Faster Acceleration after fixing brake booster... I'm crazy, right?
 

I've had my '87 Carrera for 7 years now. It's the only Porsche I've owned, and I've always thought that brakes required a lot of foot pressure to lock up the wheels. But, over the course of 7 years it became old hat to me.

A few weeks ago I had my p-car in the shop for its annual inspection & some small maintenance. The long-time Porsche mechanic road-tested my car and told me that the brakes weren't right. He had me drive around the parking lot with him and instructed me to lock up the brakes. I did so, and it felt like business as usual to me. And he insisted that something was wrong.

I brought it back to him to fix a cracked sway bar mounts and had him take a look at the booster. He ended up installing the good replacement I found on these forums. After road testing it last night, I had 2 reactions:

1. The brakes are night & day different. I have Boxster S brakes on, and these things will rip your face off now!!

2. The car feels noticeably quicker.

Yes, I very well could be crazy. The mechanic explained that the old booster had a vacuum leak... It makes sense to me that a vacuum leak would impact horsepower as it's robbing air from the engine.

Has anyone else experienced this? Would you think a vacuum leak at the booster could be significant enough to notice a change in acceleration?

A vacuum leak doesn't rob your engine of air, it adds more air to it. If it is unmetered, it leans out your fuel mixture, which can reduce power. How much? It's hard to say. Must have been enough to notice it, though.

JR

DOTE! Makes sense :)

Still weird about acceleration...