Going Drifting: Part 7 – Hydraulic Handbrake
By Justin Banner
The handbrake turn is the simplest and even the first thing you learn as a drifter. When all else fails to get the car to slide the rear tires, locking them up is usually the go-to. However, after several pulls of the OEM handbrake, the cable starts to stretch and it can start to take more travel to get the rear brakes to lock. If you start to get tired of adjusting or replacing the cable, there is another solution: the hydraulic handbrake. We’ll go over two solutions to get you hydro-handbrake activation in your car.
The first solution is to tie into the rear brake line of the brake master cylinder. Once you mount your hydro-brake into your car, you’ll remove the rear brake line from the master cylinder to the rear calipers. You’ll route a new line into the cabin to the intake port of the hydro-brake cylinder. Then you’ll feed line from the hydro-brake cylinder to the rear calipers. Bleed the brakes like you would normally, and now you have a hydraulic handbrake in the cheapest way possible. However, it does come with a drawback. When you are using your hydro-brake, you won’t be able to use the front brakes or vise-versa, so you’ll have to plan your drift lines ahead of time and come in with the right speed.
If that seems a little off-putting, there is another solution. Instead of using the brake master cylinder for fluid and using only one set of calipers in the rear, you could isolate the hydro-brake on its own system and set of calipers. The benefit is that you can now use both your foot brake and hydro-brake at the same time. However, it requires the purchase of a second set of calipers and brackets for the rear brakes. This also means another system to bleed.
There is even still another solution to that problem. Say you don’t want to mount two calipers on the same axle because you don’t want the hassle of fabricating a new bracket. Well, Project Mu has a caliper just for your needs. This looks like a four-piston rear caliper, but you’ll notice two bleed screws on it. Well, if we had a picture of the back side, you’d see a pair of ports for brake lines. Yep, this special caliper combines two dual-piston calipers into one, and allows you to use a single caliper mount.