Project Integra Dc2: Brake Upgrades and Maintenance for the Street

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The existing brake fluid not only seemed old, but also of the “Super Blue” nature, which is actually now illegal for sale in the US ever since the Department of Transportation mandated all brake fluids to be of an amber color. The Super Blue is old and oxidized and now looks more like old antifreeze.  Maybe it can be called “Gross Green”.

 

Motul RBF 600 DOT 4 brake fluid goes in for not only it's high-temperature ceiling, but also for its DOT 4 moisture durability. 

 

Motul RBF 600 fluid has a high dry boiling point of 594 degrees and an amazingly good wet boiling point of 401 degrees. What we like the most about RBF 600 is that in our racing experience, in the few times we have experienced fluid fade with it, that the fluid will actually recover the pedal in a few turns.

We have only experienced fluid fade with Motul in extreme cases where we had to run a very underbraked car with race brake pads due to dumb rules.  The quick pedal recovery is due to Motul running surfactants in the fluid that cause bubbles in the fluid to collapse quickly. 

 

Howard used a vacuum pump brake bleeder to efficiently change the fluid. A pressure bleeder is great when you are doing a total brake system fluid flush.

 

With every top off, the brake master cylinder looked better and better.

 

When using a pressure bleeder it is best to finish the bleeding out with the traditional manual bleeding of the system.  Shooting fluid through the system under pressure can cause some localized cavitation and small bubbles and manual bleeding will get these out. 

 

While we were at it, the clutch master cylinder got a fresh bleed with the same Motul RBF 600.

 

After the installation, a brake pad bed-in procedure was followed to a “T”,  this consisted of 10 stops from 60 to 10 mph at 80-90 percent of the maximum braking effort repeated twice after a brief cool down drive in-between the stops. This was done to burnish the pads to the rotors and to drive the volatile portions of the pad material binding resins out of the friction surface of the pads that can cause green fade.

After we were done, Project Integra DC2's brake performance and feel was significantly improved and confidence inspiring. Even though the braking prowess has us eager to get the car on track for some fun, there are still other upgrades that need to be done beforehand. Next will be a cooling system upgrade, stay tuned!

 

Sources

StopTech

Centric Parts

 

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