[learn me] steel braded brake lines for track car

question: i need to replace my brake hose after a failure, should I upgrade to stainless steel or buy OE like rubber?  If I stay for rubber should I replace all 4 or just the one that failed?  

story:  this past weekend I had a brake hose fail catastrophically in the heaviest braking section of the course (turn 1 at blackhawk farms) sending me straight off, luckily it's flat, the ground was dry and I was able to scrub enough speed with the pressure I did have on the other 3 wheels to safely get back to the pits.  

anecdote: DunceCar strikes again :(

FWIW, I run braided lines at all four corners on my street cars, too. 

I'd do all 4 to stainless. If one failed, they all are probably old. The car okay? There is some room there, but not a ton.

theruleslawyer said:

I'd do all 4 to stainless. If one failed, they all are probably old. The car okay? There is some room there, but not a ton.

yes for 2 reasons
1. i'm not experienced enough to try and pump the brakes, so when it happened I panicked and pushed harder, this caused the car to pull to the right (drivers front failed) but shows that for that first stop i had the ability to get some pressure on the front right and rears.  

2. i made the decision that I was slow enough that I could steer on the brakes after hitting the grass and followed the track to the right but didn't actually stop until I was past the rumble strip on the exit of turn one.  

Having done SS lines, I'll say don't do it, replace the broken line and any others of a similar age with new rubber ones. Why?

1. SS lines are less flexible and need to be longer, making packaging more difficult. They're likely to rub.
2. The failure mode of SS lines is harder to catch ahead of time. Rubber lines tend to fail from the outside-in, SS lines tend to fail from the inside-out.
3. The difference in compressibility between SS lines and new rubber lines is miniscule to the point that it may be undetectable in blind testing.

I use steel braided lines and OEM rubber.

I use the braided lines on the front but on the rear I'm using the OEM part.  The car is a solid axle rear and so there is only one hose in the back. No one makes a braided line for the rear and these days it seems no one wants to make a custom one. 

On motorcycles the braided hoses made a noticeable difference to the feel but on the car I can't say it has. 

For the first few years, you won't be able to tell the difference between SS and regular by pedal feel.  After a few years when the stock rubber one starts getting soft the SS one will still feel firm because it's constrained by the SS Jacket.    I've had a two SS lines fail at the ferrule where the end is crimped on in my life (a decade or so apart and completely different car platforms), so I'm kinda against them just because I feel like it must be easier for a minimum wage employee to crimp rubber hoses properly.    And yes, I realize that anecdata is the plural of anecdote, haha :)

I'm in the camp that brake lines are a 5 year wear item for track cars.  SS lines are 3.

SS lines do offer more protection from object damage, but I've never lost a line to that so I can't imagine it's a huge selling point?  

What was the failure of this line?

Run SS lines on the miata, love the way they feel compared to the stock old rubber lines. Only problem I had was on hard left turns, the SS braid would rub. That was my fault though, I didn't clock them in the correct way beforehand.

I would run SS lines on any car I have that is offered SS lines. My OEM rubber lasted 15 years.

I replaced my unknown age (but probably 10 years +/-) ss lines recently just because you have no idea the internal condition. Totally agree brake lines should just be a wear item.

WonkoTheSane said:

For the first few years, you won't be able to tell the difference between SS and regular by pedal feel.  After a few years when the stock rubber one starts getting soft the SS one will still feel firm because it's constrained by the SS Jacket.    I've had a two SS lines fail at the ferrule where the end is crimped on in my life (a decade or so apart and completely different car platforms), so I'm kinda against them just because I feel like it must be easier for a minimum wage employee to crimp rubber hoses properly.    And yes, I realize that anecdata is the plural of anecdote, haha :)

I'm in the camp that brake lines are a 5 year wear item for track cars.  SS lines are 3.

SS lines do offer more protection from object damage, but I've never lost a line to that so I can't imagine it's a huge selling point?  

What was the failure of this line?

The crimp on the caliper side of the line.  It looks like the brass/metal is deformed, i'll post pictures of the old line when i remove it.  

i'm going to guess the following
1. old lines, I never thought of brake lines as service items.  Car is an 08 lines are probably original.  

2. track car that goes through 2+ pad changes a season and while I attempt to be careful with the caliper, nobody is perfect

3. rigors of track use (high heat, lots of pressure)

so TL;DR - old part, bad mechanic, extreme use 

theruleslawyer said:

 Totally agree brake lines should just be a wear item.

Generally all hoses are, some have a longer service life than others.

ClearWaterMS said:

WonkoTheSane said:

For the first few years, you won't be able to tell the difference between SS and regular by pedal feel.  After a few years when the stock rubber one starts getting soft the SS one will still feel firm because it's constrained by the SS Jacket.    I've had a two SS lines fail at the ferrule where the end is crimped on in my life (a decade or so apart and completely different car platforms), so I'm kinda against them just because I feel like it must be easier for a minimum wage employee to crimp rubber hoses properly.    And yes, I realize that anecdata is the plural of anecdote, haha :)

I'm in the camp that brake lines are a 5 year wear item for track cars.  SS lines are 3.

SS lines do offer more protection from object damage, but I've never lost a line to that so I can't imagine it's a huge selling point?  

What was the failure of this line?

The crimp on the caliper side of the line.  It looks like the brass/metal is deformed, i'll post pictures of the old line when i remove it.  

i'm going to guess the following
1. old lines, I never thought of brake lines as service items.  Car is an 08 lines are probably original.  

2. track car that goes through 2+ pad changes a season and while I attempt to be careful with the caliper, nobody is perfect

3. rigors of track use (high heat, lots of pressure)

 

so TL;DR - old part, bad mechanic, extreme use 

Sounds like where my last SS line failed.  I got lucky, though.  I had just gotten the car to drive home from the event, started it up, hit the brake heard a little "pop" and pedal went to the floor.   Those SS lines were 4 years old.  No drama, just a slower drive home using e-brake only...

The other 3 lines looked perfect, and this one looked like a manufacturing defect, but it's subtle so I can't really know if it was, perhaps FOD, or if I had somehow stressed it during the previous years?