PDA

View Full Version : hydroboost problem


mazspeed
09-17-2006, 06:58 PM
Ok I got my car back and I was driving it today shaking it down. Off the freeway I had a good deal of speed then I went to slow down and started scrubbing off speed. Something happened and the pedal went straight to the floor and barley was able to make my stop in time. The car stalled right after this. I started it then everything was fine. What could cause this?

Blown353
09-18-2006, 12:58 PM
Sounds to me like air in the system, common for a fresh installation of a hydroboost.

How many miles on it since installation? Using the correct GM power steering fluid (ATF will foam)?

It took my hydroboost about 50 miles of driving to get all the air worked out of it, before that it was very "hit and miss" as far as pedal effort. Besides following Paul's filling instructions, another thing that really helps is to start the car and rev the engine to 1200-1500 or so, then apply and release the brakes slowly several dozen times. This helps get all the air out of the system. Then go drive the car and take it easy for a little while until you're sure all the air is out.

Hydratech®
09-18-2006, 05:08 PM
How many miles have you run this system so far? I'll agree with Troy's thinking that you may still have some air that needs to purge out of the PS system yet, though this would not be the case if you have more than 500 miles of road use already accumulated (the air should be long gone by this time unless you have a very poor PS reservoir design). Based upon your description of what happened, I'm theorizing that you may have been part of the way into an unexplained engine stall condition = pressure drop from the PS pump due to being just about stalled out / possible PS pump hickup (pressure control valve in the pump may have stuck in its bore momentarily). Your comment about the pedal going to the floor has me thinking that you may also possibly have a different problem somewhere downstream of the brake assist unit, as these assist units will always provide a true manual brake connection between the brake pedal and the master cylinder = even under a worst case scenario, you would have still had the manual brake backup function (impossible not to have the manual brake function not available at any point). Note that we design our systems to connect to the manual brake point on the brake pedal in the 1st gen GM F body systems, which offers an added measure of leverages mechanically available for use in the "worst case scenarios". When this condition happened, you went into a state of pure mechanical backup in the assist unit: input piston strikes the output piston which provides a true "manual brake push through compliance" + also using the higher brake pedal leverages available as connected to the brake pedal = under no circumstance could you be any worse off than a true manual brake scenario (atleast as far as the brake assist unit is concerned). When the PS pump stops producing pressures (like when an engine is about to stall or substantial PS pump cavitation has occurred), the brake pedal height may drop about 1-2" lower than usual in some instances (until the accumulator / reserve power function kicks in), though by no means would allow the brake pedal to go to the floor unless there was a pressure loss somewhere else in the braking system. Upon restarting the engine, everything went back to normal, so time will tell if you only had a temporary hickup of sorts or whether there may be a further issue. Click here for good reading regarding a mysterious loss of brake pedal on a 1st gen Camaro, as this may also apply to your case (or not): http://www.hydratechbraking.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=135

Let me know what further details may be possibly involved, as it seems that there is always more to the picture than what is absorbed at first glance.

What type of PS pump / reservoir are you running?
What type of PS fluid?
Have you reblead the brakes since the initial build yet?
What steering gear are you running?
Is the engine carb'ed or EFI?
Any recurrence of this scenario again at any point?

The more info you can provide, the better we can all do to help nail down what the issue may be...

mazspeed
09-18-2006, 06:22 PM
Hey guys thanks. I'm going to e-mail the builder to see what he thinks as well. Ill foward him your post and see what he says.I have 240 miles on the car as of today.

Thanks again guys.
Mike