I was wondering for those who have F-Sport Brakes, if you felt the need to change the OEM brake lines to braided. I purchased these brakes and assumed for some reason that they came with upgraded lines. I realize that the F-Sports will work fine with the OEM lines but figure since i have to bleed the system anyway, why not just change the lines.

Input from F-Sport BBK owners with braided lines would be appreciated. Any positives or negatives? Any unusual braided line wear from a particular manufacturer?

For the F-Sport BBK owners that are still using OEM lines, do you regret the missed opportunity to have changed everything at once?

thanks in advanced for your input.

 

I don't have this kit but I can say you should almost likely feel a small difference with the ss lines since theres less flex. The pedal should feel a bit more firm with the ss lines. I do notice with ss lines this fact is true from personal experience.

No negatives except cost and bleeding lines.

 

Get the braided lines so you dont have that nagging feeling later on that you should've done it while everything was being installed. =P

 

I got Stoptech braided ss lines along with my F-Sport BBK. Didn't try it without it, so what difference it makes, I don't really know.

 

If you run braided lines on the street, you need to inspect them at least annually for broken strands in the braid. This is why I'm no big fan of braided brake lines. I worked on aircraft in the Air Force and I've done lots of inspections on braided lines. They give warning before they fail, but if you don't inspect them you won't see the warning signs and you'll have catastrophic failure if the braid is compromised.

I'm a HUGE fan of the OEM lines because they're lighter and stronger (yes, hard to believe, but they use kevlar under the rubber anti-chafing cover for lightness and strength) and they'll not fail in the same mode as braided stainless will.

And before anyone tries to call me a hater - I have braided lines on my Supra right now because they were cheaper than the OEM lines. I definitely inspect them annually. I've also put braided lines on nearly every motorcycle I've owned, and guess what? They made zero difference in feel. ZERO. So, the only reason to put these on is to impress yourself, impress your unknowledgeable friends, and force yourself to an annual inspection schedule. Personally, I wouldn't do it on a 2IS.

 

thanks for all the replies,

word! i have an impreza that i used to take to track days and braided lines+motul was dollar for dollar the best mod i ever did. it changed the pedal from mush to to giving firm reliable feedback. unfortunately the IS will never see that kind of service.

you pretty much nailed it. that nagging feeling is what i'm trying to avoid! BTW i saw your ride in your "installed" post, very nice!

you're not a hater, but i did try to google information about the manufacturing process and materials for the oem lines in our cars. i couldn't find any info. other than taking a razor to a line myself, i'm kind of at a loss. i guess i'll be doing inspections.

this post sums it up for me! "but what if it makes no difference at all?..." i think i'm OK with that.

thanks again for the replies, i went ahead and ordered the lines.

 

I can't speak about automotive braided lines but I used SS braided lines on my R1 and noticed a big difference.

 

Only because you did a better job bleeding them when you put the new lines on. I've put braided lines on quite a few motorcycles, and it made zero difference in feel. The first time (1980) I built the lines myself from bulk teflon braided line and Aeroquip fittings. It wasn't easy. Imagine my disappointment when I do all this work to find the right fittings, measure, build, and finally get it all working because Motorcyclist Magazine told me it would be way better and it wasn't better at all. Sure looked cool, but didn't change anything about the feel or the operation of the brakes.

 

maybe, but I could tell a difference..... maybe the stock lines were just shot.....

 

I hate to necropost this, but in 95% of the cases, a stainless steel brake line is an upgrade to the factory lines, and the difference in pedal feel if properly bled is immense (FYI, most people don't know how to properly bleed brakes, even at a lot of shops, pumping brakes while bleeding does nothing more than just pushing down once). They have much less ballooning, offer a more consistent feel and on most vehicles, will last longer if you buy them from a reputable source (i.e. not some ebay China parts, but Goodridge or HEL. On these cars, since they supposedly have Kevlar lines, I'd stick with factory. But on something with rubber lines (like a moto, which I've been riding for almost 40 years, and raced WERA before I had my son 10 years ago), I'd switch to stainless before I bought new rubber lines, and I'd switch to Kevlar before I bought stainless.

