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I just spent an hour writing a lengthy response that I unfortunately don't have the time to recreate. I'll try to come back and write more when time allows, but I'm in a bit of a crunch right now.
While I understand your reluctance and apprehension about spending $4k on a brake kit, what that money will buy you is a final solution for your issues. No more evaporating pads, no more cracked discs in two days, no more constant bleeding, no more lost brakes at the end of a straight. All of the things you're doing right now are unfortunately band aids. We had about 14 customers with our brake kits on their cars the last time I went to VIR this summer including C5Z, C6Z, C7Z, C6 ZR1, C7 ZR1. To my knowledge, not one of them had to change a pad, a disc, bleed brakes, or even look at the their brakes over the two day event: https://www.essexparts.com/news-blog...orvette-museum
You said you left the track with no brakes, and you titled the post "sick and tired of cooking the brakes." Then you go on to say that you don't need a brake kit, because other people don't seem to need them. What has worked for others isn't your situation with your car and your driving on the tracks you're visiting. At what point do you draw the line? How much money have you spent on discs, pads, fluid, and brake ducts? How many hours have you sunk into working on your brakes, and how much would that cost if you paid yourself a fair wage for all of that time?
While our brake kits certainly aren't cheap, they are worth every penny because they eliminate all of the issues above. I have never once had a customer tell me that our brakes aren't worth what they paid for them, and they tend to hold their value well. In most cases they change hands on the used market for about 70% of what they cost new. If you spend $4k on our kit, you expect $2800 back from them in a few years. The last one I saw sold for about that much in a few days, and that is typical: https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...for-c5-c6.html
That means you sunk $1200 into them for their usage over those years. That's less than what it will cost you for one set of those BFG Rival S tires. Obviously you'll still need spare pads, discs, etc, but your consumption on those items will drop dramatically. You are also going to eliminate all of those hours of messing with your brakes. You'll have have a consistent car with brakes that behave the same on the first lap of the first session as they do on the last lap of the last session. You will therefore drop lap times, and it will allow you to focus on other aspects of your driving.
YegC5Z06's comment below is pretty much standard for our customers:
"I have a c5z. Tried high temp fluids and pads. The brakes were only good for a few laps. After a trip to the gravel pit due to the brakes, I decided to bite the bullet and picked up a used set of ap racing bbk. Best decision I've made. I regret wasting my money on trying to make the stock set up work, and not getting these sooner."
Just about every one of our customers went through what you're dealing with now. Some of them have commented in this thread. All of them tell us our brake kit is one of the best mods they've ever made to their car. All of them say that they should have not messed around as long as they did and went for a final solution, which is what we offer. "Need" is a relative word, and it depends on your pain threshold. Based on this post, it sounds like the headaches of dealing with your brakes are catching up with you. While there is some investment required, one of our brake kits can eliminate all of that permanently. If you'd like to discuss the correct kit for your car, please contact me. I'm happy to chat. We've helped a LOT of vette owners on this forum, and I will personally guarantee you that we can make your brakes something that you no longer have to worry about, or even think about again. Thanks for listening.
If I get some time later, I'll post more about what we've found with brake ducts. In summary, don't waste your time fooling with them. They're more trouble than they're worth on a street car, and can actually hurt more than they help!
I just spent an hour writing a lengthy response that I unfortunately don't have the time to recreate. I'll try to come back and write more when time allows, but I'm in a bit of a crunch right now.
While I understand your reluctance and apprehension about spending $4k on a brake kit, what that money will buy you is a final solution for your issues. No more evaporating pads, no more cracked discs in two days, no more constant bleeding, no more lost brakes at the end of a straight. All of the things you're doing right now are unfortunately band aids. We had about 14 customers with our brake kits on their cars the last time I went to VIR this summer including C5Z, C6Z, C7Z, C6 ZR1, C7 ZR1. To my knowledge, not one of them had to change a pad, a disc, bleed brakes, or even look at the their brakes over the two day event: https://www.essexparts.com/news-blog...orvette-museum
You said you left the track with no brakes, and you titled the post "sick and tired of cooking the brakes." Then you go on to say that you don't need a brake kit, because other people don't seem to need them. What has worked for others isn't your situation with your car and your driving on the tracks you're visiting. At what point do you draw the line? How much money have you spent on discs, pads, fluid, and brake ducts? How many hours have you sunk into working on your brakes, and how much would that cost if you paid yourself a fair wage for all of that time?
