Brake upgrade - braided hoses?

[pete]

I'm about to embark on a simple upgrade of my Griff 500's brakes. After much perusing of the archives, it looks like Tower View's 283mm front upgrade will be sufficient. However, I don't know whether to bother with stainless braided hoses. I'd welcome feedback from anyone who's done this upgrade with or without the hoses.

On the subject of braided hoses, if I fit them only to the front brakes, will I need to bleed the rears as well? I've replaced plenty of Ford pads and discs before, but I've never had to disconnect the calipers completely. Any other gotchas around replacing the hoses, e.g. having to slot the mounting brackets?

Thanks in advance,
Pete

[pete]

bikerkeith said:Depending on how old your brake hoses are, also how old the fluid is (do you know when the brakes were last bled through?) will have a bearing on what difference braided lines will make. Also, were the brakes adequate as new, or are you looking for an improved performance over original?

The brakes were bled last Tuesday, when my car was last serviced, unless they are lying on the receipt! The pedal definitely feels a bit firmer than when I put it in.

The main aim of upgrading the brakes is to push the bias forward a bit to improve stability under braking, and to reduce fade on the track, although I don't really drive it hard enough to induce fade too often. As I need to change the front pads and discs I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to upgrade rather than simply replace with standard.

Thanks for all the replies - I guess there's no hard and fast rule on replacing the hoses, so I'll probably leave them until I next need to bleed the brakes.

Cheers,
Pete

[pete]

For anyone who's interested, I decidedto go for braided hoses on the front only for the moment. I'll do the rears when I change the rear pads.

I've gone for the basic Tower View kit, consisting of:

283mm Black Diamond discs
Mounting brackets to re-use my existing calipers
Tarox red dot pads
Front stainless braided hoses

Total cost for that lot is £400 plus VAT, or £650-ish plus VAT fitted.

Cheers,
Pete