Ok, So I've been pulling my hair out over this for some time now and have had discussions in other threads but haven't come up with a viable solution to my issue yet.
In car: stock 86 camaro booster (new)
wilwood tandem 1" bore MC ( also tried 1-1/8)
adjustable proportioning valve
all new hard lines and steel braided flex line
non 1le stock rear disc w new calipers
c5 front brake conversion ( all new stuff here too)
Pads are of addequet material and are properly seated
Everything has been bench bled,gravity bled,vacuum bled, and bled with someone pumping the pedal for me soo many times its disturbing. I can safely say there is no air in the lines or anywhere else for that matter. For some reason the car still will not stop to its full potential. Not that locking the wheels = full potential but, no matter how hard I try I can't lock the front brakes. According to the math and other testimonials a 1" bore MC should be more than enough. At this point the only thing I can come up with is that the pin from the booster to the back of the MC is not long enough to use the full stroke of the MC. The stroke of the wilwood MC is 1.10" anyone know the the stock stroke is? or if Im even on the right track?
Thanks in advance

 

anybody?

 

does the pedal travel all the way to the floor? or does it get hard about 1/2 way down?

 

It got hard a little lower than stock but thats due to bore size and not quick take up..that was expected.. A couple days ago I went out and bought a new stock master front disc/rear drum just to try it out..still having same issue. Its only ever so slightly better.. So now my next thought is, what is the original line diameter off of a vet versus the camaro. maybe my lines are too small? Or maybe a problem I have written off already is not enough vaccum.. I dont really understand how that would do this because I have driven cars w power brakes that had seriously bad or unhooked vaccum to the booster but I could lock the brakes on them. Just had to push harder....otherwise I have no idea what else it could be...

 

stock lines are 3/16" front and 1/4" rear to the Tblock. Then 3/16" lines from the Tblock to each rear caliper.

I have the same issue. My brakes never locked up in the front ever... Ive replaced everything, booster, Master cylinder, brake lines, SSBC upgrade in the front, deleted the stock proportioning valve and used a TEE for the front and a SSBC adjustable proportioning valve for the rears. My brakes never locked the fronts up but the car would stop fine. I also checked the brake PSI at each caliper, i used SSBC PSI brake pressure kit, and i was getting 1100-1300PSI at a panic stop at the front brakes... which is more than enough for them to lock up.

I would try to find the PSI that your getting at each caliper, get a reading when it was a regular stop and one when you panic stop and record the numbers. You should get more than 1000psi. If your getting less then u might have an issue. Thats where i would start.

Ive also wanted to do a hydro boost and ditch the booster thing completely and never worry about vacuum again lol

 

i had a problem with the brakes on my 86, which just happen to be c5's, but thats irreverent. I had a vacuum leak in the hose to the booster. took a long time to figure out the hose was bad. afterwards, all is better. car stops quite well, and i can lock the wheels if i stand on it. i think i need more pressure to the rears though since the wheels are massive and i dont think they are locking up or applying as much force as they should be

 

i think the problem is in the brake booster if it is shock i would look for a corvette booster or some kind of conversion i had the same problem in my monte carlo ss i did a brake conversion 12" impala spindle with big brakes and it braked better so i took it a step further and added booster and master cylinder and almost broke my neck stopping think of it like this the pedal is you rate in which you stop the higher the rate the better the stop just my 2 cents

 

I eventually switched to a hydroboost off of a 95 astro. Now the car stops so hard that I need to adjust my carb because it will stall the car out lol. Still not really sure why I couldn't get it to stop well with the vac. booster. It was a good booster w a vac. can. Like I said before, I've drivin plenty of cars w bad boosters or leaky lines and felt way better than that. Whatever, works great now. Just have to get used to the feel of hydroboost under extremely hard breaking =)

 

im thinking of doing a hydro boost setup... what did it take to get it to work? and how much did it end up costing you? got any pics?

 

Was it a direct bolt on in box me or wright it on here

 

No, It wasn't a direct bolt on. You can use 94-95 astro van hydroboost units. If you were looking at the vac booster off of the camaro there is that spacer looking piece between the firewall and the booster its self. After u pull the old setup out of the camaro grind the rivits off that hold the spacer to the booster. That spacer bolts right to the backing plate of the hydroboost. I mounted the hydroboost upside down ( put the gold looking pressure reserve thing torward the fender) for more clearance by the motor. Also because I'm using a wilwood master cylinder and sphon upper ball joints I had to adjust the angle the master was sitting at.. I just used a couple small washers between the bracket and hydro mounting plate with no ill effects. All the angles still seem correct and feel fine while driving. The push rod on the hydroboost is something like 3/4 too short (don't quote me on that) and the whole is to big to fit the petal. What I did was measure the overall length of the pushrod from the camaro booster then cut the ends off both boosters and welded the camaro pushrod end to the hydroboost w the corrected length. That takes care of mounting it up. For hoses I used AN power steering hose connectors ( have to be for power steering. They are steel and can handle the pressure. got mine through summit)
Summit part numbers are as follows
2 of these: AAF-all48210 power steering fittings $21.98 for these
2 of these: hdt-ps-065 p/s rack adapter fittings $22.00 for these
4 of these: rus-620421 Endure hose ends #6 -90 degree $63.80 for these
1 of these: rus-632620 power flex hose #6- 10 foot length $49.95 for that

