About Sweeting Performance

We specialize in performance brake systems, particularly the Bosch Hydro-Boost, Bosch Hydro-Max and our own Air-Hydraulic brake system. The owner, Matthew Sweeting, is the third generation in automotive braking systems, his father and grandfather were in rebuilding, beginning in 1950 they rebuilt mountains of brake boosters and master cylinders. Matt was rebuilding brake boosters from a young age - tearing down, buffing, washing, painting, stocking, installing, sourcing, and the general business of brake parts.

Being a third generation brakeman meant being taught the right ways about brake systems, new and classic, and having a natural familiarity with these systems from taking them apart and putting them back together repeatedly. The market for rebuilt units has changed, and we have shifted towards manufacturing new components for new vehicles and retrofit upgrade components for older vehicles. We design and build modernized braking systems for many obsolete applications, and improve current ones.



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The Bosch Hydro-Boost is what we use most often for applications from sports cars on up to 1 ton Ford F350's and GM and Ram 3500 series Trucks. It is smaller than the 7" hot rod booster and can generate 1200 to 2000 psi at the calipers. It accepts master cylinders from 15/16 inch to 1-5/8 inch bore sizes. We stock replacements for vehicles that came with Hydro-Boost from the factory, but also make kits to adapt the Hydro-Boost for retro-fit on vehicles that were originally unassisted manual or vacuum boosted.

The Bosch Hydro-Boost is powered by pressure from the power steering pump and requires no vacuum, whereas vacuum brake boosters are usually powered by the vacuum created by your engine manifold. You hope to get 15 pounds or more of vacuum from the manifold, but if your engine is not producing vacuum, typically because of a larger cam shaft or other performance upgrade, or you have a diesel engine that makes no vacuum, you might try to chase vacuum with a vacuum pump or use a small bore master cylinder to spike up the pressure in the line. Customer feedback says that vacuum pumps do not keep up, are noisy, and burn out too quickly, and small bore master cylinders leave you with too long of a pedal throw because the volume that is needed to fill caliper pistons has been reduce. Big expensive caliper upgrades, will be more demanding of volume and pressure, not less, so reducing the volume that your master cylinder pushes by using a small bore master cylinder, and reducing the pressure in your line by going manual are the wrong direction to go in. A more powerful brake booster, like the Bosch Hydro-Boost, will assist you in pushing on a correctly sized master cylinder to get the right combination of pressure and volume of fluid that your calipers need for good braking and a good pedal feel.

The Hydro-Boost has a smaller footprint than most brake boosters, so fits almost anywhere a vacuum booster does. It provides great valve cover clearance, and exhaust pipe clearance when frame mounted. You have some options for customizing your kit, like choosing stainless braid PTFE vs. high pressure rubber power steering hoses, or a more stock looking master cylinder vs. a higher end Wilwood master. We have many direct replacements, our own kits for retrofit applications, and design new applications all the time.

Popular Hydro-Boost replacement and conversion upgrade applications are:

• GM Trucks • Ford Trucks • Dodge Ram Trucks • Toyota Trucks and Land Cruisers • Land Rover Defenders • Diesel vehicles that came with vacuum boosters and vacuum Pumps from the factory • Jeeps and Other Off-Road Vehicles with larger tires and axle swaps • Cadillacs • Jaguars • Buick, Pontiac, & Oldsmobile, especially G Bodies • Ferraris / Lamborghinis • Panteras • Muscle Cars - Chevelle, Camaro, Corvette, Nova, Tri-Five, Impala and other full size Chevys, Mustang, T-Bird, Crown Vic, Torino, Cobra, Charger, and Challenger • Hot Rods

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The Bosch Hydro-Max is what we use for Ford, GM, Chrylser, and International Medium Duty trucks, with Hydraulic brakes and master cylinders with bore sizes 1-3/4 to 2 inch. It comes on many buses and tow trucks, along with almost anything built on a 4500 and larger commercial chassis until air brakes come in. It works off the power steering pump like the Hydro-Boost, but instead of having an accumulator for backup, it has an electric motor that will continue to provide stopping assistance as long as there is a battery charge. International, GM, and other medium duty truck manufacturers will often Hydro-Max part numbers as obsolete, but we are be able to offer the because we have originals in stock, or reproduce the small parts that make them fit one vehicle or another.

Popular Hydro-Max Brake Booster, Master Cylinder, and Electric Motor applications are:

• Freightliner • Thomas Built Bus • GM Topkick, Kodiak, B7 • Delco-Hypower Conversion • GMC and Chevy 4500 5500 6500 and 7500 • Blue Bird Bus

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Wilwood Calipers, Discs, and Master Cylinders

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Master Cylinders for GM, Ford, & Mopar vehicles.

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Electric-Hydraulic master cylinders are similar to the Hydro-Boost in that they use hydraulic pressure as a source of power to help push a master cylinder. They might also be called "Electric Brake Boosters", "Electric Master Cylinders", or a "Powermaster", and use an electric motor along with other accessory parts to build up the hydraulic pressure instead of using the belt driven power steering pump source that the Hydro-Boost does. With the master cylinder will also be an electric motor pump to build up the pressure, a brake pressure switch or computer box to turn the pump on and off, an accumulator reservoir to store the pressure, and they may even have the abs block along with the wheel speed and transmission speed sensor all connected into it. There have been a few versions of electric-hydraulic master cylinders over the last few decades, and their fates have been mostly the same - you can't get a complete set of parts after 10-15 years. All of these accessories that build the pressure wear, they are expensive to replace, and, like most technology, the systems are abandoned after a few years for the newest and latest thing. We offer what we can for these systems, and then build our own conversion kits for vehicles where parts are obsolete, expensive, and not available. Popular electric-hydraulic brake master cylinder applications include:

• Hummer H2, H3 • Toyota 4Runner, Tacoma, and Land Cruiser • Lexus LX470, GX 470 • Lincoln Mark VII, T-bird Supercoupe • Buick Electra, Le Sabre, Reatta, and Riviera • Cadillac Deville, El Dorado, Fleetwood, Seville • Oldsmobile 98, Delta 88, Toronado, • Pontiac 6000, Bonneville • Land Rover Range Rover Electric ABS • Saab • Jaguar • Buick Grand National and Turbo Regal Powermaster

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Stainless Braided Power Steering Hoses and Fittings:

• 2 Stainless Braid 2 Rubber Hydro-Boost Hose Kits • 4 Stainless Braid Hydro-Boost Hose Kits • Reusable -6 AN Fittings • 14mm to -6 AN Fittings • 16 mm to -6 AN Fitting • 18 mm to -6 AN Fitting • 5/8ths to -6AN Fitting • 11/16ths to -6 AN Fitting • Spitter Fitting to -6AN (conversion from hose barb for a stainless line on the HB Return) • Crimped 16 and 18 mm Banjo Hoses, Crimped 90 Stainless Hoses, Crimped Straight Stainless Hoses

Hydro-Boostฎ and Hydro-Maxฎ are registered trademarks of the Robert Bosch Corp., we are a licensed dealer for their brake components, and resell and modify them for retrofit. GM, Ford, Chrysler, and other vehicle brand names are property of their respective owners, and we build replacement parts that support their vehicles on our own.