Dash Break Light coming on

I have a 97 SC1 that when I accelerate that the break light on the dash will come on. When the car is cold it will come on between 1 and 4th regardless of how hard I accelerate. once the car is warmed up, I have to accelerate really fast to get the light to come on. I have a manual trans. I saw this a couple of years ago but it went away before I could look into it. Now my car has 264+k miles on it and I am trying to keep it going for as long as I can.

Any ideas why the light is coming on? Is it telling me something about my breaks?

Your brake fluid is probably low. If it's low, you either have a leak or your brakes are worn out. Don't just fill up the reservoir and call it good. Have your brakes checked for wear.

Any car with that many miles on it should have its brakes looked at thoroughly. A brake job on a car with 90,000 miles might be just new pads, new shoes, and the brake fluid 'bled'. With over 250,000 I would advise its time to think about rebuilt calipers, newer rotors, new wheel cylinders, replacing the moving parts of the self-adjusters, and perhaps the handbrake cables, and a new master cylinder. If the brake hoses have any cracks in the outside rubber surface, or if the metal parts of the hose assembly is rusty - they should be replaced also.
Unfortunately this is labor intensive work. It would be cheap enough if you did the work yourself. If you have it done by a mechanic, it will be expensive. But the brakes are the most important system on the car.

does the light com on at idle? Probibly low fluid level. When you acellerate you create a sunami effect in your master cylender. If the fluid is that old, bleed it out and replace with new....May have water in it by this time

the light does not come on when idling.

That's for the suggestion. I will look into the cost of all parts to be replaced. I am technical enough to do the work myself so that is not an issue.

I think the pads are low causing the fluid to be low since the other day I had to hit the breaks a little harder than usual and they didn't feel right. Going to look at them now. Thanks people