996 Brake feel.

Peeps, Brakes feel numb on my car, by that I mean no bite, new oem discs and pads (textar) all round, just changed the front flexible to braided rears shortly, I have bled the front and I know the fluid in the back needs flushed which will be done when the flexible are done. What is your brake pedal feel with regards to bite ?

In my case, i have braided hoses too (sportsbike days necessity), standard pads. Basically the brakes take a good push (always have done) but they work well and so long as I can lock the brakes up easily and with good feedback, I call that good. I'm missing context for the term "bite".

Is this a change in feel after replacing parts, or were the parts change to try and solve the feel issue? Short answer is 911 brakes do feel numb and unresponsive at modest, street driven pressure. They come into their own once really hot and with firm pedal pressure. This is by design and linked to Porsche's race and endurance experience. Most modern cars these days have overly sensitive brakes. In a racing application, it is far easier to more finely modulate predal pressure when you are already applying a firm amount of pressure. This is one of the reasons F1 cars require such high pedal pressures, the upside is that when you're doing what will feel like a leg press, adding that almost immeasurable extra bit of pressure is much easier than with 'modern' feeling super-servo brakes. Compared to my daily, mine feel the same as yours. A friend reported the same with his and I've heard and read the same elsewhere. I'd guess it's just a case of a different set up to most road cars. I know which ones I'd want under me after 5 hot laps on any given circuit where most road car brakes are totally done for.

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So true, i can't even heal and toe in most modern cars, it tries to put you through the windscreen

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Especially when you forget you're in an automatic and muscle memory takes over! The worst brakes I've ever encountered from an "all show and no go" (stop?) perspective were on a '92 C4 Corvette. 3 hot laps of the Silverstone Club circuit and all four discs were warped, a front one cracked, the DOT4 turned to banana flavoured yoghurt and you could use the pads as rear view mirrors. I had to replace the lot.

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I have actually done that, the corner didn't go so well

hiya brake bleeding is key to this, may need to be done again pedal wise, is it going longer than normal or is it inconsistent ? the feel might point to an issue with a seal on the master cylinder ?

First thing my brother told me about Porsche brakes is that you have to actually press the pedal with force but they are fantastic brakes , especially on track as mentioned above

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About the only mass production brakes that are up to sustainable track use off the showroom floor.

I found the standard brakes terrible and my first proper razz out after buying the car saw plenty of fade driving down my favorite pass. The fluid was relatively new and pedal good. I ended up fitting Carbotech XP8 pads all round, new braided lines and oem link pipes from these to the calipers and a proper flush of fluid with ATE TYP200, pedal feel and initial bite was amazing and then they just got better with more heat in them, i was fairly blown away! The XP8 pads can be pretty noisy, however and i've ended up taking them back off (for sale if anyone is reading and would like them!) and fitting Girodisc larger front discs with new Textar pads all round, now i get silence, good pedal feel and zero fade going down my favorite pass at pace. I've got a gt3 master cylinder to go on at some point but i'm quite happy for now in all honesty!

I also have poor brake bite, my brand new Audi Q3 nearly snapped my neck off the first time I breaked with it using 996 foot power! So I’m about to renew my brakes to improve it- I’m going to rebuild the calipers with new seals, fit braided hoses and EBC Red Stuff pads. I’ll post the results once done. I suspect the new seals will help a lot, I don’t have a record of them ever being been done and the car is 24 years old. The YouTuber ‘Ratarossa’ just rebuilt his Ferrari calipers and it revealed some seized caliper pistons. A few seized pistons and that’ll really affect braking performance.

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I'm sure you know but the Audi Q3 thing isnt because the brakes are good, its because they are over servo'd, which is just the way for modern 'normal' cars you'd quickly find they wouldnt work very well past that initial press if you were trying to shoe the car down a twisty bit of road. I've got a GR Yaris as a daily and for a modern car, the brakes are great but they are much like the 996 where the amount you press is linear with the amount of stopping but this is pretty rare for a new car. They initially feel crap after driving something modern and normal, it just takes a few stops to rewire the brain

@scottos Yeah I figured the Q3 has something else going on as the difference in bite is massive. I’d still rather do an emergency stop in the Q3 as my 996’s braking power as well as initial bite is poor, hence the need to renew them. If my renewal still doesn’t have good results I will also do the GT3 master cylinder upgrade like you’re planning. I watched a video about 996 brake upgrades by Lee Sibley/9 Werks and he said the MC upgrade was a night and day difference.

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That’s the point , you can’t have family car brakes in a proper sports car Porsche brakes just get stronger the more you push so you have control going into a corner at pace. Family car brakes are for drivers that aren’t really concentrating on what they’re doing, too much going on around them, the brakes need to go to 90% instantly when they look up from texting the hairdresser and notice the car in from has stopped for whatever reason.

Could you describe your symptoms in a bit more detail? Is the pedal rock solid when all the vacuum is released from the servo? Is it that you feel you need more pedal effort than expected, or are you struggling to moderate the braking effort? Are we talking about village speeds or are we pressing on? What have you done to bed the new materials in?