Supercharged111

I'm shocked to post this. This past weekend I got pad fade in my CMC Camaro the whole weekend. The car wasn't unsafe by any means, but the brake response just wasn't there! So disappointing to not be able to confidently late brake. Usually my foot hits a certain point and my eyeballs bug out of my head, but this track that I haven't driven since last July really kicked my brakes' ***. The Castrol SRF that I put in back in May was still rock solid though, just like last year it went a whole season . I'm thinking that the ST47 is the way ahead now, even in this low powered car. I just don't want to overwhelm the little 275mm RRs. Is there that much of a difference? How much relearning will my right foot need to do (since the left foot hasn't been trained yet)?

RX-Ben

Do you have cooling? I used 47s with pretty mediocre cooling at best and some other compounds (I think 45s) with no cooling and both had zero issues. Here is a useful chart:

Supercharged111

Yeah, spindle ducts up front and I double checked no tears in the hoses either. Looks like ST47 friction is higher, but negligible increase in heat resistance.

redtopz

I know people bash the Hawk pads here, but I find them great at the track. They can take more heat than most pads and don't fade and I have no problem with modulation. Of course a lot of it also comes down to your whole system's ability to manage the heat generated. Rotors play a big part in that. If you want to try hawks, I would try DTC 60's. 70's might have too much bite for your tires. The hawks are rated up to 1600 F IIRC.

Supercharged111

And fairly affordable with Hawk Bucks too. Question is how's their life span? They are indeed good to 1600 F.



I got the car with brand new DTC70/60 pads and killed the fronts after just 1 track day and 1 weekend. I wasn't exactly slow then either, so I can't blame driving. Can I assume that was a fluke? These ST43 just went 5 events and definitely have enough left for a practice day plus a weekend. At this particular track, which is faster than the others, the pads couldn't keep up. Having only run it once last year, and not then with the expectations of such dead consistent driving, I can't say what my impressions of the brakes were then. There is 1 other local track that I practiced until I was bored, then practiced some more. I can drive the car differently there (that's where I started to win) and it really raised my expectations for the finer points. With no time for a practice day at this faster track, I couldn't get to my Nth degree and a big part of it was the brakes. That said, I got lucky on Saturday and squeaked out a W in R1.

johnny c

what rotors are you running.
Is it a long pedal? meaning that entering the braking zone the pedal felt fine, then the more heat that got into the brakes the more the pedal started to disappear, this would repeat itself at cretin turns.

or was it fade... as the day went on the pedal just got worse and worse, after a rest they would be fine.

or was it cooking the pads, as the day went on they would fall off and never came back.

Supercharged111

Advance Auto rotors, I can get away with 2 pairs per season. Can you cook a pad to the point they don't come back? It wasn't a long pedal, it just took more pressure than usual to get them to work so unresponsive is the best way I can describe it.

johnny c

when you cook a pad they won't come back. if they do they will be substantially less effective. that is if you massively overheat them.


when the pedal gets hard, and the car stops slowing effectively. does that problem go away? if so when (the next turn, the next session, next day... ect)

redtopz

Here are my hawk pads after 3 days of racing at the Western Championships and 2 days racing at Buttonwillow plus some Friday testing. Still lots of life. I'm not saying Hawks are the greatest thing out there, but I have been using them pretty much exclusively for many years because they work for me. I have a set of Ferodo DS1.11 to try when these wear out.

Supercharged111

Johnny the problem used to go away after a long straight (after getting heated on a tight infield), but this last event that didn't happen. It seems to me the pad would have smoked or stunk if I cooked it that bad though, wouldn't it?

Redtop what % would you say remains on those pads? I ask because fixed calipers tend to have their pads start thicker than street pads.

redtopz

I'm guessing 60-65% remaining, but I'll take a pic of some new ones next to these and post them up for comparison.

Edit: I removed the pads and took some pics. Used ones are DTC70's with 5 races, 3 quals, and around 4 practice sessions. New ones are DS 1.11. The new ones paired together have 1" of pad between them (0.5" each). The used ones have some slight taper, but average 0.75" between the two. So I've used 25% of the pad material. However, since I won't use all the pad I'm going to say I have about 3 race weekends of life left in these pads (6 races). Total of 5-6 race weekends including practice and qual. Not bad for the thin pads.

FASTFATBOY

Pad knockback from the rear? Has the exact same symptoms.

Supercharged111

Those pads don't look bad at all given their use, especially with your identical weight and additional 100hp.

Fatboy what makes you say that? I know you know 4th gens too. I've had front knockback a lot this year, between the esses and rumbly exit curbs I came to anticipate it after a while. Never gave any thought to rear knock back, but I figure you bring it up for a reason. That said, this most recent phenomenon displayed itself over the entire course and not just on one small section.

FASTFATBOY

Owning a 3800 lb 4th Gen and trying to go fast in it makes you learn things about brakes.

I have never seen a pad that was "overcooked" that didn't work anymore.

If I "overcooked" a pad(overheated past it's temp limits) the pad would deposit itself(melt) onto the rotor and cause brake vibration.

I never overheated fluid in that car.

I also learned I could have too much cooling on the brakes. You want heat in the brakes and you want to keep it. If you cool the brakes too much they loose efficiency and that's also very hard on the rotor(heat cycling). If you have the correct pad on the car(heat range) cooling is only for the fluid in my opinion. Tape the ducts up and go run the car a session and see what happens. My Wilwood rotor life went WAY up when I taped up the ducts on cold days.

If you have knockback on the front you have a failing wheel bearing, the pad is not wearing flat to the rotor and this could also cause a good pedal but lack of braking.

Put some temp strips on the caliper and see where they go in temp. Alcon makes some nice ones.

EDIT

Also stuck caliper pins or binding ones will have a good pedal and not stop worth a damn.

Rear pad knockback cause a low pedal, even in the Z06 I pump the pedal on straights out of habit from the Camaro.

Supercharged111

I can try taping the ducts, the pads never made those deposits (so perhaps they weren't as hot as I thought) but I did get them once in the Z06 with inadequate pads.

There's really only 1 set of esses it knocks back and that was the first event of the season. The only other time I've gotten knock back after that was exiting onto a rumbly curb with the front loaded.

I do have temp strips, never really thought to use them as the fluid is always solid but it could definitely help point me in the right direction here. I imagine the SRF will give up after the pads.

Now that you mention it, my right rear killed the inside pad last year but left the outer intact. Last I checked this year, it wasn't doing that. Funny thing was the caliper wasn't seized last year, but I greased the sliders still to be sure. Probably give that a once over, see if it didn't happen again on this last race.