In reply to Keith Tanner :
I've had problems with the power steering momentarily losing boost during fast slaloms in my 04 Ralliart, and less so in my 08 Civic. The latter is not an SI, so still has the hydraulic steering.
I think I have eliminated the problem with the Civic by changing to OEM Honda fluid. I ordered a quart of the Redline as soon as you posted, since I'm going to do a single event with the Ralliart this year, and I want to see how it works.
Do you use the Redline in your cars and the shop cars?
In reply to CAinCA :
castrol SRF has a really high wet boiling point, I probably woulnd't worry about it, at least for the recent one
In reply to Keith Tanner :
car has bigger brakes than needed factory, G-Loc R12 front pads and Porterfield R4 rear pads make whatever (little) velocity I had disappear so fast there's not enough time to heat soak.
Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I've had problems with the power steering momentarily loosening boost during fast slaloms in my 04 Ralliart, and less so in my 08 Civic. The latter is not an SI, so still has the hydraulic steering.
I think I have eliminated the problem with the Civic by changing to OEM Honda fluid. I ordered a quart of the Redline as soon as you posted, since I'm going to do a single event with the Ralliart this year, and I want to see how it works.
Do you use the Redline in your cars and the shop cars?
Disclaimer: FM is a Redline dealer although we no longer carry the PS fluid because it never sold well - see previous conversations about neglected fluid :( So I've used it in a few cars. Not all.
I would be interested in how it works for you.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I'll follow up, probably in a new thread. It's going to be a few months. I don't autocross that car anymore, but we're going to bring it to an event for someone else who can no longer drive a manual transmission.
At this point I just use ATF+4 for power steering fluid in anything that specs ATF (and in the Jeep even though they say to use cheap power steering fluid and that ATF will ruin things). It makes a good power steering fluid, doesn't seem to have foaming issues, etc. And I already keep it on hand.
As far as heat issues, even a small cooler added to the low pressure return line makes a big difference in temperatures. The system doesn't get hot because you're putting some insane amount of heat into it, it's because in stock form, most cars don't have a lot of ability to get heat out of the power steering system. So even a small cooler is a big increase in cooling capacity. Adding one to the Jeep kept the fluid in good shape much longer (especially when I was still using the cheap spec fluid).
CAinCA said:
I have a couple open bottles of SRF. One was a couple years old and the other is pretty recent. I live in a fairly dry climate. I tested them with my moisture meter and they were both under 1%. Would you guys feel comfortable using it?
I recently used a 15 year old tin of ATE SuperBlue that had 1/4 left. Checked with hygrometer and it was still at zero%. I was expecting worse. This was for street use so that was fine. I live in humid southern Ontario.
I really miss the SuperBlue, it made bleeding so much easier being able to see the colour change. It can still be found listed for "motorsports usage only" but it's harder to find and more expensive.
engineered said:
CAinCA said:
I have a couple open bottles of SRF. One was a couple years old and the other is pretty recent. I live in a fairly dry climate. I tested them with my moisture meter and they were both under 1%. Would you guys feel comfortable using it?
I recently used a 15 year old tin of ATE SuperBlue that had 1/4 left. Checked with hygrometer and it was still at zero%. I was expecting worse. This was for street use so that was fine. I live in humid southern Ontario.
I really miss the SuperBlue, it made bleeding so much easier being able to see the colour change. It can still be found listed for "motorsports usage only" but it's harder to find and more expensive.
If you really want it to be blue, you can buy hydraulic oil dye and make your own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMOUFVv4bo8
Berck
HalfDork
7/8/24 5:24 p.m.
I miss the blue/amber swap routine as well... But not enough to dye my own. That is one angry dude.
bobzilla said:
In reply to Keith Tanner :
car has bigger brakes than needed factory, G-Loc R12 front pads and Porterfield R4 rear pads make whatever (little) velocity I had disappear so fast there's not enough time to heat soak.
This is actually a good point... the brakes get hotter with longer light braking than with short but decisive activation.
Ride down a long hill on a bike for a vivid example of this. Your brakes stay cooler by speeding up and slowing down quickly than more conservative brake application. Brakes store and release heat, they don't reject it in real time.
But it feels sketch as all hell when you're bombing down a long hill on a 70lb tandem, trusting that the brakes will be able to slow you down in time for the curves. I don't know how fast we ever got but I do remember flying past someone who was excitedly jabbering to his friend that they were doing 50 
For our first lemons race we didn't think to change the brake fluid. Topped it up before the race but didn't flush. By the end of the weekend the brakes wouldn't hold the car when it was shifted to drive. It could easily have been 30 year old DOT3 from the factory.
RBF600 is all we use now. If we're going to run hard for 8 hours straight it makes us feel better. We added power, drive more agressivley and still have factory brakes with no cooling.
Berck
HalfDork
7/9/24 2:14 p.m.
$60/L from Amazon. Yikes. I've never been able to boil Typ 200 and it's 30% cheaper... Still, cool chart, and makes me think there are probably cheaper options than the Typ 200 I've been using that perform just as well.
In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :
Lot of respect for the Valvoline brake fluid and would use it in my track car, UNTIL I went to VIR and came down into T1 when it went green. Good initial bite, then pedal got softer and softer with a strong smell of HOT brakes.
Luckily made it around the turn but for the rest of the day would brake way early and lots of downshifting!
Switched to Castrol SRF, Hawk Pads, Porterfield rear shoes, and what was not mentioned here, changed front wheel bearing grease to the Redline Red grease to handle the extra heat generated by the pads and braking. In short the Castrol SRF is good stuff!
