Soft Brakes
Thread Starter
Le Mans Master
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 6,503
Likes: 2
From: Oklahoma City OK
Soft Brakes
I am starting two threads due to two different questions...
I installed new brake pads about 4 weeks ago (Stock replacment) on all 4 wheels and 2 front rotors (Stock replacment)
Took my car to the track today to run 3 sessions of 15 minutes each.
Through session 1 I noticed that the brakes were begenning to feel kind of soft.
I said OK I dont have the steel lines and this is somewhat normal under heavy conditions.
Same proble on session 2 & 3...
I drove home (2 hours) and the brakes never firmed up...
I feel like I have to press deeper in order to engage the brakes, but when they engage they work well...
I checked the fluid and it is full.
Pads still look good.
I am still getting a bad smell from the pads. Even under normal conditions I get an annoying smell from the pads...
What do you think???
I installed new brake pads about 4 weeks ago (Stock replacment) on all 4 wheels and 2 front rotors (Stock replacment)
Took my car to the track today to run 3 sessions of 15 minutes each.
Through session 1 I noticed that the brakes were begenning to feel kind of soft.
I said OK I dont have the steel lines and this is somewhat normal under heavy conditions.
Same proble on session 2 & 3...
I drove home (2 hours) and the brakes never firmed up...
I feel like I have to press deeper in order to engage the brakes, but when they engage they work well...
I checked the fluid and it is full.
Pads still look good.
I am still getting a bad smell from the pads. Even under normal conditions I get an annoying smell from the pads...
What do you think???
Tech Contributor
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 40,995
Likes: 9,759
From: Charlotte, NC (formerly Endicott, NY)
Brake pad taper. Check this thread http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1686727 post number 14. Been there and done that before. If you bleed the brake fluid you will not see any improvement. In a few weeks of street driving the pedal should start to come up some as the taper tends to reduce under those conditions. If you want to get rid of it right away throw in a new set of brake pads. Any make or compound of pad will do the same thing so don't look for other pads to solve the problem.
Bill
Bill
Advanced
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 50
Likes: 0
From: Sydney
Pad taper will definitely give that soft pedal feeling. The smell is most likely from overheating the resin bonded pads which often draws the resin to the surface and glazes the friction surface. Smells a bit like a burnt plastic and manure combo. As Bill said, it will settle down after a while.
If you're handy on the tools I would bleed a little fluid out of the calipers as this may have carburised from some hard driving.
If you're handy on the tools I would bleed a little fluid out of the calipers as this may have carburised from some hard driving.
Race Director
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 16,154
Likes: 0
From: Kali
St. Jude Donor '11
I would still check on the brake fluid. If it has more than 30k miles on it chances are it isn't performing as good as it should. My brakes felt a bit soft, and after changing the fluid to synthetic, brakes feel much better. HAWK pads are pretty good as well. Ceramics don't perform as well as semi-metallic pads either. Just keep those things in mind.
