Braided stainless steel brake hoses

[Simon Whittley]

Hello,
Any one using these, do they make much difference to brake efficiency or just a nice bit of bling when you're looking under the car?

[Dave Wildrick]

I bought some for the front brakes on my 64C coupe about 20 years ago.
I don't know if the construction is till the same, but mine have a teflon line inside the stainless braiding.
I was warned that if a rock hits the brake line just right, the teflon could break, whereas this can't happen with standard rubber brake lines.
Nevertheless, they are still on my car, and I haven't hit the right rock yet.

[Jeffrey Leeds]

A perceived benefit is a firmer brake pedal as the SS braid limits possible expansion of the line carrying the fluid. The warning that the Teflon could break from a rock hit is new to me.

[Wes Bender]

Those might be great for a race car, but I would prefer the reinforced rubber hoses for a street car.
The failure mode is different between the two. A rubber hose will start leaking and generally fail slowly and you should catch it before total failure. On the other hand, the failure of the stainless braided over Teflon line will be sudden. A racer will replace them on a regular schedule, as he would do other items.

Having said that, there are numerous folks out there that have had them on their street cars for years without a failure. I had them on a couple of cars, but got rid of them for the above reason. I just don't care to take the chance.

[David Jones]

I always used them on the race car for a firmer pedal but found this on an online search.
http://www.nsxprime.com/wiki/Brake_Lines

[Chip Flor]

I ran them on my formula ford as did all racers of the day. It works way better than the rubber lines.

The trouble is they are (more than likely) not DOT approved. Which means that if anything happens (brake fail wise) because you chose to put these non Department of Transportation approved parts on your car, you could potentially be responsible for any damages that might have occurred because of your willful and intentional negligence (i.e. massive criminal/civil law suits). Worse case scenario you go to prison for manslaughter.

To put his into perspective, it would be the same as some toothless redneck knuckle dragger putting on massive wheels and tires on his custom 4 x 4, where he decides to switch over to non approved DOT full hydraulic steering to turn his truck. This concept will work great off road rock crawling but if he uses this set up on the street, it is a big NO NO! (well....depending on what part of the country you live)

Decades ago, I too ran braided SS brake lines on my 356... It definitely makes a difference (stiffer pedal). I thought the OUTLAW factor was intriguing and did not care about my fellow drivers that ran on our public highways.

However, I grew old and became a conformist and obliged my civic duty to be responsible for my actions. Therefore I put the genuine article ATE rubber lines back on the car.

Thought I was cool then... now I'm am just an old fart beaten down by society.

[Al Zim]

We NEVER install braided rake lines on cars in our shop! I also fail to see how a rubber brake line could expand which is what you are telling me by having a firmer pedal when NOT using rubber brake hoses. It would seem obvious that expanding brake lines would have elicited a plethora of lawsuits. Billions of rubber brake hoses have been in use since the early 30's. al zim