ABS delete

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks traction control and ABS are more of a pain than anything. People survived years with no ABS or traction control. Hell for 100,000 miles I drove a car with no ABS, no Power Steering half the time, and no traction control; and I live in upstate new york about 5 miles from the canadian border. I can't stand the traction control. I can't even take off from a stop without it intervening and trying to stop my wheels from spinning. Maybe I want them to spin!!! I'm beginning to really hate computers and electronics in cars. I miss my old Buick that could have even the shift points adjusted just by shortening a cable.

traction control sucks doggie butt in the snow. I turn it off all the time in the winter. But there's a nice 'off' button right there on the dash. I like it in the rain, helps me get going quicker when I am trying to pull through a busy intersection.

GMFreak8 wrote:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks traction control and ABS are more of a pain than anything. People survived years with no ABS or traction control. Hell for 100,000 miles I drove a car with no ABS, no Power Steering half the time, and no traction control; and I live in upstate new york about 5 miles from the canadian border. I can't stand the traction control. I can't even take off from a stop without it intervening and trying to stop my wheels from spinning. Maybe I want them to spin!!! I'm beginning to really hate computers and electronics in cars. I miss my old Buick that could have even the shift points adjusted just by shortening a cable.

(edit) I have definately have had my share of sticky situations in the snow, but I never really had a problem getting myself out of a spot until I got stuck in a major storm and the traction control was trying to do its thing. In hindsight I should have just turned it off, but I had just bought the Riv and I thought it would help. The TC and ABS kept kicking in when I wanted the tires to spin a little to try and rock the car back and forth. It made it so much harder, actually I think the most damage to the sending was done that night because the next year it died on me.

deekster_caddy wrote:

traction control sucks doggie butt in the snow. I turn it off all the time in the winter. But there's a nice 'off' button right there on the dash. I like it in the rain, helps me get going quicker when I am trying to pull through a busy intersection.

Yeah the off button has come in handy lately. The ABS sensor in the wheel bearing is defective, so the traction control constantly thinks I'm slipping. As a result I can be going down the road and it limits power and you can hear and feel the ABS kicking on.

You can just pull the ABS fuse and save some hassle. But better off to get it fixed right. A shop with the appropriate scan tool can tell you which sensor has been throwing the code.

deekster_caddy wrote:

You can just pull the ABS fuse and save some hassle. But better off to get it fixed right. A shop with the appropriate scan tool can tell you which sensor has been throwing the code.

Yeah, I bring it in tomorrow to get it checked out. It has to be the wheel bearing on the drivers side, it seems to be the only wheel the ABS is engaging on? Is that possible?

GMFreak8 wrote:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks traction control and ABS are more of a pain than anything. People survived years with no ABS or traction control. Hell for 100,000 miles I drove a car with no ABS, no Power Steering half the time, and no traction control; and I live in upstate new york about 5 miles from the canadian border. I can't stand the traction control. I can't even take off from a stop without it intervening and trying to stop my wheels from spinning. Maybe I want them to spin!!! I'm beginning to really hate computers and electronics in cars. I miss my old Buick that could have even the shift points adjusted just by shortening a cable.

I'm going to stick up for ABS, having owned 6 cars prior without it. I've been in accidents where the breaks locked up, and I've lost control of cars in snow trying to stop suddenly. But in the Riviera, ABS has saved me a couple times already. Simply, the computer can pump the breaks, measure wheel speed, and allow the driver to control the car better during a skid or hard stop - much faster and more accurately than a person can. In a split-second situation, I would rather speed my time thinking, steering, doing whatever it takes to minimize the danger. ABS helps me to do that.

Traction control, I'm not so sure it's as useful, or at least I don't detect it kicking in as much. But in the rain it can help keep the car on the road, although I think the system could be better.

I have no problem with computers in cars. It helps the engine to make great power, yet get decent economy at the same time. I like that the technology in the Riv is fairly simple in how it works, generally reliable, and unlike some ECUs, ours can be customized using the right tool (try that in a Honda). Computers also can make a car more safe to drive. For the track, I could understand disabling certain features, but for daily driving, one of the reasons I bought my Riviera was because of its updated technology compared to my past cars.

my old car had abs. but it couldnt save me going too hot into a decreasing radius corner and nailing the brakes when i noticed a car parked on the shoulder of this exit. with the wheels turned into the corner the wheels locked hard,and i slid into the barrier...but it did save my bacon in the straight sections of road....

You could get an ABS delete manifold that retains the factory brake lines, no plumbing.

http://forums.modulardepot.com/showpost.php?p=898328&postcount=88

oh man! dats hip! how do i get one?

oops sorry i found the place. that would save alot of work for sure.

ABS delete? Why in the world would you do that???

After reading every entry here I am still baffled, unless someone is a professional driver, no distractions or perhaps preparing a dedicated light weight drag race car, or flat out broke and cant get a new hub/sensor this idea is inexcusable.

Doing it because it reduces clutter?!? or makes it easier to reach around the engine? How often is your car that broken where it makes a difference.

I have actually ran ABS equipped cars in events/races where the cars are mostly destroyed during the evenings fun , I mourn the moment when the ABS light comes on as I tear up the car.

Look up Crash-a-Rama

Trac control is another story.

Sorry, rant over

read backwards.

Just did and modified, look up

As for different components... NO changes to the booster or master are needed.

