Been battling a lot of things later in the season with this car, but none more so than the brakes. The latest string of upgrades haven’t nailed down the ‘air in lines’ vs ‘something wrong’ battle, but I have to say I’m very pleased with how the Evo brakes turned out. Ran into a bit of an emergency when Racing Brake’s rebuilt calipers did not work out for me – one bleeder stripped (way to easily) and the other side wouldn’t even bleed fluid.

Fortunately for me, Racing Brake took responsibility and took them back with full refund, but that still left me out a set of calipers, as I had already sold mine to another forum member. That’s when Detective Coating stepped up – they had a set to build on hand, but I still wanted the high temp seals & stainless steel pistons that Racing Brake offered. Racing Brake decided to overnight a rebuild kit for me to Detective Coating, and they were able to send me the rebuilt calipers so I could get them installed over the weekend.

That puts the things I’ve done to fix the soft brakes to date at*:

• New pads and rotors (Girodisc S/S & DBA 5000 & 4000)
• Gallons of fluid flushed & bled
• Brake Master Cylinder replaced (bench bled)
• Grimmspeed brake master cylinder brace installed – didn’t fix the soft brake but did firm things up
• Now new front calipers, built with Racing Brake’s stainless steel pistons & high temp seals

Next thing I’m going to try is replacing the brake lines, which could have failed causing the soft brakes. Should be a quick & easy process, and less expensive than some of the other things I’ve tried.

* This was FINALLY solved late in the season – turned out to be the titanium shims, oddly enough. Poorly designed and bending against the back of the pad where there was a slight hump. Later replaced those titanium shims with ones that had cutouts for the hump, and has completely solved the issue. The original pads were ruined from overheating on the track in the process, and have since been swapped with the same ones. Original pads would smoke and cause a smell, new ones no longer do so.

Also got an alignment today, as I had the suspension on and off a number of times, and got the car back in racing shape for this Sunday, where it will be put through its paces.

Should also mention since the last update that the car has a rebuilt throttle body to address boost leaks & improve throttle response, from which the car picked up about 10-15whp.