Anyone in the DC area with the Garagistic manual brake setup?

[nrubenstein]

And if so, would you be willing to let me come try it? I'm trying to work out whether I would be content with manual brakes or if I need to suck it up and do Garrett's hydroboost kit. (IMHO, the E34 remote setups end up getting pretty frightening.)

And by try, that could be as little as a couple stops in your driveway. I really just want to get some sense of the feel.

[Vtec?lol]

No where near you but I have the manual setup.

Nowhere near as hard as I'd assumed. I actually prefer it over boosted in such a small car. Great pedal feedback and tunability

[nrubenstein]

No where near you but I have the manual setup.

Nowhere near as hard as I'd assumed. I actually prefer it over boosted in such a small car. Great pedal feedback and tunability

What brake calipers and pads are you running? Any issues getting into ABS?

I'm happy to push the pedal, I just need to feel comfortable that I can readily get full braking.

[Madhatter]

Driving around town, I was actually surprised how little pedal effort you require to stop the car. It's probably even a little better than stock, can just flex your ankle to put enough pressure on the pedal and it'll slow down to a stop nicely. It's only at much higher speeds or if you want to nail the brakes that you really have to put more effort into it.

You just start learning to brake with your entire leg, not really a case of being strong enough or whatever, more a case of having to change the way you brake. I can get the brakes to lock up with a comfortable amount of force, only tried them out up to about 140, so not sure how it will feel on a track, but on the street I'm confident enough now ive driven it around a lot.

The biggest difference I noticed, like vtec said, it's progressive. There is no big sudden sharp brake period like you get with booster brakes. So to start with you are wondering if you are really slowing down at all, because you expect to get a big jolt to the car when you push the pedal further. Doesn't happen with manual brakes unless you stand on the pedal hard to start with. Believe me though, you are slowing down very quickly, so quick ive caught a few people out following behind, so now I look in my rear vision mirror before coming to a stop so I can make sure someone isn't going to run right up my rear :D

Massive brakes kit on the front of mine, forged superlite calipers, 1.38 pistons, 5/8 master cylinder (part of the tilton pedal setup ive got in the car). Still haven't put super aggressive pads in it yet, only running BP20's, so will see what it's like on the track with something with much more bite.

[Vtec?lol]

What brake calipers and pads are you running? Any issues getting into ABS?

I'm happy to push the pedal, I just need to feel comfortable that I can readily get full braking.

All stock e30 stuff. The ABS worked fine. I disabled mine to move the brain and wiring around for the time being.

I have z3m brakes for all around but haven't gotten around to putting it all in yet. Still may do e38 calipers up front. Can't wait to see how that feels.

[nrubenstein]

All stock e30 stuff. The ABS worked fine. I disabled mine to move the brain and wiring around for the time being.

I have z3m brakes for all around but haven't gotten around to putting it all in yet. Still may do e38 calipers up front. Can't wait to see how that feels.

Ah, so you have upgraded the calipers?

[dirty30]

I'm in Winchester, about an hour west of Sterling.