Brake Fluid

[Jefft]

Im planning on changing out the brake fluid for the first time and looking for a recomendation on what type/brand has been working well with the Elise. Any suggestions? Thanks!

[elise_storm]

Originally Posted by Jefft

Im planning on changing out the brake fluid for the first time and looking for a recomendation on what type/brand has been working well with the Elise. Any suggestions? Thanks!

I would use Super Blue... the best stuff I have ever used. High Temp and very easy to see

http://www.turnermotorsport.com/html...ODUCT_ID=ATESB

"This high performance Brake Fluid is ideal for coping with the extreme demands posed by motor racing, autocross, or high performance driving. Exceeds all DOT 4 requirements. Dry boiling point 536 deg. F, wet boiling point 396 deg. F. This fluid is NOT SILICONE and is compatible with conventional brake fluid. It also available in amber color to help when flushing the complete system."

[Feffman]

Jeff:

Motul is another good option. Try Wendy Charlier (800) 537-6842
www.Porterfield-Brakes.com.

Lotus Ltd. members receive a discount from Porterfield for fluids.

Mark Pfeffer - President Lotus Ltd.

[Jefft]

Thanks for the recommendations, one of the local racing shops carries the super blue and so many others have mentioned how much they like it so I'm sold. Thanks again!

[offroadr35]

Motul is good. remember with either of these you have to change more often than your stock fluid

[sandsmuseum]

In the old days, the racer trick was to use Ford High Performance Brake Fluid, cheap and available at your local dealer. The brake fluid was developed for the large luxury cars and trucks, had high temperature characteristics and was on par with the designer fluids mentioned above.

There used to be comparison charts and it came across well.

The local Saturn race team used to buy it in 55 gallon drum sizes...

Is this still true?

[Rich H]

Originally Posted by Jefft

Im planning on changing out the brake fluid for the first time and looking for a recomendation on what type/brand has been working well with the Elise. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Castrol SRF is the best, with highest dry/wet boiling points and least moisture absorption, and then there's everything else.

[ConeFusion]

If you don't want to go with any of the high price (and partly hard to find) brake fluids, Valvoline SynPower is excellent. A friend of mine preps road race cars, and he uses it for all his cars. He says that it's very close to the more expensive fluids, it's cheap, and available at parts stores like AutoZone. If it's good enough for race cars, it's good enough for me.

BTW, some of the fluids popular for racing need to be replaced frequently because they absorb water quickly. I believe Motul is one of them.

[a squared]

I've always used Motul 600.

[apkom]

Good to hear this. I've been using this on all my cars since 2000. I buy it at closets autoparts store - Kragen's. Have not had any issues with fluid or brake performance (and I autocross and take to the track my Turbo MR2).

Originally Posted by ConeFusion

If you don't want to go with any of the high price (and partly hard to find) brake fluids, Valvoline SynPower is excellent. A friend of mine preps road race cars, and he uses it for all his cars. He says that it's very close to the more expensive fluids, it's cheap, and available at parts stores like AutoZone. If it's good enough for race cars, it's good enough for me.

[Stan]

Castrol SRF and 1-2 other fluids are slightly less compressible than normal fluid. This can firm up a brake pedal when the pedal forces are very high. On an Elise this won't help with the initial squishy sensation as the line pressures are low at the time.

[TimMullen]

Originally Posted by Rich H

Castrol SRF is the best, with highest dry/wet boiling points and least moisture absorption, and then there's everything else.

I always tend to use Castrol LMA. Started using the stuff 30+ years ago because you had to with British cars. Since then, I've used it just because. It has pretty good properties, but most importantly the LMA stands for "Low Moisture Absorption" (or something like that). Although I try to change my fluid often enough, a couple of my "regular" (don't bother with too much) cars I've used it in haven't had the fluid flushed as often as I would like. Never any brake fluid caused problems.