IF I had to disable the system and did not consider the clutter to be some kind of liability, I would simply unplug and ignore.

just did .i still prefer non abs. it all boils down to the driver. living in Vegas with .69" of rain in feb. don't need em. electrical gremlins?dont need them either. when it rains,slow down!

I wish my ABS/TC worked. My other car has it and I got really use to having it there. I never realized how well ABS works until it went out on my truck, then I found out just how easy it is to slide in it.

I recently owned a 05 Monte Carlo factory delete ABS.
4 wheel disk, working properly, nice sticky good year tires.

Most terrifying thing I ever owned, the car was designed around the technology but for whatever reasons it is offered without.

It would stop on a dime under 40mph but if something happened over 40 the rears felt over dampened and would not pull the car down, the net result was locked front tires and wet undies from the geezer that just turned across your path. dry or wet.

I am no wuss, nor someone without a clue, I have 10+ years dirt circle track experience.

For more then one reason I simply did not like my "dream car" Sold it within 7 months of purchase.

Electrical gremlins? Try driving a 60s car full time, then its mechanical gremlins coupled with less comfort. Personally I love a car loaded with buttons.

i agree moldymac. i did my share of sliding back east. and to be frank,the occasional wet in Vegas is more likely to cause a slide than the wet back east. the streets bake in the summer and most of the year. with very little run off,the oily deposits have nowhere to go. when it does finally rain,the streets are turned into veritable skating rinks. in conditions like these i lower the pressure in my tires and slow the f..k down. it helps.
ps. installing a proportioning valve on a abs delete also helps a ton.

I'll agree that good drivers/owners don't really need ABS a lot... If you have good tires, good brakes, and you've trained yourself for threshold braking, you may never really need it. I've put 20,000 miles on this car and only tripped the ABS once, briefly, in a rainy panic-stop.

On the other hand, the average driver is a mouth-breathing moron... I actually had an argument one night with some idiot who insisted that no such thing as threshold braking was possible - well, obviously not for him!

The final argument is that if it only saves your bacon once, it's worth it - as long as it doesn't cause you to rack up in snow...

robotennis61 wrote:

i...in conditions like these i lower the pressure in my tires and slow the f..k down. it helps. PS - installing a proportioning valve on a abs delete also helps a ton.

I've had that thought myself, Robo. Looking beneath the master, it seems like they dropped the proportioning valve as though they didn't need it with ABS. However, that would probably be illegal or criminally negligent, considering how often the ABS systems fail.

Also, I can't find a picture of it, but the '98 manual does state that: "Two valves are in line with the rear brake pipes, and limit the hydraulic pressure to the rear brakes after a predetermined master cylinder pressure has been reached. The proportioning valves improve front to rear brake balancing during normal braking." I'm guessing that 2 separate valves are needed because they have to come after the ABS/Trac unit, whereas the old one-piece valves would be between the master and the ABS...

Quote :

I'll agree that good drivers/owners don't really need ABS... If you have good tires, good brakes, and you've trained yourself for threshold braking, you may never really need it. I've put 20,000 miles on this car and only tripped the ABS once, briefly, in a rainy panic-stop.

You guys out west just aren't often in a situation where you need to use ABS. But what about that one time you do?...

It doesn't matter how good a driver you think you are - when you're coming over a steep, curved, snow-covered hill at 15 mph, and the car looses traction - that's when you keep on the brake and let ABS do its thing. There's no time to concentrate on threshold braking; you need to steer the car. When this exact situation happened to me a few years ago, I believe ABS is the only thing that kept me on the road and not in the ditch.

Personally, I'd rather admit that I'm not the greatest driver in the world and have ABS there when I need it, than to assume I'm the best driver there ever was and end up paying the price.

2 things:

-You can believe me or not, but I don't have to "concentrate" on threshold braking... Like any other part of driving, it becomes a reflex - even in sudden situations, my foot slows down and feels the pedal.

-You don't seem to have read my capitulation in the last paragraph: "The final argument is that if it only saves your bacon once, it's worth it - as long as it doesn't cause you to rack up in snow..."

I have a feel for my car at all times,I do believe that 50% of the time I could have stopped faster without help, racing will train you for that but there are lots of variables involved here, a short list of things that interfere with my concentration.

Phone
Food
Fatigue
Radio
Driving in my overstuffed ,under shocked Buick
Other distracted drivers
Etc.

I will take any help to hopefully increase my odds while I am being stupid.


If this discussion was how to stop the spin limitation even with the switch off .....

Quote :

2 things...

2 more things:

• You may have good enough reflexes to threshold brake automatically, but can you do it better and faster than ABS can?

• What if one wheel is gripping more than the others (like when two wheels are off road)? Can you threshold brake each wheel independently like ABS can?

I did read your final argument before, but you were also saying that a good driver doesn't need ABS. I was responding to that part. We don't want good drivers thinking ABS is useless, right?

Threshold braking is a great concept that ABS can perform more effectively than a human - most of the time. Like other safety equipment technology, ABS has its minor drawbacks (seat belts can trap you in a burning car, and airbags can deliver a fatal blow). There are still people disabling these features as well, but does it really improve their safety as they believe it does?

No, I can't do it independently. And again, I was kind of playing devil's advocate in my first post. I said that the average driver needs it because we do very little training in this country, but I also said that anyone can need it at least once, and one save makes it worth it...

I did qualify it because I put a bumper into a rock next to a driveway I was turning into in the snow, because the ABS kept me rolling on my understeered course. Without it, my turned, locked-up wheels would have snowplowed and stopped me... Just covering all the bases.