Nanook

Well after reading the posts/stickies regarding burnishing and feeling there likely should be more stopping power simply street driving I decided to do the deed..

I found a safe stretch of highway and I'd say I got them good and toasty with the smoke show starting at about 30 reps...and I continued to about 42 when the pedal finally went away nearly completely..didn't know if this was normal or not but following this I drove for about 20 minutes for cool down and stooped to have a look...what I say made me think I'd f*'d my nice new shiny chrome wheels..they were blue like the pipes on a 1970 Honda 750...(some of us old enough know what that looked like )

Anyways I did snap a few pics before and aft ...not with my pro camera but with the iphone so here they are..

BEFORE:



AFTER:




AND THE WHEELS:





So for you owners with chrome wheels..(not certain the effect on others)..fear not...grab yourself a half sac a seat and some "bluemagic"...I don't know if it's the smoke, heat or both but they do clean up and it's only the fronts

I shall report on whether it was worth it or not in a few days.

3LZZ06

Those wheels are definitely heat blued...

I'm sure your going to notice the stopping difference, let us know.

FAsnakes

Nice, I need to do this myself.
Looking forward to your results / impressions..

Nanook

Yup but they cleaned up perfect though

I think a brake fluid flush and bleed would now be in order.

NofakeJake

Thanks for the great write up and pic's

Nanook

I went for a drive and the car definitely has more brake bite. I would hazard to say moderate stopping has been improved 25%. I have not tried any threshold stopping yet but we'll see.
This makes one wonder with all these tests of the car where the brake performance is scrutinized whether those cars had their brakes burnished...
Also the lines seen in these pictures are just that..lines..they have no contour but are simply scuff marks. I suspect the varying composites of the pad each leave a unique scuff.

A few hi def pics for anyone interested:

Rear pad and rear disc:





Front pads:



Front discs:





Clean wheel:

Californiapch

Are you getting ready ( prepped ) to buy my race rims for next year!

The Porsche guys will need a ZR1 to show them ( remind them ) who is King!




Brian

Nanook

Well ya never know...

I just figure why have such fantastic brakes and never prep them to perform the way they were engineered to...regardless of being on the track or street.

BTW did you ever do yours..you may have left some seconds or at least tenths on the table at those tracks..

palindrome1H

The whole car is broken! Might as well just give it to me! I offer my left ********.

Nanook

Hah..nice try but actually now it performs better than it did

ZR1Cat

Thanks for the pics and the information. I have been following these posts on burnishing, but am still 'on the fence' regarding what I plan to do. I have the CE wheels and am not excited about overheating them.

mikelj

This looks really scary, and since it is so hard to even find a road around my place to even attempt such stuff, I am leaning toward not doing it on my 2012. Looks like the pain is not worth any gain, since I am not tracking or racing my car.

pcguy2u

911/Q45

The brakes work much better after burnishing, why wouldn't you want your brakes to work better on the street?The color on his wheels was pad residue, not overheating damage. It cleaned right off.

YWZ08

I just recently swapped out my cromies in favor of the sport cup wheels and then did the burnish. No ill affects that I can see on the wheels.

DanY

Burnishing makes a huge difference in braking performance.

Before burnishing, I couldn't get the anti-lock to engage even
with a lot of pedal pressure.

After burnishing I can easily get the anti-locks to kick in at will.

I did wait until I had 500 miles on the car since I was nervous about
doing the burnishing. I went out at 4:30am on our only local highway.
It took about 5-6 miles to complete the process. I had to brake and
pull off the road multiple times as there were cars coming up behind
me on the highway. I'd slam the brakes, pull onto the berm, hit the
flashers and wait for the traffic to clear. I was very careful to keep
my foot off the brake after I stopped as to not create a hot spot
on the rotors.

3LZZ06

The blue you see on the wheels is definitely from heat not dust. It's the very blue that you might see on a Harley's exhaust pipes, but not to worry, with chrome polish it comes right off and it's certainly not enough heat to cause damage to the structure of the wheels...

mikelj

I didn't buy the car for the brakes, but for the engine and suspension. Regular Corvettes without these brakes stop just fine, and these brakes stop even better and have done everything I could throw at them (I'm not an "aggressive" driver who sits on people's tail pipes or races), even without burnishing, so why do it?

3LZZ06

You didn't buy the car for the brakes???? You certainly did pay for them.

Why would you use 93 octane gas rather than 87?....Because you'll get what was meant to be had out of your LS9, same can be said for your Carbon Ceramic brakes.

Don't you think if you were able to reduce the stopping distance by 3-4 feet before you were to crunch the nose of your car broadside against a Lincoln Towncar that pulled out in front of you at an intersection would be a good reason the get the best performance out of them?

But if you choose not to do it even after good advice here, "and" straight from your owners manual, knock yourself out sir.

pcguy2u

Not sure the difference between burnised, and not, is measurable at standard travel speeds. Aren't the CC brakes more for fade and doesn't the burnishing harden the pads making them less resistant to fade? That's my understanding, but it seems to be a valid question that I have not read an answer to.

There are obviously two schools of thought here and this subject has come up many times before. I keep looking for a place to do mine and no luck so far at 9500 miles. Of course, there doesn't seem to be an impetus and I have asked the same question in other threads. No real answer for those who don't track their ZR1.