Even the best fluid that absorbs water significantly degrades - having fluid that doesn't absorb much water can help it to work longer without problem. You should still flush the system often, but I prefer to flush out "clean" fluid when I'm replacing it with new...

[ace3]

The Brake Man makes some great stuff, and it doesnt' have the insanely crazy price of Motul or SRF. High boiling point (577 dry, 300 wet), and if you can tell the difference between it & any of the other "big names", you shouldn't be running stock brakes in the first place. It's only $7/bottle.

Woodhouse Viper sells it online ... a LOT of the viper guys use it.
http://www.seritas.com/dealercart/sc...idCategoryII=0

[Rich H]

Originally Posted by ace3

The Brake Man makes some great stuff, and it doesnt' have the insanely crazy price of Motul or SRF. High boiling point (577 dry, 300 wet), and if you can tell the difference between it & any of the other "big names", you shouldn't be running stock brakes in the first place. It's only $7/bottle.

Woodhouse Viper sells it online ... a LOT of the viper guys use it.
http://www.seritas.com/dealercart/sc...idCategoryII=0

Most any DOT 4 fluid will work fine in an Elise at the track right after the fluid is installed fresh from a sealed container. So if you flush your brakes right before each track event, there are many essentially equivalent fluid choices across a range of prices.

If you don't change fluid that often, however, the practical question becomes what do your fluid's boiling points decline to over a few months, or even a few years, of use. That's where Castrol SRF (which is not the same as LMA) outperforms all others, because it has the highest boiling points to begin with, and it is the least affected by moisture over time.

[YAUDI]

I use Motul 600 in my Audi and Elise on the road course. I'm a pretty religious brake bleeder, braking confidence is a top priority to me...

[MikekiM]

RBF600 is great for the track, though it's a bit more hygroscopic, so they have a 1 year flush cycle. For the street Motul DOT5.1 is fine and usually half the price. It's a 2yr cycle flush so you can leave it in a tad bit longer.

[kverges]

Cheap bastard here. I run Wilwood 560 or Stainless Steel Brakes 560 fluid - from Racer Parts Wholesale it's around $6 per 12 oz bottle. 4 seasons of SM tells me it is probably OK in this application (and I have used in in tracked Viper and Gallardo). If you bleed regularly, Ford Heavy Duty is sopposed to be great, too.

[John Stimson]

Instead of Superblue, use ATE TYP200. It's the same product, without the blue dye. The blue dye in Superblue will stay in your brake system a long time, staining any subsequent fluids light blue.

Lately, I've been using Valvoline Synpower because it has similar properties to the ATE fluids and Castrol LMA, and I can buy it at the local car parts shop.

I've got a Miata, not an Elise. I autocross and drive the car on the street.

What's your application, and how much do you care about price? If you're going to do track events, check out a high-temp track fluid and expect to change it after each track day/weekend. If you're made of money, Castrol SRF might be an interesting experiment.

[jtanner]

Originally Posted by John Stimson

Instead of Superblue, use ATE TYP200. It's the same product, without the blue dye. The blue dye in Superblue will stay in your brake system a long time, staining any subsequent fluids light blue.

John, I've had several people tell me that, and several others contradict it. I've been switching between ATE Superblue and ATE TYP200 for the last six fluid changes, and the ATE TYP200 always ends up as golden as it went in. I suspect people who see the staining are not fully flushing their lines, and it's mixing somewhere in the system.

Another possibility just occurred to me--I have stainless steel/teflon lines on my Supra. Maybe the blue dye is slightly absorbed into rubber lines?

Valvoline Synpower was recently (within the last year?) reformulated, and now it has lower boiling points than it used to. It's still a good, readily available fluid, though.

Jim

[DaCrema]

Not an Elise owner - yet, but I just did a break fluid change on my car. I learned two things. One to use a power flusher. Two to use a different color break fluid. This time we used a hi performance blue break fluid mentioned earlier in this thread. The next change we will use one that has the same spec but has a different color. That way it is very easy to tell when the new fluid is coming out the bleeder tube.

John