What did you do to your Gen 3 today?

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FmaxTurboSi

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Let us know your real world feedback on the Willwoods once you get a few miles on them. Also, how was install, pretty straight forward? Thanks

First impressions...... WOW. They're very precise and have alot of grip when you need it. If you need more braking power, just press the brake a little more and it grabs instantly. I can feel a huge difference. My oem brakes felt like you press the brake, it starts to slow, press it a little harder and it starts to grab a little bit more, but then when you push it even more, there would be a point where the brake pressure didn't increase anymore.

My oem brakes were okay for everyday driving. But whenever I had any prolonged high speed driving, the brakes began to fade and really concerned me. Especially since I'm going big turbo in a week or 2. I had a couple instances where I thought the truck wasn't going to stop in time and it was scary.

I needed my buddy at my local dealership to fix some things for me, but I blame myself for making some stupid mistakes. Totally my fault, since I've never changed the brakes on a vehicle that has assisted braking and a million sensors LOL.

Mistake #1. I started the project in the evening, thinking I could do half that day and then finish up the next morning.

Mistake #2. I didn't put my battery tender/maintainer on during the install and battery voltage dropped. I found out later that I had a bad battery anyway, but the voltage dropped and triggered a code/fault.

Mistake #3. I placed the truck in maintenance mode, then took it out of maintenance mode before I quit for the night. I didn't bleed the brakes and make sure the fluid level was adequate, so when I took it out of maintenance mode, it triggered even more codes/faults. I thought I could just refill fluid and pressure bleed the brakes in the morning, but I was wrong. I bled the brakes with a pressure bleeder 3 times, still didn't fix things. I hooked the truck up to forscan and cleared codes, still didn't work. So I didn't have any brakes except for the e-brake.

So, I had to have my truck towed to the dealer and have my buddy fix it. He used his pressure bleeder to re-bleed the entire system, update software, and replace my battery to get the abs module to start communicating again. After a few hours he was able to get everything back to normal.

The install itself is straight forward. I wasn't able to open up the bracket that holds the oem brake line to the spindle. It's a small metal piece, that looks like a tab is bent over and around the hose to secure it in place. I tried to use a pry bar, but it wasn't opening enough and I started to bend the bracket in other places. So I stopped before I broke the bracket all together. After I removed the oem brake caliper and brake lines from the truck, I actually had to cut the brake hose in order to get that bracket off. Maybe my pry bar isn't big enough? Not a big deal to me because I can always order new brake hoses if and when I put the oem brakes back on.

Long story short, I messed up. Definitely learned the hard way LOL. But glad everything worked out, because I wasn't going to add bigger turbo's with the oem brakes. No sir!

Wondering if anybody else's OEM disks look like this? Discolored portion looks like it gets hotter, maybe majority of clamping force in concentrated in this area? the pads looked fine with even wear. I might start a new post for this so others can see as well.

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