HEL Performance Braided Brake Lines

[greyhulk]

Greetings gents,
I'm undergoing front brake conversion to 260mm chimaera discs etc, I thought while I'm at it I may as well change the old rubber brake lines to stainless braided.

Now I've read a few older posts but theres no clear outcome on whether these preassembled kits actually fit the S (S1 in my case)? Has anyone got the hel or goodridge kit on theres?

http://auto.helperformance.com/tvr-s-series 2 front, 2 rear?


Cheers
Steve (the man who got vaporised by his hid kit & took them off )

Edited by greyhulk on Friday 25th March 07:25

[Alan Whitaker]

Good chance they will same chance they won't, best to take your old ones with you so they can check the fittings.

Alan

[v8s4me]

You can make these up your self quite easily. It's no harder than fitting compression fittings to copper pipe. These are the parts I used....

Hose

Front caliper fitting

Rear calipers These will need to be shortened to 18mm

The calipers are M10, but you'll need to check what threads you have at the chassis side. Mine were metric on the front and imperial on the rear.

[HvdWeerden]

The search function actually works perfect ;-) Even found your own topic from Oct 2015 !

[Kitchski]

As long as it's listed as a 6 piece kit you should be fine. I've fitted Goodridge kits before with no issue, though is have preferred HEL as the quality is hard to beat. Sadly they didn't list any at that time.

[rhinochopig]

HEL used to work on the basis that if they didn't stock the part you needed, send them your old lines and they would make up a set to fit your car. Obviously this saves them the cost of having to buy a set to copy and they can then add it to their stock list. Worth calling them to see if they still do this.

Great company IME - I have no affiliations by the way.

[greyhulk]

Thanks for the replys gents, hmm i think probably best to make them up then.. If a 6 piece kit is correct then both company's haven't got enough n the kit.

The goodridge listed online are '4 Front 1 Rear'
The Hel are 2 Front, 2 Rear

[Kitchski]

Personally, I don't bother with the DIY ones. They always end up looking a bit 'DIY' The HEL ones are noticeably nicer, and offer things like swivel unions so you can tighten both ends at the same time without binding the hose.

You can make your own custom hoses on HEL's website (it's what I did, seeing as I've got 11 of the things on my S1) but it's £30 a throw. Only issue is like you say, they only offer a 4 hose kit (which does away with the loop pipe on the front uprights, and uses an extra long hose direct from caliper to brake line).

That's the right Goodridge kit for an S with drums, complete with two small hoses for front loops:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TVR-S2-S3-Rear-Drum-Good...

When I say 'right', it's the ones I buy for customer cars.

S1/S2/S3 - all use the same hoses. The 260mm calipers use the same thread too. That's what I've got.

Can't think of an S that uses 5 hoses. Think that might be a bit of a ballsup!

[AutoAndy]

Think I used these guys:

http://www.brake-lines.co.uk/create-your-custom-br...

I replaced the two front and interconnecting piece with a single (900mm long I think) branded hose. I recall the issue with the rears was that there were different thread ends on each end!, and so,e roe-made kits say for the S, but we're actually an earlier 300s or similar.....good luck

[greyhulk]

Kitchski said:

Personally, I don't bother with the DIY ones. They always end up looking a bit 'DIY' The HEL ones are noticeably nicer, and offer things like swivel unions so you can tighten both ends at the same time without binding the hose.
You can make your own custom hoses on HEL's website (it's what I did, seeing as I've got 11 of the things on my S1) but it's £30 a throw. Only issue is like you say, they only offer a 4 hose kit (which does away with the loop pipe on the front uprights, and uses an extra long hose direct from caliper to brake line).
S1/S2/S3 - all use the same hoses. The 260mm calipers use the same thread too. That's what I've got.

AutoAndy said:

I replaced the two front and interconnecting piece with a single (900mm long I think) branded hose.

Swayed my decision they have to look neat especially now ive taken the brake dust shields off.
Brakes are a new territory for me so i was just going to take the S to a garage & get them put on along with the braided brake lines as im not sure how to do the conversion myself.. On the front theres 2 short rubber brake lines per side, would it harm to have them run through as 1? Or should i just get them made up when there taken off

[v8s4me]

greyhulk said:

...they have to look neat especially now ive taken the brake dust shields off....

Neat enough for you?

[TVRees]

greyhulk said:

On the front theres 2 short rubber brake lines per side, would it harm to have them run through as 1? Or should i just get them made up when there taken off

The two lines on the front can be replaced by one longer piece. See previous post from AutoAndy.

[greyhulk]

v8s4me said:

Neat enough for you?

Divine! Nice calipers
So If I was to run one hose straight through like a few of you have then the HEL kit would be fine with its 2 front hoses (£39.90)

Edited by greyhulk on Friday 25th March 20:53

[Kitchski]

The risk with removing the little loop pipes is that the hose can foul the road spring in certain cases, that's why they had them in the first place. I've seen cars have the single long hoses with seemingly no issue, but I'm probably a bit too belt and braces for that

Best picture I've got I'm afraid:

Edited by Kitchski on Friday 25th March 21:03

[greyhulk]

knowing my luck would probably foul something.
I'm sure I've read a previous post from greymrj about stretched brake lines too. Wouldn't want to get some made up from stretched originals so will check that out.

Its ashame HEL or goodridge dont supply the correct kits for the S would make life so much simpler

[Kitchski]

greyhulk said:

Its ashame HEL or goodridge dont supply the correct kits for the S would make life so much simpler

Goodridge do, I linked to it earlier. I've bought probably half a dozen over the years, never had a problem.

HEL would probably adapt their kit, if they were supplied a pattern to work from.

[greyhulk]

Oh sorry I thought it was just for the rear brakes on first glance. Just checked the item description, does say 6 hoses, take it that it covers front an rear?

I'll also drop them a message as I don't want zinc plated fittings (stainless all the way)

Edited by greyhulk on Friday 25th March 21:12

[phillpot]

Go talk to these guys, they're local.... Stevsons.

They'll sort you the correct Goodridge kit or custom make if you decide to go for the single long pipe at the front, they know what they're talking about, scruffy little "old school" place but very helpful/friendly.


Can't see an issue with them fouling the spring so long as they are long enough and secured properly to the hub carrier using the bracket circled (as Joe has done in his photo).


ETA This isn't Joe's photo, it is Richards photo, but it shows the bracket more clearly...

Edited by phillpot on Saturday 26th March 14:30

[v8s4me]

Just to clarify, that's one of Richard's photo's above. Mine is the one with the red chassis. I routed my hose through the bracket on the hub leaving it free to move in a grommet. This was to avoid any possible pulling issue. I worried about the possibility of the hose binding, but after lots of experimenting with different lock positions, I just couldn't see how it might happen, so long as the hose is long enough that is.