Modern Musclecar

I registered for my first track day with the Z and received this email from the organizers

"Hello Adam,

Thank you for registering with us for our Sun, April 26 Mission Track Day!

I'm very glad that you have chosen VCMC to be the event host for one of your first track days. As the club's track day chair, I take pride in the events we organize, and I trust that you will have an enjoyable time lapping with us.

Despite my optimism, however, there is a small concern I have regarding your C6 Z06. Your Corvette is a phenomenal sports car, and I hope that one day I would have a chance to experience some sports driving in a Corvette myself. However, in light of what has happened in the past, I want to take this opportunity to give you a cautionary reminder regarding your Z06 and the Mission Raceway.

If you did not already know, Mission is a highly brake-intensive race track. Compared to some of the larger tracks, the straightaways at Mission are not as long, and they are not spaced as further apart. Effectively, what this means is, the braking systems of vehicles lapping Mission are put through a tremendous amount of heat and stress, and there isn't a lot of time or room for your brake components to cool themselves off. As a result, a majority of cars that lap Mission will experience varying degrees of brake fade during their lapping sessions. For high powered vehicles such as your Z06, this burden is especially heavy since these vehicles are capable of reaching very high speeds at the end of a straightaway, and all that speed must be shed as heat.

The fortunate thing is, brake fade come on quite gradually, and the driver will receive plenty of warning before anything catastrophic might happen. More importantly, as the driver, you have total control in managing this brake fade and the associated reduction in braking power. Nevertheless, in the past few years, we have unfortunately had an incident where another fellow C6 Z06 driver has overheated his brakes, scorching his caliper / piston dust boots among other things (I think certain pistons has seized as well). There wasn't any danger involved at all, but as I recall, the driver have had to overhaul all of his brake calipers and associated parts to the tune of several thousand dollars, and the $250 track day turned into something quite a bit more expensive.

I am certainly not detering you from joining us at Mission. As a matter of fact, I would very much like to have you repeatedly join us in our various track days this season as well as in the future. But that is precisely why I am taking the time to bring it to your attention one of the possible outcomes if you enjoy yourself too much on the race track.

So please play it safe out there on the track, and be mindful of what you are doing and what your car is telling you.

I will see you at Mission in a few weeks!"

I was wondering if I could get some input from fellow racers. What modifications can be done to minimize brake fade/ failure? What brake pads should I be running? Are there any techniques that minimize excessive brake wear?

I have purchased a set of racing shoes and helmet as well as a AiM Solo DL lap timer. Is there anything else I should order in preparation for the race day?

Thanks in advance for all the help

50 4Ever

Since this is your first track day I'd just make sure you have a fresh DOT 4 brake fluid in there (flush). As for pads, again since it is your 1st track day I'd stay with stock pads. Just make sure the pads are almost new. See how they work for you. Then in subsequent track days you might want a race pad. Work great at high temps but they squeak and I would not run them on the street.

I ran the stock brakes for two days on Miller Motorsports Park and saw spend in excess of 150 MPH on the front straight. I experienced brake fade the 2nd day, and looking at the pads after I got home it was apparent that the calipers were flexing under high temps and high loads. I changed the brakes (calipers, rotor and pads) to Stoptech. The brakes worked excellent the next year at the same track for two days. No brake fade at all. But, this is an expensive way to go.

Have fun

AzDave47

I am a very experienced driver. The first time I ran my Z06 on a road circuit, it had stock pads and ATE 518* brake fluid and the OEM Goodyears. I did not get brake fade as the stock pads don't generate the heat or have the stopping power of aftermarket pads. I did go thru 1/3rd of the OEM pad material in one track day.

If this is your first road circuit track day event, you should be fine with a high temp brake fluid and the factory pads. You will learn an amazing amount of what it takes to go fast and you will be impressed with how well the Z06 performs.

Once I went to aftermarket pads, then I had front brake cooling issues. Now I use Motul RBF 600* fluid, Cobalt track pads and have 4" cooling ducts from the front grill into the modified factory plastic ducts and then 3" cooling hoses from the outlet of those ducts to the rotors and do not have cooling issues. I did continue to have the cooling problems when I did everything but the 4" front cooling ducts. That cheap install helped big time.

dcamick

Very Excited about my Brake change for 2015. I must say that our stock brakes can hold up quite well compared to competing car brakes.

Modern Musclecar

Thanks for the tips guys, I suppose I should have mentioned that although this is my first track day with the Z, I do have a fair bit of driving experience on the track having raced go karts in both ICA and 125cc shifter. I would imagine my ability level will be slightly more advanced than a true novice. That said I do plan to take it slow and learn the car before pushing it too hard, after all I'm just out to have some fun.

AzDave47

Karting experience, especially with shifter karts will definitely steepen the learning curve as you already have a solid idea of turn-in, apex and track-out. Being able to be consistently on the line is usually a prerequisite for instructors to encourage you to go faster.

Just pay careful attention to the feedback the car gives you and be patient with throttle application. You will probably find the limit of "all nannies on". Talk with your instructor about using the competition mode if you start finding the regular traction control settings interfering with what you can do with the car. If everything is working normally, the Z06 gives good feedback on what it is doing and responds consistently.

Carbotech Adam

Flush your fluid DOT 4 Brembo, Motul or SRF. Check your brake pads make sure they are almost like new. If it was me I would be putting on a track pads just for personal safety especially if I received a letter like that.

If you decide to go with a track pad I would use the Carbotech XP10 front and XP8 rear in the 1 piece design. This is a very effective set up for the ZO6 on street tires. Many people use this combo with great results.

If interested I will be happy to set you up with Fluid and Pads let me know.

