Brake booster delete???

[thehackmechanic]

I have a '74 Lotus Europa. The car, which is mid-engined, has twin boosters for twin masters. Plumbing runs from the masters, which are in the nose of the car, to the boosters which are behind the driver where the engine is. It's a nightmare, they all fail, they're expensive to have rebuilt. People convert to the booster-less system all the time. I drove one such car and was surprised by the ease of the pedal effort. It was absolutely fine. However, it's a 1500 pound car. My intuition is that our E9s are too heavy to run bareback, so to speak. But it's just a gut feeling based on zero data.

 

[JFENG]

unboosted brakes

I've got a 2800lb old car with unboosted brakes and I can lock em up without too much trouble. But, yes the effort is much higher than on modern boosted cars. Enough so that most people who've never driven it will run the 1st stop sign they encounter. Actually, all of my old cars other than the E9 have unboosted brakes. They all work fine, but you have to get acclimated to them. Caution, I doubt a 100lb girl would enough leg strength to get max braking out of these cars on a track for very long (Dennise McCluggage will come and club me over the head for saying that).

With the right sizing (MC diam, pedal ratio, etc.) I'll bet unboosted brakes on an E9 would be ok. But, crunch your numbers carefully so you don't end up buying and chucking MC's. Personally, I'd look harder for the tii booster, use domed air cleaners, and get the manifold flanges machined down at the carb ends to improve clearance.