Imagine that you're at the track about to make a pass. You've just done your burnout and now you're staging. This is your time, all eyes are on you. This is your moment. Whether you have an 8-second car or an 11-second car, the track is clear and it's about to go down. Pre-stage bulbs trip first. Now you pull back on the handbrake to slow the roll. Then you release the clutch, just barely. You slowly creep forward. Staging bulbs light up and you go full throttle and put the car up on the 2-step or anti-lag. Flames are shooting out the exhaust and you're pumped! The lights come down, you get off the clutch pedal, BANG! The car goes nowhere..... It's a broken axle, and if you're into FWD drag racing you've probably been here before. Most of the time the axle gets the blame but usually it's the driver, and better yet it's usually the driver's technique. People are always talking about pre-loading, and the best way to pre-load a FWD MT car and get off the line quick is with a hydraulic handbrake.
There's a lot of benefits to a hydraulic handbrake over your standard E-brake. Most importantly it's easy to reach, and secondly it springs back on it's own so all you have to do is let it go. Every record-setting car uses a hydraulic handbrake hooked up to the rear brakes and there's a reason for it. Trying to use your E-brake as a substitute for a hydraulic handbrake isn't gonna cut it.
There are a couple of reasons that more street cars don't have hydraulic handbrakes. The first is that they usually don't latch, so when you pull up to lock the brake, it won't stay locked. An E-brake that doesn't lock isn't going to do you much good when parking on a hill now is it? The second reason is that they usually don't fit with the factory interior trim. In almost every situation you'll have to trim the plastic, but it's not that big of a deal. Check out this picture of a CNC Series 402 Handbrake using a KS tuned staging brake bracket:
We've toyed with the idea of creating a street kit with a latch, or building a locking latch for the series 402 hand brakes. What do you think?
-Reid
We sell a full kit as well as a bracket only. Here's a link to our Complete Staging Brake Kit: http://kstuned.com/products/honda-staging-hand-brake-kit
Here's a link to the bracket by itself:
http://kstuned.com/products/ks-tuned-honda-staging-brake-bracket