While our brake kits certainly aren't cheap, they are worth every penny because they eliminate all of the issues above. I have never once had a customer tell me that our brakes aren't worth what they paid for them, and they tend to hold their value well. In most cases they change hands on the used market for about 70% of what they cost new. If you spend $4k on our kit, you expect $2800 back from them in a few years. The last one I saw sold for about that much in a few days, and that is typical: https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...for-c5-c6.html
That means you sunk $1200 into them for their usage over those years. That's less than what it will cost you for one set of those BFG Rival S tires. Obviously you'll still need spare pads, discs, etc, but your consumption on those items will drop dramatically. You are also going to eliminate all of those hours of messing with your brakes. You'll have have a consistent car with brakes that behave the same on the first lap of the first session as they do on the last lap of the last session. You will therefore drop lap times, and it will allow you to focus on other aspects of your driving.
YegC5Z06's comment below is pretty much standard for our customers:
"I have a c5z. Tried high temp fluids and pads. The brakes were only good for a few laps. After a trip to the gravel pit due to the brakes, I decided to bite the bullet and picked up a used set of ap racing bbk. Best decision I've made. I regret wasting my money on trying to make the stock set up work, and not getting these sooner."
Just about every one of our customers went through what you're dealing with now. Some of them have commented in this thread. All of them tell us our brake kit is one of the best mods they've ever made to their car. All of them say that they should have not messed around as long as they did and went for a final solution, which is what we offer. "Need" is a relative word, and it depends on your pain threshold. Based on this post, it sounds like the headaches of dealing with your brakes are catching up with you. While there is some investment required, one of our brake kits can eliminate all of that permanently. If you'd like to discuss the correct kit for your car, please contact me. I'm happy to chat. We've helped a LOT of vette owners on this forum, and I will personally guarantee you that we can make your brakes something that you no longer have to worry about, or even think about again. Thanks for listening.
If I get some time later, I'll post more about what we've found with brake ducts. In summary, don't waste your time fooling with them. They're more trouble than they're worth on a street car, and can actually hurt more than they help!
Originally Posted by STANG KILLA SS
well $hit that sure is convincing. even after what i mentioned via PM.
having brakes as reliable as they are in iRacing SURE would be amazing.
STANG KILLA SS,
I'd take the advise from Jeff and just ante up for the Pro-Radical kit. I have the CP9668 caliper kit on my 2013 Camaro 1LE and it has been by far the best mod I could have done for my car. I can out brake so many other cars (corvettes included) in my 3,875 lb tank because of my Essex AP Racing BBK. I drive hard for the entire 20 minute sessions during HPDE and my brake pedal never changes. I don't bleed the brakes at the track, I don't change pads at the track, I don't worry about rotors at the track. I just get in and drive with CONFIDENCE in my brakes. I even had another friend drive my car with me at two different events this past year so the car was seeing 40 minute sessions on track with only a stop to change drivers in between. He is just as aggressive as I am and the brakes felt the same at the end as they did at the beginning (better at the end actually since they were warmed up). My friend even got out of the car after his second session in the car being able to drive it harder and first thing he said was "you have brakes for days". He told me at another event that I spoiled him with my car because any other car he has been in since then he has not liked the brakes after driving mine.
Also as a note I only have brake ducts that route air from the front lower grill and just dump it into the wheel wheel area. I do not have brake ducts routed to the rotor. And I still have never felt one hint of brake fade.
I have been researching corvettes for well over a year now as I'm looking to get one specifically for track use (much lighter weight than my Camaro). When I do find my Corvette, what ever brake kit is on it (stock, stoptech, brembo, etc...) will be coming off and an Essex AP racing Pro-Radical kit will be going on it. It will be the first mod I do before any other mod.