Carbotech™ XP8™

A high torque brake compound with a wide operating temperature range of 200°F-1250°F+ (93°C to 676°C+). Carbotech™ XP8™ is the first of our racing compounds. Good initial bite at race temperatures, high coefficient of friction, excellent modulation and release characteristics. Extremely high fade resistance and very rotor friendly. Perfect for track day use with any tire and can still be driven safely to and from the track. Carbotech™ does NOT recommended XP8™ as a daily driven street pad due to elevated levels of dust and noise. Carbotech™ XP8™ is a great compound on the front & rear of most open wheel and sports racers.


Carbotech™ XP10™

When Carbotech™ unleashed the XP10™ to the general public it immediately gathered multiple regional, divisional, and national championships. The XP10™ has a very strong initial bite with a coefficient of friction and rotor friendliness unmatched in the industry. Fade resistance is in excess of 1475°F (801°C). XP10™ still maintains the highly praised release, excellent modulation and rotor friendliness that have made all Carbotech™ compounds so successful. Carbotech™ XP10™ is not recommended as a daily-driven street pad due to possible elevated levels of dust and noise.

Modern Musclecar

Thank you, I put a brand new set of hawk pads in the car about a month ago but I was thinking about getting a second set of pads and rotors for track days. Can you please pm me with some price quotes for the above setup? Would you recommend running stock rotors with this setup?

Carbotech Adam

Stock rotors are ok. I would look at a plane face rotor like Centric for track use or Dba.

Bill Dearborn

The stock calipers aren't all that good when it comes to heat soak and boiling of the fluid. Make sure you flush the brake system with a high DRY Boiling Point brake fluid a few days before the event. It doesn't necessarily have to be a DOT4 fluid. There are DOT3 fluids on the market that have higher dry boiling points than off the shelf auto parts store DOT4 fluids. Ford Heavy Duty brake fluid is DOT3 with a 500 deg dry boiling point (it is listed on the container).

Expect the Dust Boots to be burned off they become crispy critters very quickly. You don't need them as long as you remember to clean the exposed portions of the brake pistons before pushing them back into the caliper cylinders. Cleaning them keeps dirt from damaging the seals inside the cylinder.

If you have stock pads they will wear down quickly. A lot of times the brakes will warn you if they are getting too hot. When you hit the brake the car will start to pull one way or the other and that is an indication that one of the two brake systems is overheating. The car has a dual diagonal brake system which means the left front and right rear are on one the same circuit and the right front and left rear are on the other circuit. Front calipers don't always run at exactly the same temperature so if you boil the fluid in one you will lose the complete circuit that one is on so the car will tend to pull to one side or the other under braking. When it starts doing that it is time to back off and be easy on the brakes.

However, there is a catch when you do that. Make sure you keep enough speed to get cooling air into the brakes and to drive several miles that way. When I was running the stock calipers I had several situations where the brake fluid boiled after I came off track due to lack of cooling air. One time at the Glen I came off track and drove around the garage running a little less than 10 mph. A guy walked across in front of me and when I hit the brakes the pedal went to the floor and if he hadn't have been agile I might have hit him. Another time I pulled into the pits because the brakes were pulling badly. I drove through the pits at about 35 mph while trying the brakes. They didn't feel right so I told my rider I was going to make a cool down lap and park the car. I went back on track and was running about 90 up the back straight of the Glen (Vs 150+) and when I got to the end of the straight I hit the brakes to knock off about 10 mph and the pedal went to the floor. There was nothing there.

When the fluid in both front calipers boils you lose all of your brakes since you lose both circuits at the same time.

Another thing you can do is get under your car and trace the brake lines from traveling from front to rear. At one point they both come within inches of the drivers side cat. GM had a recall on the 05s where there were brake failures due to the brake line clamps coming loose and letting the lines get to close to the cat. My lines were fastened properly but I did use aluminized duct tape to reflect some of the heat away from the lines. Everything gets a hell of a lot hotter when you are on track than it does when you are street or highway driving so it doesn't hurt to take precautions.

I don't know if the tape helped but with increased cooling air, aftermarket brake calipers front and rear, 600+ deg dry boiling point brake fluid and the tape I finally resolved my brake boiling issues.

Bill

dcamick

Just like a big Go Kart!!

I have a "Axle Clutch" "4 Hole Can" KT-100S Emmick Kart that I run a number of times every year..

Modern Musclecar

Old school classic, can't be many of those old air cooled yamaha beasts still kickin. I ran a CRG chassis with a 100cc liquid cooled TM reed engine and a TM rotary valve engine and later ran a tony kart with a pavesi 125cc shifter setup

Modern Musclecar

Modern Musclecar

AzDave47

Make sure to let us know how your track weekend goes. Have a great time. Don't let the smiles hurt too much.

Modern Musclecar

Well my track day has come and gone and let me say WOW. Definitely quite the learning experience pushing my car way harder than ever before and learning its limits. My instructor was quite concerned with my choice of car for my first track day as he has the same one and most others in my group had less than half the hp as the Z. After two sessions with him riding copilot he said he was relieved to see that I actually knew what I was doing out there and signed off for me to drive solo for the rest of the day. Another more experienced driver was there in a 2007 Porsche GT3 RS and he chased me for a couple of laps then I let him pass in the straight and chased him for a couple more. You could definitely see where each car shined on the track, in the tight twisties he would pull away but I would catch him again in the long sweeping turns and straightaways. All in all amazing experience and I can't wait to go again!

AzDave47

It's great you had a good first day. It sounds like you were well prepared and ready to learn. It was good to have someone to lead/chase in another capable car.