power assist brakes for a 1303?

[Humble]

The main reason newer cars have power brakes is ease of drivability. So even grandma can push the brake pedal down and stop safely. If you remove the vacuum assist to one of those systems (engine off) and try to hit the brakes it's suddenly very difficult to stop the car because the pedal effort went through the roof. The reason for that is most power brake systems have a very low pedal to master cylinder push rod ratio, like 2:1 or even 1:1. On cars without power brakes mechanical leverage is used to reduce pedal pressure but maintain easy braking. Cars with manual brakes use a pedal ratio as high as 7:1 and in the beetles I believe it's about 6:1. So 100lbs of pedal pressure in a car with power brakes is about 200lbs of force at best without vacuum assist and poor grandma will break her leg before she stops the car. With manual brakes 100lbs of pedal pressure is good for 700lbs of pressure at the master cylinder and even grandma can hit the binders hard in a properly setup manual system.

Power brakes in a beetle isn't worth the extra hassle and the money would be better spent on a manual setup. However, there are mechanical brake boosters that reduce the pedal force a bit which could be a better and cheaper option.

[Axl]

Another reason I was thinking of adding the power assists is , its just damn cool to say my car has assists , and nobody elses does . Its just one of those things to kind of set your car apart from the rest . It seems most of the stuff I have been thinking of has been done to death , and it is getting harder and harder to be original . I hope you can understand my thinking on that .

[Humble]

Yeah, I feel ya there. When there's 23 million copies of the car you have how do you make yours stand out? Any more you don't need fancy gimmicks or electro-wizardry, simple and clean will take you farther than you know. That's why I dig the german look and went that route on my car.

[evilC]

When I started mine I was unaware of 'Germanlook', 'Cal-Look', Rat-Look', whatever. All I know is that 'Germanlook' matches my philosophy about cars the best. Its about performance and engineering, not gimmicks. Its about adapting/modifying and exploring engineering possibilities to make the cars and vans better. Despite the title, for me its the engineering that sparks my interest but if it looks good aswell then so much the better. You will see on this site that contributors explore the potential of their mods on the track, not in the bar and thats what makes it authentic.

[Steve C]

Originally Posted by evilC

You will see on this site that contributors explore the potential of their mods on the track, not in the bar and thats what makes it authentic.

I'll drink to that, this is absolutely my favourite VW site, it also fits with what I feel is the ultimate goal of modifying a VW, to make it them go, stop & handle.

Steve

[Wally]

Originally Posted by evilC

When I started mine I was unaware of 'Germanlook', 'Cal-Look', Rat-Look', whatever. All I know is that 'Germanlook' matches my philosophy about cars the best. Its about performance and engineering, not gimmicks. Its about adapting/modifying and exploring engineering possibilities to make the cars and vans better. Despite the title, for me its the engineering that sparks my interest but if it looks good aswell then so much the better.

Cheers to that mate!