heinzboehmer's 2002 Topaz 6MT Coupe

[Ubaderb]

More low stakes stuff:

Reglued the fabric on the other c pillar that I hadn't done before:




Then disassembled 996 calipers for cerakoting. Was annoying because brake fluid gets eeeverywhere, but pretty simple in the end. Winning formula ended up being pumping air into the caliper and blocking the pistons from fully extending with some wood and cardboard and then prying them out the last couple mm:




Toothpick worked well to get the piston seals out. Went for this over a regular metal pick to not scratch the bores:



And finally, replaced the alarm siren with the new one. Car beeps again

What glue do you use?

[heinzboehmer]

What glue do you use?

Used 3M Super 77 for this. Super 90 should work fine as well. Spray it on the pillar cover first, wait for it to get tacky and then press the fabric onto it. If it's too wet when you put the fabric on, it'll bleed through.

[heinzboehmer]

Picked up something yesterday:






Finish is Cerakote Arctic Black P-202. Supposedly designed to help dissipate heat. https://www.cerakote.com/shop/cerako...lack-oven-cure

Now just need to find some time to rebuild them and get them on the car.

[D-O]

I like the look - all business.

[heinzboehmer]

I like the look - all business.

Thanks! That was the intention

Brake dust colored too, so I don't have to worry about keeping them super clean

[nyc951]

This is when I have to ask, is this actually worth it lol

I like having a pass through, makes the car useable since the backseats at least for me are useless now because of my Recaros.

What do you think of a version of that bulkhead panel with a ski-pass through? Would the rigidity be compromised?

[heinzboehmer]

What do you think of a version of that bulkhead panel with a ski-pass through? Would the rigidity be compromised?

It likely would.

[heinzboehmer]

Started on the brake work.

Quick pic of everything before starting:



Rebuilding the calipers. Decided to use girodisc seals and brembo dust boots after hearing of a friend's experiences on track with the girodisc boots:



And fully dressed:



Unfortunately this is where I realized something went very wrong during the rebuild. Pressure tested the calipers with air and found this:




I thought the seals felt too tight when installing the pistons...

This is the only seal that was obviously bad when pressure tested, but now I don't trust any of the others. I really don't want to find out that another seal is ripped while on track, so I've decided to rebuild all of the calipers again. New seals are on their way.

The more I think about this, the more I lean towards this being an installation issue. I decided to lubricate everything during the install with just brake fluid, but I really should have used assembly fluid. Oh well, at least it was a good learning experience.

Have ordered some assembly fluid for next round. Hopefully that solves all my issues.

[Obioban]

Are you planning to run heat shields?

[heinzboehmer]

Are you planning to run heat shields?

You're talking about heat shields between pad and caliper or between rotor and chassis?

Either way, I'll be running both. Still need to run the experiment to decide between titanium shims or stock porsche noise isolators.

[Obioban]

I meant titanium heat shields between pad and caliper.

If you run black seals and titanium shields, and my friend runs blue silicon seals, and no shields, we'll really have some good info on what's needed!

[heinzboehmer]

Yeah I'll definitely report back with how the seals hold up. Have a long track day on Sep 18 (7, 30 min sessions), so will update with how they did.

[Sharocks]

What do you think of a version of that bulkhead panel with a ski-pass through? Would the rigidity be compromised?

Absolutely would be compromised, but for a street car this is way overkill lol

[heinzboehmer]

I thought the seals felt too tight when installing the pistons...

This is the only seal that was obviously bad when pressure tested, but now I don't trust any of the others. I really don't want to find out that another seal is ripped while on track, so I've decided to rebuild all of the calipers again. New seals are on their way.

Fully disassembled the rears. 3 out of 8 seals were ripped, yikes. The other two I found weren't ripped as bad as the one that inflated the dust boot, but still. I'm glad that one failed catastrophically, otherwise I wouldn't have taken these apart.

Interested in seeing how the fronts look. Should have them disassembled by tonight.

Also, found a good way to pop the pistons out:

1. Leave the caliper fully assembled and stuff some wood/cardboard in such that the outboard pistons can't move much and the inboard pistons contact the wood/cardboard right before popping out.
2. Pull inboard pistons out with fingers. Should be easy to do if step 1 was done correctly.
3. Remove crossover pipe and replace with a bleeder in the outboard port.
4. Stuff some more wood/cardboard in such that the outboard pistons contact the wood/cardboard right before popping out.
5. Pull outboard pistons out with fingers. Should be easy to do if step 4 was done correctly.

The above approach was much faster than what I did the first time around and there's no risk of damage to the pistons when prying.

[heinzboehmer]

Also, I was at laguna seca for car week stuff this past weekend and Ford had a display with parts from that new homologated GT3 mustang thing. This is what the rear brakes looked like:




Given the design of the front CSL rotors, my current brake ducts will be way less effective and this design looks super appealing. I don't know if I'll have enough clearance under 17s to do something similar, but it would be super cool to build something like this. Air would have to get sucked out of the caliper with this setup and I can think of two ways to do this:

1. Build an active system that pulls air out with a fan at the end of the brake duct hose. This is appealing because it can get combined with a temp sensor to make sure that the pads are always in their optimal operating temp range. Can also log individual caliper temps.
2. Build a passive system with a venturi tube or similar that creates a vacuum in the brake duct hose so that air gets pulled out at speed. Simpler than the active system, but no control over caliper temp, some added drag and potential for overheating on lower speed tracks.

Just brainstorming right now, but thought the design was cool and would make for a fun project.