Rear Proportioning Valve Options

[BenNC]

I've seen a few posts that mention replacing the proportioning valve for the rear brakes with a "tee".

1. Is it safe?

2. Is it street legal?

3. Is it useful if I'm retaining the stock brakes?

4. What is involved besides simply replacing the valve with the tee?

Thanks,

Ben

[Don Wohlfarth]

Why are you removing proportioning valve? The valve reduces pressure to the rear brakes. You usually want a bias something around 60-65 front as that's where the majority of the braking takes place. No experience but I've heard of removing valve completely with no ill effects (but don't think I'd do it.)
If you remove valve completely or install adjustable valve bleed the brakes. Test the brakes. Take a friend out on a deserted road/large parking lot. One drives, the other watches driver come to a hard, fast stop from 50-60mph (without locking brakes and flat spotting tires (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ). The one outside the car is looking to see if you lock rear wheels.
You want to be able to barely lock rear wheels on hard stop 2 out of 3 times. When you get there (and it's harder than it sounds) you have too much rear brake. With adjustable valve reduce the pressure to rear and try again until you cannot lock rear wheels.
If you have removed the valve and installed a tee and lock rear wheels, reinstall the old valve. Do not drive your car if you can lock rear brakes as it will spin you in a heart beat when you least expect it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool_shades.gif)
Just starting out, I would think your time would be better spent making sure that all your brakes are working correctly, decent pads, calipers not dragging, if unsure last time rubber brake lines changed replace them, and thoroughly flush brake system once or twice.
Adjusting the brake bias from the cockpit sounds cool. In reality, even with adjustable valve it's a set and forget deal. If you're constantly fiddlin' with the brake bias while driving the car you should park it and try and figure out what's wrong.