Smaller fittings on Boxter brake soft lines

[wkrtsm]

I am currently installing the braided stainless steel soft lines shipped with Elephant Racing's boxter brake upgrade kit on my early (68) car, and noticed the OD of the fitting that gets clipped into the chassis tabs is smaller than the OD on OEM soft lines. In addition, there's no groove in the fitting for the pressure clips.

(FYI- I am also replacing my hard lines as well as installing a 22.5mm master cylinder)

While I do have an email into Elephant on the fitment issue, I am wondering if Boxters or later cars had a smaller fitting on the soft line? What about not having a groove for the chassis mount clips?

[nickelplated5s]

I did this on a 67 last year. Search on Early 911S for Alfa Brembo with my user name. Better question is why put soft lines on if you're spending the money on Boxster?

[wkrtsm]

Originally Posted by nickelplated5s

I did this on a 67 last year. Search on Early 911S for Alfa Brembo with my user name. Better question is why put soft lines on if you're spending the money on Boxster?

Do you not have soft lines for your brakes? If not, what was the workaround?

[nickelplated5s]

I went with ER braided lines. There are shops here who could have fab'd them but I went 'one stop shopping.' You will have a problem with the dual circuit 22.5 MC. Chuck at ER helped my shop. Presumably you have the 3.5" spacing on the struts for the calipers? If you don't my advice is to spend the extra 1K for the GT3 front. As BillV said you will have front brake bias. On the other hand I love them. Did add about 200lbs to the car though.

[wkrtsm]

Originally Posted by nickelplated5s

I went with ER braided lines. There are shops here who could have fab'd them but I went 'one stop shopping.' You will have a problem with the dual circuit 22.5 MC. Chuck at ER helped my shop. Presumably you have the 3.5" spacing on the struts for the calipers? If you don't my advice is to spend the extra 1K for the GT3 front. As BillV said you will have front brake bias. On the other hand I love them. Did add about 200lbs to the car though.

I am installing the GT3 suspension, and rear/front von shock coil overs with the 3.5" bolt pattern for calipers on the new Bilstein struts in the front.

[wkrtsm]

Just talked with Chuck, and he said that the front fittings on soft lines are a different OD than the rear, so I'll have to engineer an accommodation. In the rear passenger side, I am routing the soft line into a female tee from Fedhill, which is no different from OEM. Since the soft line fittings are all female, on the passenger side where I am going into the female tee, I needed an SAE 10mm male-male union. (fyi-all 10mm European/Asian DIN fittings exploit the 45-degree angle of SAE fittings where contact is made).

A technician at Fedhill stated that when you do fasten the soft line fitting into a tee, cut off the very tip of the male union going into the tee, use a copper/alum compressible washer plus red loctite, and tighten down the hex head to the tee. He said he would never depend on the typical seating of a male union into a bolted down female tee if the male union is not clipped by a chassis tab, and instead would use a compressible washer and tighten down the union's hex head on the tee. Soft lines move, so if you depend on the typical seating of the male union's fitting inside the tee, over time the contact point can wear, resulting in a slow leak. Whereas, if the hex head of a male union is tightened down on the tee, there's a lower chance of wear at the contact point.

[nickelplated5s]

I would skip the red loctite and use blue, easier to break free whenever. Other than the MC mine was pretty much plug and play. Then it's just sourcing parts and plumbing for you. I always shake my head when I see teflon tape on compression fittings. Never heard about loctite in them either but to each their own. BTW I have 16" rims. I think Chuck said 15" rims will work with your calipers.

How about a suspension thread? To the best of my knowledge shock choice on a SWB is limited. Someone is running Bil coilovers which I didn't know about, GT3 front too. I have Bil rears currently but that's a spring project.

[wkrtsm]

I'm using a 934 transaxle and therefore fabricated and welded in my own trailing arm mounts. I also purchased LWB '69--71 trailing arms, so it's now an LWB car. Chuck makes a rear coil over with a welded on adapter for LWB coil overs to fit in SWB shock towers. I also installed LWB 935 spring plates.

[wkrtsm]

Originally Posted by wkrtsm

I'm using a 934 transaxle and therefore fabricated and welded in my own trailing arm mounts. I also purchased LWB '69--> training arms, so it's now and LWB car. Chuck makes a rear coil over with a welded on adapter for LWB coil overs to fit in SWB shock towers. I also installed LWB 935 spring plates.

I'm also welding in 930 fender flares (i.e. for LWB, since all 930s were LWB) and installing "1973 RSR 2.8" composite bumpers.