 

This is the old what I call "modding a beat up 15 year old wrx" syndrome, where ANY mod you do to replace a 199,999 mile abused part will feel like a HUGE improvement, unfairly giving the new part an "AWESOME" reputation, when it necessarily doesn't really rate that type of assessment.

I'm still not convinced since anyone here has yet to cut open a GOOD condition OEM line to physically see what's in it, that an oem rubber line is strong than something braided in steel. With that, still, the only way in my experienced opinion that you're feeling any sort of tactile feedback from a switch over is because the line you took off was beginning to fail. Physics would tell us a rubber line would balloon more than something wrapped in steel; but if it's in good condition, I'm going to bet a good amount of money that if you can physically feel this difference, then something was amiss with the stocker.

A lot of people don't realize what you put the first 12" of brake fluid coming from your caliper though when braking hard for a few years. That **** has to be bled out every other year or so during bouts of severe service, not to mention using substandard lubricants (anti seize is not a lubricant!) thickening up over time and causing all sorts of other problems like premature single side pad wear-out etc etc. degrading your brakes perceived performance over time.
And this whole "lined in Kevlar" thing is starting to sound like vitamin water; that is when the manufacturer puts in a TRACE amount of vitamins-vitamins that NEVER REACH the parts of your body that they need to reach calls their water "vitamin water" leading you to believe you're actually getting vitamins lol. There could be one thread of Kevlar in there and now everyone starts to perpetuate in forums that our lines are Kevlar lined lol. Look guys, Lexus is a fantastic car company, no doubt about that-but I doubt our lines are stronger than something that's wrapped in steel lol.Unless you cut open a brand new oem line, and a brand new stainless braided line and compare them side by side I'll reserve my final judgement. I can tell you this though, I've cut open some pretty old lines off of my Grand National and they were DAM stout lol. I mean that's some tough **** lol.
My deductions are this: 1, Unless your oem lines have 590,000 miles on them and you track your car every day, I'd throw oem **** on there & forget about it (if they were cheaper, which I'm assuming they are lol. but w/ lexus who knows) 2. if you can physically feel a measurable difference I surmise there was a problem with your oem lines.
The only real way to do this experiment is to bleed 12" of fluid out of the front lines, drive the car around, then switch the lines over and drive it again immediately afterwards. Have several people drive the car before and after as well, to see if it's just not your imagination. I'd also like to have a remote camera watching your factory lines during a braking event as well, just to confirm. I installed several sets of braided lines in my other cars (I'm still a fan) and I've yet to feel a difference personally. And I'm VERY ****, having been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive personality disorder. I will spend and entire day on one silly project like measuring brake line bulge lol. I've spent hundreds of dollars on a project JUST to see the difference, then scrapped the entire thing and tossed it after my findings lol. I've spent a lot of money just out of curiosity's sakes. Though my wife's starting to get irritated so I bought a car that in my opinion takes more care of it's QA/QC than any other production car out there, so I don't have to experiment as much lol. Because of these things being Lexuses, I'd feel 100% confident of blindly tossing more OEM replacement lines back on the car and going about my day not worrying about QA/QC like I do with all my other cars. That's the beauty of this brand.
If you want better brakes, we all know it's about the obvious stuff like car's weight, rotor diameter, & number of caliper pistons, although, if you just want to make minor changes to a daily driver, a good set of pads and a brake fluid change will really change things around honestly. A LOT of people are driving around on what I call worn out brake fluid. Drain that old fluid out, throw some Motul or Wilwood fluid in there with a set of good pads and you're fine. If you have over a hundred grand on those oem brake lines, depending on how the car was treated, you could change those out as well but over that, unless you're tracking the car I think anything else is wasting money.