BRAKE TECH Brake Booster Types
When it comes to brake boosters for your Ford Truck, you run into a couple of versions. It will either be a vacuum or a hydraulic version. We’ll take a quick look into both versions and the advantages and disadvantages of both in this article on Brake Tech.
Brake boosters work to increase the power of the leverage your brake pedal produces. Without them, you would feel high pedal effort that feels nearly impossible to overcome.
There are two major types of brake boosters in use today. The first is the vacuum assist brake booster and it uses engine vacuum to pull a diaphragm inside of it.
The main advantage is that it relies on vacuum made naturally by the engine, so there are no pumps to worry with to create the boosting effect.
However, if your truck is in a low vacuum situation or you switch out to a bigger cam that reduces the vacuum of the engine’s cylinders, you reduce the effort by the booster and increase your own.
The other is the hydraulic brake booster and is known as a Hydro-boost. You’ll usually see this in medium-duty Ford Trucks without air brakes, most diesels, and where there isn’t room for the large vacuum booster.
The advantage is that it can produce a lot of boost to the pedal action in a very compact package. However, it can be difficult to feel out the brakes as the hydraulic boost feels nearly the same to the uninitiated. It also requires either a separate hydraulic pump or will use the power steering pump.
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