How Do You Stop 350+ horsepower?

After spending the afternoon gardening, my buddy Darren came over to install his newly acquired 'used' RPI 13-inch Wilwood front brake kit onto his HPA Turbocharged MK4 24V VR6. At first glance, I must say that I was impressed on how enormous the brake kit was. While many newbies do not appreciate the benefits of bigger brakes, Darren needed them to safely stop the 350+ horsepower monster.

Last week, Darren failed at his first attempt to install the brakes on his car. Midway of the installation, he discovered missing bolts from the kit. Tonight, Darren prayed that he would be graced with better luck in this second attempt.



As the night progressed, the installation did appear to be going smoothly without any complications. At approximately 9:45 pm, trouble occurred. An adapter fitting that joined the stainless steel brake lines to the caliper sheered apart. We figured that the previous owner of the kit had overtorqued the fitting, thus stressing it. The look of dismay was appeared on Darren's face. A few minutes of brainstorming followed. Finally... a solution, we discovered that the brake line could be threaded directly into the caliper thus bypassing the sheered fitting. The decision was made to continue the installation with the bypass solution. This would only be a temporary fix until acquiring a replacement fitting tomorrow.

With the brakes finally completed at 11:00 pm, the car was backed out the garage to test them. A tired looking Darren returned with a smiles on his face.