You really dont need that much hose to do it but wasn't sure originally so I bought the extra to make sure I had enough.. I just used a T fitting in the return to deal with the extra return from the hydroboost. Return line doen't need to be anything special. Its not high pressure so standard 3/8 hose is what I used I think. The pressure side feeds the booster first into the small fitting on the boost ( the one on the opposite side of the return line) Then the high pressure line near the return line on the booster feeds the power steering pump. Thats it ur done. Took me an afternoon to do. pretty simple actually.
Some people say that the t fitting in the return will applie the brakes when hard turning but I havn't noticed anything yet. I do agree that you should eventually get a power steering reseviour that accomadates 2 seperate return lines ( or have one brazed into the pump you currently have) for peace of mind and a 100% proper install. For a quick cheap fix the t will be fine until you get around to it. Good luck and have fun.
~Chris
p.s. havn't figured out how to put pics on this site yet lol sorry

 

A friend of mine had the c5 brakes on his Monte, he converted to a hydroboost setup. He could not lock up the brakes either. The car stopped just fine, just no lockup. He has since converted back to vacuum assist, and it seems better. Most of the problem was the engine would bog down and p/s pump pressure would drop. We both thought the hydroboost setup should have worked better than it did. He probably had some other issue that we never found. fwiw

 

thanks for the info! do you have any pics? it seems like alot for the setup tho... 200$ in fittings and lines and then 200$ for a remanufactured hydroboost from like autozone. I could prob nock a hundred bucks off if i ran hyd hose and fittings which i would do in a heartbeat but the 200$ for the hydroboost is whats killin me.

Only reason i would do the swap is that the booster is pretty close to my BBF swap, and I only make 8-10" of vacuum at idle!

 

I got my hydroboost out of a u-pull it yard for 20 bucks. cleaned it up, shot it in some black engine paint. Works great. I would have done hydraulic hoses and such if I could find some that were close fit..Don't know how to make those though. Thats why I went with AN stuff. If you can help me figure out how to put pics in a thread I'll post some.

 

when you click "reply" and go to write your post in the text box look at the bottom where it says "post quick reply" and next to it should say "go advanced". click "go advanced" and then go down to "manage attachments" a box will appear on ur screen and ask you to upload or post the URL of a photo, click "browse" and locate the picture on your computer. Click "ok" to choose the photo and then the picture will upload and post itself on the thread post your going to post. You can upload I believe 3 pics and they cant be HUGE files, it will alert u if the photo is too large. You write the text you want to write in the text box and then you click "submit post" and your done.

Im just saying that the hydroboost seems like the only thing that will work with mine as my BAER 13" brake kit and 11.5" rotors in the rear stop the car but my Gf's 2005 ford car stops better than mine does. I believe its due to low vacuum but who knows, the whole system is basically brand new with new lines etc.

 

Excuse the mess of wiring I have laying around at the moment..

 

I think I forgot to mention that the stock camaro master wont fit. The bolt holes line up but the base is too thick to get in the hole..Some people machined done the base a little. Other people just used a 4th gen master with the hydro boost. that one bolts right up I've been told and obviously I got a wilwood tandem on there no problem.

 

Getting around to ordering my parts for lines on my hydroboost with my LS swap. So you have 4 fittings listed but I am starting with 0 lines for this so I'm wondering where the 4 fittings you listed attach and if you happen to know the part number for the other 2 fittings I would need? 2 for power steering pump, 2 for steering box, and 2 for the hydroboost itself. Thanks for the information for parts so far but if you could specify where those 4 went I could most likely find the remaining 2 fittings.

 

For whatever it's worth I bought a bolt in hydroboost setup for $400 off eBay from a seller who laser cuts and welds the adapter plates and provides a brand new non reman hydroboost which are not cheap. I got a fitting hydroboost kit off eBay or summit and ran heavy equipment hydraulic hose and steel fittings and it's been working great. Very little brake pressure needed for the car to stop and can lock up the brakes at will.

 

Can you please post a link of the hydro boost and fittings kit you used. And some pics of the install please