[DeTomaso] Booster talk

[cengles at cox.net]

Dear Mike, 

You wrote:


>The guy who owns the Pantera I drove across Europe had that setup in his
>car, but he's a weight savings fanatic and removed the booster and attached
>the balance bar/master setup directly to the trunk wall to save a few pounds.
>Unfortunately his brakes stopped working as a result
>
>Apparently by changing the master cylinder bore diameters it's possible to
>get big brakes to work without a booster. Geoff has gone through a couple
>of different iterations without gaining proper braking performance back;
>he's going to try one more time, and if that fails he'll give up and put the
>booster back in.

$$$$$$ Very interesting. I have long be interested in running the brakes without the booster. My limited field interviews seem to show that it is possible, but they also show that *not* many people do that modification. I have been told that it is easy to test by removing the vacuum line to the booster to test the "non boosted" condition. 

However, your report about Geoff's difficulty in finding the proper master cylinder to compensate for the big brakes' piston volumes and the need for proper brake "feel" seems to underscore that this isn't a straightforward process. Unless someone has found that perfect iteration of non-boosted master cylinder with big brakes, then it looks like I am committed to vacuum boosting. 

Warmest regards, Chuck Engles