steel braided lines. The old rubber lines looked ok, but I will say, the goodrich lines made a pretty big difference. still not where I thought brakes on a ferrari type car should be but much better.

4. today I installed porterfield pads on the front brakes. (got them at the fchat discount price from ricambi; thanks dan). my old pads were almost brand new; but had some uneven wearing at the edges; I think they were stock porsche brakes); haven't put on the rear pads yet beause 1. I wanted to make sure I didn't destroy the car before trying the more complicated rear pads, and 2. I don't have a feeler gage yet which apparently is necessary for the rears.
anyway, took the car out around the block a couple of time for some light to moderate braking, and the difference is pretty dramatic. Between the steel braided lines and the porterfields up front, the car brake pretty much the way I would expect a high performance car to brake. Since zi think most of the car's braking is in the front, I imagine that there shouldn't be that noticeable of a difference when I put the porterfields on the rear. But like I said, right now it's where it needs to be. thanks for all the helpful suggestions.

next week I go back to the a/c issues and the week after I should have my new fuse boxes birdman, so maybe my lights will even work. regards to all"