If you want to go back to enjoying your track days and driving with confidence get the Essex AP kit. If you want to get frustrated and waste time and money at the track with creating your own solution then keep trying to piece it together. But eventually I think you will end up with an Essex AP BBK.
Once you have the Essex Pro-Radical brake kit on your car and drive on track with it one time, you will shake your head and ask yourself why you did not listen and do it sooner.
Good luck with your brake resolutions. Once you get it figured out you will go back to smiling at the track again and just enjoy driving!
well $hit that sure is convincing. even after what i mentioned via PM.
having brakes as reliable as they are in iRacing SURE would be amazing.
You need to patent those ducts! I would venture to say that our brake kits are definitely as close to you can get to brakes on an iRacing level....always the same. As Nick S mentioned above, you just don't have to worry about your brakes anymore. They are the final solution when all else has failed and you're tired of wasting your time and money on lesser solutions.
Also FYI...in the past few weeks the AP Racing Radi-CAL won the following championships:
IMSA GTLM on the C7R Corvette (in October)
GT500 on a Super GT NSX with Jenson Button driving (Japan last week)
NASCAR Cup championship yesterday on Joey Logano's car.
You will be in good company if you can swing the up-front investment.
Nick and Jritt while i definitely agree AP is the ultimate fix (with the ultimate price)
i still have this nagging thorn in my side of SO many of my fellow trackers, able to do what im asking on stock brakes. and stock c5 brakes non the less.
id really like to figure out the actual problem first (learning and knowledge is a big part of this game, and i actually enjoy that part) even if in the end i win the lottery and order a AP kit anyway.
Nick and Jritt while i definitely agree AP is the ultimate fix (with the ultimate price)
i still have this nagging thorn in my side of SO many of my fellow trackers, able to do what im asking on stock brakes. and stock c5 brakes non the less.
id really like to figure out the actual problem first (learning and knowledge is a big part of this game, and i actually enjoy that part) even if in the end i win the lottery and order a AP kit anyway.
Stock C5/base C6 brakes are arguably better than stock C6 Z06 Brakes. If I personally had to choose between base or Z51 C6 brakes vs. the C6 Z06 brakes, I would NOT choose the C6 Z06 brakes. They are a hot mess, both literally and figuratively.
Your primary issue is with the discs. First, the discs need to have enough thermal mass to store heat. Our 355mm systems have proven that a properly designed 355x32mm disc is plenty of mass for a stock-motor C6Z. We have tons of them out there who have won races and championships on them. Then they need a design that can evacuate that heat (shape of internal vanes, number of internal vanes). The problem with OEM-style discs is that they're inefficient. They don't flow much air, because the vane style is not designed for that purpose. When you spin one side in the wrong direction, things get even uglier!
If your discs are running hot, everything else 'downstream' of your discs will be running hot.
Hot discs= hot pads
Hot pads= Hot caliper pistons
Hot pistons= Hot calipers and hot fluid
Proper brake ducts are one potential solution to bring disc temps down, but that's really tough on a street car. On the race cars we deal with, they typically have multiple 4" ducts dumping a large amount of air in the proper locations. That's much easier to accomplish when that goal is built into the design of the car, and you're not fighting for packaging space with 82 different coolers, wiper washer bottles, etc. On these cars, the bottleneck is the pinched duct on the inner fender liner. Even if you were picking up a ton of air on the front of the car, that point is like blasting a fire hose into a drinking straw. You just can't get move enough air through there to offset the plate holding heat on the inner disc face. It just doesn't work that well in our experience.
Going bigger on discs increases thermal mass, in addition to increasing efficiency. Stepping up from a 355x32mm to our 372x34mm disc is a fairly big jump. It's the difference between being able to handle 550 WHP to being able to handle 800 WHP. The 372's weigh 4 lbs. more, and go from a 72 to 84 vanes. They can simply absorb and shed more heat vs. their smaller brothers. The tradeoff is unsprung weight (there are always tradeoffs). That said, if you don't want to touch, change, or mess with your brakes again, a 372mm disc is going to give you more of that than a smaller disc. Maintenance frequency goes down when you go bigger if all else is held equal.
