Hye-Dra-Cyl Brakes www.hyedracyl.com Anyone have any experience with this company? Lots of conflicting info around on improving the brakes with the Jaguar/Ferrari brake systems. Course almost all the folks who say they can be improved either sell or install these upgrades. I would love to hear from an owner who has had a positive experience in this regard. I have seen people improve the brakes on GTBs by putting in larger calipers, but I have heard the larger calipers are already on the 330GT's (my car) so that doesn't seem like a possibility. Any other thoughts? Thank you for your time. Yale
Yale, Talk to Francois about it. If you don't mind non-original, he has some good suggestions on things he's done in the past. Art S.
Oh, oh....Yale has been afflicted with that special "While in There" syndrome ! (I was absent when they were handing out the vaccine, too) I sent my booster to the Power Brake Exchange in San Jose, CA. Great customer service and plenty of experience with ATE/Bonaldi systems. They did a nice job rebuilding my booster and even detailed it. A sticker from Parker Hall and I was in business. PM me for details Luke
No Luke, I don't have to do the "while there might as well" thing as at the moment my car is, after a few years of pretty steady drivability, unraveling like if you slowly pulled a string - you fix one thing and something else goes. It's all so nice and spaced out too with a pick up at the mechanics, a drive home and then, on the next drive.... another fun event. Sigh. Love the car though. I assume when I have finished rebuilding it piece by piece it will either be time to sell it or I will be too old to drive it. Yale
Yale, I went through the same thing. Eventually there will be light at the end of the tunnel and it will once again be reliable. However, now that mine is reliable, my wife wants me to sell it. Regards, Art S.
My first wife did not like mine either..........wanna see a pic of my new gf????? Now back to our brake discussion..........
I probably should not have titled this thread the way I did because so few folks have weighed in on brakes for these cars. Of course maybe nobody does anything about crappie brakes on Ferraris. I started looking over at the Jaguar pages to see what those folks with their -pretty much the same- Dunlop systems are up to and there seems to be a bit more activity. My friends of the Aston persuasion say they use Metal Master pads and that makes a positive difference. At the end of the day, maybe the brakes on the 330GT just must remain, as my cousin says, adequate. Has no one in FChat land even experimented with brake options? As to Art's suggestion I did ask Francois and though he has told me about upgrades he has done to the GTB brakes he says that without redoing the system... Course he just might be a purist... or the voice of reason. Yale
Yale, Since Francois redid my brakes, I am reasonably satisfied with their performance. All of my calipers had to be redone, so as long as it was being redone, I asked Francois what my options were. He said either live with it stock or install M-B brakes, don't bother with anything in between. He said they wont be original but it's an easy swap and the cars brakes will be much better. I decided to keep mine stock. Did he suggest anything else to you? Regards, Art S.
Non. Francois didn't suggest anything to me at all other then leave them alone. I said, what if I got larger calipers from Hydedrcyl and he said, then you would need larger boosters. The FU'd up thing about all this is my brake ruminations came about, as you probably know, from all the fluid leaking out of one of the brake fluid canisters creating tons of white smoke as I assumed it went through the carbs. I though time to call White Post. But now Francois says that the fluid is no longer leaking!?!!? Futhermore he says if my brake boosters needed to be rebuilt the pedal would have gone to the floor while I was driving. As it was, even with one empty fluid canister, the brakes felt normal. Damn. Yale
Yale I do not have experience with 330(?) brakes but I have had a lot of braking issues. First, if the booster goes, you'll no longer be getting vacuum assist. The pedal will be rock hard and the car really hard to slow down. You can get a sense of it when pumping the pedal with the car turned off. First time you'll get an inch of travel, 2nd, 1/2 inch and by the 4th, it'll barely move. This last "feel" is close to what you'll experience on the street if the booster is gone. More common is the m/c going south. Here you'll get an unpredictable pedal in real life driving - sometimes high, sometimes low. It'll work (usually) quite well when you "stomp" on the pedal. However, if you are applying the brakes gently the pedal will tend to go to the floor. This is the classic symptom. Brake fluid leaking out is due to either fluid boiling (bad!) or too much fluid in the reservoir and it expanding with heat. Boiled fluid should be flushed. Fill to identified line or if not marked, 2/3 to 3/4 is usually about right. Makes a fine old mess when it boils on the header. Really bad for paint too. When thinking about the brakes, and whether you should "upgrade" [I've just been through this on my 308], you need to consider carefully what it is you are trying to fix. Boiling fluid leading to fade? Better fluid. Then cooling ducts. Then the expensive stuff. Pressing hard on the pedal doesn't slow the car enough? Change the mechanical leverage. Think about a smaller m/c but be careful with total pedal travel (a smaller master means, other things being equal, a longer pedal) etc. Good luck Philip
Phillip, The problem is that 330 2+2's have a lot more GO than STOP. The thought was, as long as you're in there, lets make 'em better. Regarding your point, I agree with your description of mc failure, but this is not what Yale described. I believe the biggest issue was that Yale's car was trying to elect a new Pope with all the white smoke coming from the tailpipes. Yale, My previous mechanic had the booster rebuilt twice before it was reliable, and it took Francois to bring the brakes to a reasonable condition. You'd be surprised how much white smoke a little brake fluid can make. Good luck in sorting out this issue. Regards, Art S.
