STANG KILLA SS

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?

ckchan10

dmichaels

ckchan10

I have Wilwood 6 piston fronts and stock C6Z 4 piston rears. At first I went with cheap rotors just to make sure it solved the problem before I spent more $$. After I confirmed the problem was solved then I went with 2-piece. They are the 14" so you can use any rotor that is a direct replacement for stock (at least for C6Z..not sure about C5s). I am an instructor also and it is EASILY the best money I've ever spent. The relief of not worrying about brakes is priceless! I spent an extra ~$300 for the thermlock pistons but again well worth it (for me anyway). Only downside is that it doesn't really stop the car any better than stock..but does offer consistent braking, long lasting, and reliability. Would not hesitate to go with Wilwood again. I lot of people talk up other brands (which is probably deserved), but they are also much more expensive. Just my opinon. Good luck! -Danny

63Corvette

I use and recommend Stoptech BBK. These are on my C5Z street car so if I really wanted to track full time (RACE car) I would recommend the AP Racing Radi-cal BBK of JRitt@Essex..https://www.essexparts.com/essex-des...ion-brake-kits

YEGC5Z06

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.

fatbillybob

Stoptech SCCA T1 kit. Rotors last 1.5 years plus. Pads 1/2 year. Zero fade. Bleed fluid only out of guilt for not doing it.

KNSBrakes

We have a # of C6Z customers who track with not that much issue on the stock brakes even with race tires.

Warped discs or brake judder are typically a pad issue from overheating. ST43's are a mid range compound and a padlet so there may be some headroom there.
Centric discs are curved vane and 1 side is going backwards
No pedal is fluid boiling.and Motul shows to lose a good bit once it's 'wet'

The C6Z brakes are not great - but they are 355x32mm rotors and a pretty sizable 6 piston caliper. You may want to experiment some more.

STANG KILLA SS

ive got a KNS tab open as we speak with the KNS/DBA $95 rotors. thinking about trying them, and switching to SRF fluid as everyone says its actually worth the quite a bit extra cost.

what about brake lines near the headers? is this an issue (preheating fluid), i do have my headers wrapped as high as i could reach from under the car, but thats only barely upstream of the merge collector.

crimlwC6

Call TCE Todd. He is an expert, honest and also a racer.

Bill Dearborn

I agree give Todd at TCE a call. He set me up with the Wilwood kits for my C6Z brakes.

I found ducting the cooling air from the fog lights doesn't work all that well. I suspect there are two reasons for that. First, the air flow around the front fascia doesn't build up much air pressure in that area. Second, the convoluted path the air needs to take to get to the brake rotor restricts the air flow sufficiently that you don't get any improvement over the stock inlet. It may actually be better to add some baffling under the front fascia to help direct air into the stock inlet.

Bill

STANG KILLA SS

ive been thinking about doing some leaf blower testing so see how much if any air is getting to my rotors.

would a splitter create more pressure above it?

BrunoTheMellow

Definitely.

dmichaels

Correct, that's why a splitter works actually... high pressure above, corresponding low pressure below.
C5Z's have flow issues as well? I'm working my C5Z build, and I'd planned on using the OEM inlets with ducting extensions to the rotor

crimlwC6

You have a singular problem that needs multiple solutions. Your problem is heat. The problem can be fixed, in part, by brakes that handle heat better [heat sink], extracting heat better [I agree with Bill that trying to add air into the area is not very helpful], and driving better. Better driving being spending as little time as necessary actually braking; this is an often overlooked and as a result people spending 5k on a problem that might not need nearly so much. You're problem will not be cured by a splitter, although it may cool your brakes, slightly. Fortunately, your problem has been fixed before by others before like Bill and I. We called TCE Todd.

STANG KILLA SS

i would tend to agree, alot of peoples fix is to spend a bunch of money. in this case $3500+ on some super duper BBK. i dont think thats needed here. especially knowing how many are doing this on stock brakes.

lobsterroboto

SRF is very worth it.

I would recommend using SRF and experimenting with pad compounds and possibly evaluate exactly HOW you are using the brakes. Not sure how fast you are but I speculate you're using a lot of the brakes. Are the nannies on at all? not sure on the C6 but if active handling is on at all I would assume it's using up brakes.

Sometimes a sacrifice on pad preference in favor of longer life is a good play.

just some thoughts.

STANG KILLA SS

thanks, i have SRF ordered. i think this will cure my pedal to the floor issue by the boiling temp moving up. but not my rotor/brake heat issue

im definatly a pansy on the brakes i never get any wiggle, i never brake that hard. im more of a light dragger, letting the pad do the work vs hard pressure.
i have my SWPS unpluged to disable all active handling and TCS.
i dont like the ST-43 pads and definatly plan to change. i wonder if a lower friction pad (less heat creation?) would be better for me?

here is a vid to show my easy driving style

anth115

Hey, just wanted to highlight two things:
1. Above you mentioned that you're a 'light dragger' on the brakes. I think this puts more heat into the system than harder but shorter braking, or at least shortens the time without brakes applied where the system can try to cool itself off. May be something to look into.
2. What you describe sounds like a seized caliper to me as the stock system should be plenty strong to function in the conditions you described, especially with the ducting mods. On the oem PBR calipers (and most OEM calipers), the dust boots around the caliper pistons harden and eventually crack/tear/disintegrate. Either the broken boot itself or the dust/debris that is allowed in afterwards will eventually prevent the caliper from retracting.

Even if it isn't fully seized, being slow to retract is enough to cause the overheating you described too. Also, as your front pads get thinner, more heat gets into the caliper/system so that's when this is more likely to occur. It happened to me over the summer and while it was obvious once I got in there to do pads, I was able to diagnose this with a simple $15 laser thermometer gun from amazon - one caliper was much hotter than the other. You can rebuild the OEM calipers yourself for about $10 in parts (new seals from Rockauto) and DRM sells stainless steel pistons that are more resilient to heat soaking too. It's a bit labour intensive though, so the first time will probably take a few hours. If you're lucky enough to have a caliper repair shop nearby, they'll often do it for about $50 aside too.

For me who does ~5 HPDE weekends a year at a track that's easy on brakes, this solution works. But if you go more frequently, this might get old pretty quick, and the Stoptech/Wilwood BBK's would be the better long-term fix.

STANG KILLA SS

great right up. yeah i try to do 1 a month. i do have access to temp gun. it is possible one of my seals may be broken. especially with all the heat theyve been enduring.
however with as much as these pads squeel, especially when cold or under VERY light pressure like beginning or end of a stop light stop, had they been dragging (very light) i think i would hear a squeel at low speeds all the time. i dont have that. they do, do that in reverse though, when im reverseing and off the brakes i do get squealing

what does wilwood do different on there Aero6 calipers that would make the seals not harden/crack/disintegrate? or would it just happen again at a cost of $1000+?