Let's talk about track day brakes

[AlpineCoupe]

We typically do a brake bleed between on our Lemons car between sessions because brake fluid is cheap and we use our power bleeder so it makes it super easy.

Do we absolutely need to? No, probably not, but it is easy and cheap insurance. We're using Wilwood fluid, btw.

[squidrope]

We run Motul 600, Carbotech pads, and stock rotors/calipers in our lemon car. We only bleed the brakes after a race weekend (including practice) and have never had any problems.

[Axxe]

^ Similar story here. We run Stoptech STR-660 fluid and don't have any issue with just a fresh bleed between events. Every day of competition is overkill if you aren't experiencing any issues IMHO.

DOT3 on the other hand, cooks pretty fast when someone doesn't own up to the fact they used all the good stuff chasing an issue and top it up with jobber crap. That was fun at the Glen, coming down the chute into the toe and having the pedal hit the floor. So yes, if you value your life, make sure nobodies wires get crossed....that could have ended much worse than it did for us (just used up the rear tires scrubbing speed).

[ajhostetter]

This is a great thread. I just ordered PFC 08s from Bimmerworld. $260 for the whole car. I think those with fresh Motul 600 should do the car well this year. I had a horrifying experience in turn 10 at PIR last year where the HP+ pads I was using suddenly disappeared. Not fun. Thankfully you have a series of turns to recover, but it was scary.

[agent]

I put the PFC 08s and the new Brembo rotors on yesterday, along with the stainless lines and fresh ATE 200 fluid. I only drove the car for about 10 minutes to bed the brakes, but there is a HUGE increase in stopping power. Thanks to chondamx and Ether-D for the assist!

The HPS pads were thrown away. There was plenty of meat left on the rears but the fronts wouldn't have lasted a day at the track. The consensus in my garage was that they had definitely been overheated, likely multiple times.

In the pics you can see where I was able to pull a chunk of the material off the bottom of the pad with my fingernail after it had cracked. Kinda scary, actually.

[Ether-D]

Yep, I was handing people tools for a good 5 minutes. Glad I could help ;/

[bikerjim2000]

Good info brothers! I am going to redo mine and the lines for some upcoming track duty. Are the 4 rear lines a pita or not? Chris you been going up to Bowling Green or is Nashville reopened? I noticed a drift session somewhere mentioned Nashville again.:coolphoto:

[nando]

yes, I stand by my earlier assessment - HPS pads are garbage.

[agent]

Good info brothers! I am going to redo mine and the lines for some upcoming track duty. Are the 4 rear lines a pita or not? Chris you been going up to Bowling Green or is Nashville reopened? I noticed a drift session somewhere mentioned Nashville again.:coolphoto:

The rear outer lines are easy. I didn't see any way I could do the inner lines without dropping the subframe.

I've been going to Bowling Green. I heard someone bought the super speedway facility in Gladeville and has plans for it, though I haven't seen any full track events advertised there yet.

The Bluegrass Bimmers CCA HPDE is 5/15-5/17. Be there!

[Northern]

dumb question, but how awful is the noise/dust/wear on the PFC08's? Obviously they're track pads, and they supposedly last longer than any other option. Would they be streetable in any way, or worth running in an autoX car?

Trying to replace my shitty HPS with something that may stop half decently, but if I'm running something as loud/rotor eating/dusty as HP+, maybe I should just go further and run an actual track pad?

[Wh33lhop]

I DD mine on PFCs, they're quite streetable but are very dusty and do make noise sometimes (not always), and they do wear out pretty quickly. The most annoying part about street driving them is that the pads are still contacting the rotors as you're driving so depending on the condition of your calipers you may occasionally get a squeak-squeak-squeak as you're driving along, which is annoying and sounds super ghetto.

PFC makes a street compound called Z-rated, you may want to give that a shot if you're not going to track it at all as it will be kind of a waste.

[Northern]

PFC makes a street compound called Z-rated, you may want to give that a shot if you're not going to track it at all as it will be kind of a waste.

I'll probably give those a try since you're now the second person to tell me that.

[Wh33lhop]

Oops, I can't find any Z rated in E30 non-M fitment: http://store.bimmerworld.com/perform...pads-p721.aspx

Too bad. :(

[agent]

Well, after the first track weekend on the fresh ATE/Brembos/PFCs I'm impressed. The instructor in the brand new M3 who could only put any distance between us on straights said he was too, and he was running Carbotechs. :mrgreen:

[TobyB]

F+R is the key to success. We wear rears down almost as fast as fronts

Which brake system?

t