i recenty brought a 92 EB drove it home (no plates or reg) put her in the shed and gave her a tart up and put a set of 17" rims under her, i dont remember what the brakes were like when i drove it home with the stock 14" rims, now she's a daily driver she's hard to pull up the pedal is quite hard, i only notice this after driving a mates ef on the weekend at the first stop i nearly put us both out the windscreen, would the larger diameter wheels alter the brake proformance like this ???

the should actually IMPROVE the performance

as teh bigger rims and open design will allow more air to the brake rotors
which in tunr will help stop brake fade...
i would suggest a brake fluid flush and change the front pads and check the rears

Maybe not. Are the 17's heavier or lighter than what you had on there before? If they're heavier then that would affect it a little but not enough to be like that.

But yeah its more than likely your fluid is old and needs to be changed. Most people don't realise that break fluid absorbs the moisture from the air over time and needs to be replaced less than every 12 months. While your doing that you might as well pull the calipers apart and give them a bit of a back yardy reco so they don't stick and drag the pads as that can give you a hard pedal too. Once you've done that i bet my left nut that you could outbreak your mates ef.

Usually when you go larger wheels you go tyres with smaller walls so it evens things out as the overall diamter stays the same in that sense!

If your brakes work but are just really hard to apply, then you'd better check the booster out.
Check the vac line and booster casing for cracks or leaks first.

If they're soft and spongy then it's probably air or contaminated fluid, but a stiff pedal is usually the booster..

when i broght it (dec 05) the previous owner had just had new front rotors and pads fitted, i swaped the rear rotors for some near new ones i had in the shed and replaced the pads, the fluid didnt look like it had done much work, to better explain the feeling of the pedal i would say if feels as if the rotors are covered in grease sort of seems like theres is plenty of pressure on the pads but the pads have no grip on the rotor, if that makes sence or is any help

if it has abs, it will feel different to the ef pedal. i have an ef which stops great, the ed i had b4 that had abs and the pedal was "squishier"!

Could just be pads and rotors bedding in go for a good drive with plenty of hard braking (make sure no ones in front of tho) and see if it gets better. The easiest way to check the booster is to stop the engine ( car parked) pump the brake pedal a few times it should get harder as the any vacum left in the system is used up. Then push on the brake pedal reasonable hard and start the engine the pedal should drop, if it doesn't then get the booster and vacum system checked out.

i have checked for vaccum leaks and looked over the pads, calipers, lines and booster for problems but its nothing obvious, i might go with the fliud change and give the calipers backyard reco see how she stops then, if that dont work what pads and rotor combo's work best without spending a s**t amount

no abs aboard

i bedded them in quick then folowing day i drove from bendigo to meribitt at mostly 170 kph+ (7am on a sunday:)) trust me mate she's done plenty of hard braking,

G'day

I dont care how much braking you do if you have metallised pads they wont stop to well on a standard rotar. Some of the cheap brands dont stop anywhere near good enough and make it feel like it has grease on the discs.

I know this cause i've just been through it all on the rear of mine.

Cheers

linelockers is what fried yours i am guessing? next weekend i am going to fit some bendix pads with slotted rotors, i plan to get 180rkws plus so i want the brakes to proform excelent first.

Nice advice. How are you going to pay out everyone who stuffs up a perfectly good set of brake pads because they took your advice?

You NEVER EVER bed in brakes by applying the brakes as hard as you can. The new pads have to wear to the contours in the disc, even if the discs are new or have just been machined.

Because you surface of the pad and disc don't mate well, most of the braking is only done on the area of the pad that rubs against the high points of the disc and vice versa. That means that maybe only 10% of the pad migh actually be doing its job simply because the rest of the pad isn't touching the disc.

Because of that, braking hard to bed pads in results in you burning the pad compound. Because not all of the pad's being used, you don't notice any fade because the gasses produced by the burning compound have an avenue of escape. It can take a good 5000km to wear off the burnt bits of the pad to get back down to good, usable compound.

Pads that don't stop the car well with good pressure available are simply s**t pads. Not pads that are in need of bedding in.

Bedding pads in with hard braking also drastically increases the changes of warped discs if you don't let them cool down evenly. So you stuff up a nice set of pads, and a nice set of discs. Wonderful.

Funny this is how I have bedded in every set of pads I have changed and have not stuffed up a set yet but I have had trouble with people going to softly and glazing them. Maybe we have different idea's of hard braking.