After the discs are addressed, the other complementary benefits of the caliper come into play. The thicker pads found in some aftermarket calipers help keep heat out of the pistons and fluid. Stainless steel pistons do a much better job than aluminum at keeping heat out of the brake fluid. Ventilated pistons allow air to flow behind the pad backing plate and into the pistons. An aftermarket caliper many times has a design that is more open to airflow and/or has more surface area 'touching air' that can radiate heat. All of these features stack up to keep heat at bay.
All of the above shows why brakes are typically referred to as a system. The components all work together to combat heat. Having one shoddy component in the system is enough to lose the effectiveness of the others. We've had customers ask us in the past, "Can I run XYZ discs with your calipers? I found a set cheap." By doing that, you're severely limiting how much benefit you gain from all of the brake components 'downstream' of the discs.
Having been referenced a couple of times (thank you very much) figured I would weigh in a bit here.
I'll be fairly blunt here....by the story line given it appears you're going through things at a fairly alarming rate. That leads me to believe you're using the brakes far too much. And by your own admission you drag them which is not helping a bit. The car appears to have ample ducting and many folks do very well on the one piece 14" rotor in similar use. To your defense; if you're continually the fastest car out there in the run groups you're more than welcome to counter that and perhaps you are simply at the limit of your car far sooner than all the others. It's really gotta be one or the other to me: you're either bad fast and out of track for your speed or new enough that you're far over using the braking system.
As for making changes I'm a little reluctant to say "buy a Wilwood caliper kit or BBK" and you're problems will be gone without getting a bit more info. Like others have suggested and you yourself have said; others are doing fine. If you are at the top of the heap a move to a slightly larger and better format 14" front and rear kit could be money well spent. On the other hand while improvements would be had anyone selling brakes who tells you that you couldn't do the same damage (at greater cost) to an alternative system knows better. Let's attack the issue from more than just your wallet.
Two biggest issues on the brakes are pretty simple: weight and speed.There really isn't much more to generated heat than that. What you do with it and how you manage it is key. The lighter the car or slower the speed...the less abuse. The only alternative is a larger heat sink and improved management of that heat as others have said. After market (Wilwood and others) rotors are all designed so shed heat more efficiently than a stock rotor. But as you may not know they cost 3X as much also. Alternate calipers do the same; the oe parts look great in the showroom but have proven to not be all that on track. Keeping heat out with ss pistons, thermlock insulated pistons and even Ti heat shields are money well spent. Your choice of pad is grounded in proven product so I don't see a huge change there.
Perplexing post here. From a driving perspective my first suggestion would be to slow down a bit on the straights and practice on lighter braking and carrying more corner speed. A few weekends at 75-80% see how things are wearing. Your straight speed will come up naturally and once comfortable with corner speed I'd bet you find you're no longer braking nearly as hard as you did.
09 C6 Z06
stock suspension and brakes.
Rival S 315/335
Raybestos ST-43 pads
Centric blanks
Motul 600 bleed every 2-3 track days. (although it seems to stay firm for only about 1)
had another track day yesterday. 65* cool air. not even a hot texas track day.
even after the cool down lap my brakes are litterally smoking when i come back in the pits.
im running full cooling ducts from the fog lights to the rotors with race spindle ducts
on the final session of the day after a hard 20 minutes my pedal went straight to the floor. lost all brakes.
i also seem to be warping and heat crazing rotors every 2 events.
im not a threshold or hard braker. and all the other vettes with NO added cooling werent having any issues. there running on stock brakes and useless stock ducts.
thoughts? ideas?
What's up with the spindle ducting plate being open? That's a lot of ducting just to let air escape out the inside of the spindle without going to the rotor.
What's up with the spindle ducting plate being open? That's a lot of ducting just to let air escape out the inside of the spindle without going to the rotor.
? I'm talking about the aluminum spindle backing plate inlet not being sealed off to force air into the rotor/brake area versus unsealed and it escaping toward the center of the car. Could be an easy solution for his issue.
His rotor is missing in that picture. When the rotor is installed, that opening faces the center of the rotor hat and the air flows from the center and through the vanes in the rotor. It is the same thing you showed in your pic.
If stangkilla is dragging his brakes, I’d bet that is a/the cause of his woes.
