I tried searching for something like this, but haven't found any info on it. Would this be possible? Single calipers in the rear, no dual calipers. Hydro e-brake with it's own master cylinder. Ditch the rear brakes from the foot brake all together. This way the foot brake will only control front brakes. This way it won't cut power when left foot braking. But if you do want to use all brakes you are forced to use the foot brake and gently pull the e-brake. Has anyone ever done this before? Would this be stupid? I'm only hearing bad things about running a hydro in line with the foot brake. I'm doing this on a miata, and I don't wanna spend a lot on dual caliper brackets and extra calipers/lines. (only option I found https://www.zerekfab.com/product/miata-dual-rear-brake-caliper-drift )
Ive heard this idea before but im not sure if it passes an mot. (Depends if you want it road legal) Obviously check im not an MOT tester so it might be fine. I always thought about it aswell but instead, just have the front>rear hydro line as normal but put a cut-off fitting before the hydro. So if anything does go wrong with hydro master cylinder, you can totally cut out the rear section of brakes.
Thanks for your reply. It will deffo not pass the Dutch "APK" that I'll be dealing with. In The Netherlands there can only be a certain percentage difference in front vs rear brakes. The regular e-brake also has to work. I really don't want the hydro in the same loop so I'll pretty much have to go with dual calipers to keep it road legal. Or am I missing something?
People do this all the time. Obviously messes up your brake bias but most top spec drift cars have small brakes anyway. I ran the brake system like this in one of my cars and was fine but wouldn't drive it on the road like that.
The topic isn't really about the problem, more like the idea.. but doing this would save you the cost and time of doing dual calipers while not having the drawbacks of an in line hydro. The above replies pretty much conclude the topic already but thanks
And what are those drawbacks? If you're about to say you can't use the foot brake while on the hydro then you haven't used an inline setup with a good quality master cylinder. The cheap ones will lock up when you use the foot brake, the good ones don't. I pass technical inspections with an inline setup and can use the foot brake while hard on the hydro with no issues
lots of people run inlines tbh and seem to do ok. Ive had a master seize on for me once and replaced it. A friend had problems with his aswell. Luckily im dual caliper so i could carry on driving whereas he couldnt. He now has spares fittings on the line so if the master goes bad or has problems he can easily put it back to normal brakes bypassing the master. Installing the inline hydro taking your time and making it really good will help it be less prone to failing imo
Currently working on fixing my brakes because they are no good. Pressing the pedal takes quite some force to achieve a decent brake force. Also the left front brake heats up to smoking hot temps super quickly by just casual driving. For some reason the caliper doesn't return quick enough and the brake drags a lot after braking. I already checked the pads, calipers and guide pins etc. Could this have something to do with the master? My car has a brake booster before the master and a functioning ABS system.. I'm not sure if this makes an in line system more complicated in any way, but for some reason I would feel way more safe having the hydro seperate. If doing an in line system, would you just route from the master's rear wheel line right to the intake port of the hydro, and straight out the hydro back in the other half of the existing line? Seems to me that that would only need a cut and 2 short lines to the hydro. See beautiful sketch below. Stock line and master in black. Hydro and new lines in red. Is this the way to do an in line? To me it seems like you will be pulling fluid away from the master when pulling the hydro. {}
Sounds like you have a knackered piston seal. Refurbished calipers are stupidly cheap on eBay - I would replace both calipers to be safe and then see if your old ones are repairable .
May be going off topic but it's still about my brakes! It's a European MX-5 1.8 NA. Been working on the brake pistons today. Blew them out using air pressure.. was quite a bang xD. But hey, a lot of junk came out with it so thats a good thing. Ran out of brake fluid so gonna pick some up tomorrow. Will just run it and try it out. I did order new pads, hardware, guide pins and rubbers etc. May still have to get a piston seal then @BreadBin if it's still bad. Think I won't be doing a hydro for a while. But all your answers really helped clear things out!
Rubber brake hoses can go bad internally and become a check valve basically sometimes. It won't release all the pressure and cause dragging. Replace them too, there're cheap.
i have 2 break lines running to each rear break caliper. im trying to install a hydro , how would i tap into the lines?!?