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (track prepared)
C7 of Year Winner (track prepared) 2019
Originally Posted by Jfryjfry
His rotor is missing in that picture. When the rotor is installed, that opening faces the center of the rotor hat and the air flows from the center and through the vanes in the rotor. It is the same thing you showed in your pic.
If stangkilla is dragging his brakes, I’d bet that is a/the cause of his woes.
I'm pretty sure he knows that, from the picture it appears to me that the duct isn't actually attached to the backing plate inlet.
as in you can stick your finger through the hole and touch the control arms.
His rotor is missing in that picture. When the rotor is installed, that opening faces the center of the rotor hat and the air flows from the center and through the vanes in the rotor. It is the same thing you showed in your pic.
If stangkilla is dragging his brakes, I’d bet that is a/the cause of his woes.
Issue might be dragging but the gaping hole has nothing to do with whether or not the rotor is installed.
LG your eyes arent fooling you this quantum kit does have a small opening (angle really exajurates it) that DOES allow air coming in tube, not to be forced threw rotor, that has always bugged me. sadly my TIG cant do aluminum
ive long thought about trying to shape a piece of aluminum to fill that opening. would have to do small screws or rivets to hold in place.
and im not dragging the brakes. i knew using those terms were gonna bite me. what i was trying to say im not a late /deep /hard/threshold braker, where i see jesus, count a second, then brake for all shes got.
i did that ONCE my first time at a new track learning it. the car told me REAL quick it couldnt handle that and i calmed down, went back to my old technique and everything was fine (lap times droped too from smoothness)
Todd i am definatly not naturally talented at this, but i am typically top 3 fastest in my groups, and when i catch cars, im usually braking later than them. so maybe im not quite the pansy braker i thought i was. but im definatly still not a threshold braker with a bunch of wiggle etc. im just smooth and progressive on the pedal and keep the car composed.
Last edited by STANG KILLA SS; 11-20-2018 at 04:25 PM.
LG your eyes arent fooling you this quantum kit does have a small opening (angle really exajurates it) that DOES allow air coming in tube, not to be forced threw rotor, that has always bugged me. sadly my TIG cant do aluminum
ive long thought about trying to shape a piece of aluminum to fill that opening. would have to do small screws or rivets to hold in place.
and im not dragging the brakes. i knew using those terms were gonna bite me. what i was trying to say im not a late /deep /hard/threshold braker, where i see jesus, count a second, then brake for all shes got.
i did that ONCE my first time at a new track learning it. the car told me REAL quick it couldnt handle that and i calmed down, went back to my old technique and everything was fine (lap times droped too from smoothness)
Todd i am definatly not naturally talented at this, but i am typically top 3 fastest in my groups, and when i catch cars, im usually braking later than them. so maybe im not quite the pansy braker i thought i was. but im definatly still not a threshold braker with a bunch of wiggle etc. im just smooth and progressive on the pedal and keep the car composed.
We sell the plates separately if you want to give them a whirl, before exploring more costly options. What are your alignment settings? Twitchiness under late braking can be settled by running slight rear toe in.
funny you mention that. im in the process of added some rear toe in as we speak. i used the stupid pfadt guide thats suggests 1/16" rear toe OUT. just had a track day and boy was that terrible!
Last edited by STANG KILLA SS; 11-20-2018 at 05:56 PM.
funny you mention that. im in the process of added some rear toe in as we speak. i used the stupid pfadt guide thats suggests 1/16" rear toe OUT. just had a track day and boy was that terrible!
Look something like this? lol
3/16 Total Toe In Rear should work out a lot better for you.
Last edited by Dane@LGmotorsports; 11-20-2018 at 06:32 PM.
11-19-2018, 09:19 AM
I'll try to come back and write more when time allows, but I'm in a bit of a crunch right now. 
I would venture to say that our brake kits are definitely as close to you can get to brakes on an iRacing level....always the same. As Nick S mentioned above, you just don't have to worry about your brakes anymore. They are the final solution when all else has failed and you're tired of wasting your time and money on lesser solutions. 
and i calmed down, went back to my old technique and everything was fine (lap times droped too from smoothness)
