Maximizing brake pad and rotor lifetimes

[angrytick]

I own a 2009 Mustang GT that I have modified heavily, and I'm using it learn to drive road courses. I've got the Wilwood Superlite Big Brake kit on the front, and stock GT brakes on the back. But man, I am burning through the front rotors and pads a lot faster than I want to....

 

My strategy was to swap brake pads, and run race pads at the track, and street pads otherwise, but all I did was swap the pads out. I did NOT follow any of the complex rotor or pad bedding procedures, other than take it a little easy during the first session on the track.

 

I ran a new set of rotors at NJMP over 2 days, with a new set of race pads. When I got back home, I swapped the pads for a set of street pads, and at that point, the rotor wear didn't look bad at all, and even the race pads showed little sign of wear. I put the street pads in, and didn't worry....

 

3 weeks later, I go to swap the pads before driving Lime Rock Park (just yesterday, actually -- 7/16/12), and to my surprise the street pads had just about vanished (I have never seen so much brake dust!!), and the rotors were almost wiped out. This is REALLY counter-intuitive. I drive very aggressively ON track, but I drive pretty reasonably off track on the street, and certainly don't do any threshold braking!!

 

Reading Wilwood's tech tips, they recommend a very specific procedure for bedding the rotors and pads, separately, and I am wondering if skipping this is why the rotors wore down so quickly. They very specifically recommend sanding/grinding the rotors to remove the previous pad material, but this seemed tedious, so I didn't bother.

 

Going forward, I'm going to start measuring the wear on the rotors and pads after each track session, and get some real numbers to compare, but I'd love to hear how anyone else who has the Wilwood kit manages pads and rotors.

 

Those rotors aren't cheap ($250 each!!), and if I am going to burn through a new set every 2 or 3 track days, I need to plan for this. Better, I'd like to understand if there's a different strategy I should be following.

 

For example, maybe I should be using dedicated track and street rotors to go with the pads, and change BOTH when I do my track prep?

 

Any feedback from others more experienced would really be appreciated.

[t500hps]

I'm only a little more experienced than you so take my advice with that a grain of salt.

 

I'm in an even heavier car than yours (Charger SRT8) that is also my daily driver. I've been told, and found, that a set of track pads AND rotors is the best way to get long life out of your street brakes.......the track stuff is going to go away quickly! I'm only getting about 2 track weekends out of my front rotors but buy the cheap OEM knock-offs. The 3X-4X times more expensive "race" rotors don't even last twice as long. You also need to use the brake pedal very hard but for the shortest time possible.....something I'm getting better at but still need to work on.

[Diller]

The bedding procedure is one, if not THE most important factors in brake performance/life. Follow the instructions like the Holy Word and you will get much better results.

 

Also look into brake balancing and cooling. If your front brakes are doing all the work, they will not be happy. Look into making sure your rear brakes are match to the front so that both are working. Also, before I added cooling, I use to eat through pads on the track. Cooling made the pads and rotors last twice as long.

 

Food for thought.

[beerkat]

Brake pads and rotors are a consumable item. The heavier the car the faster you will replace them. You could try and go to a two piece rotor, they are expensive to start with but only having to replace the rings will be cheaper in the long run. If you are paying $250 a rotor then the 2 piece should save you money. The vette people I know that have gone to 2 pcs. rotors are getting a lot of use out of them. Plus the worry of them cracking is a lot less. My two of my Mustang buddies run the Brembo brake kits and get good wear out of them. A plain Brembo rotor is less than I $100 I think.

[boxtwo]

There are a couple of things that will help A LOT besides bedding.

 

1. Brake cooling. Look for a way to get high CFM flow to the rotor to help keep it cool. Example: I noticed a marked decrease in pad wear AND brake temps by installing ducting.

 

2. Compress braking zones and practice "threshold braking" (the point JUST above ABS.) The longer you are on the brakes, the less time the system has to cool. This leads to higher braking system temps the next time you use the brakes and the effects are cumulative. Example: Look for brake zone markers (typically at the end of the main straight.) Lets say they are marked with 5 markers and you start braking at (for example) marker 5. By trying 4.5 the next time, you just knocked 10% off your brake zone. If you get down to marker 4, that's 20% and so on. Yes, you are much harder on the brakes in terms of pressure, but you are "on" them less so they will have more time to dissipate heat, resulting in cooler brakes the next time you use them.

 

If you find yourself modulating the brake pedal prior to your apex, it is probably time to consider working on compressing the brake zone. This will help your driving, reduce brake temps, AND reduce wear. Win Win Win!

[jimbow]

What pads are you using?

 

My DD Camaro is a daily driver and I only use it on the track for days I'm instructing.

Its a v6 with big single piston sliding calipers on the front and smaller ones on the rear.

I hated the stock pads for daily driving and it took a "I gotta take it to CMP for a weekend I'm instructing"

Called my buddies at carbotech and had them make me a set of XP8 for all four corners.

I drove it one session with the stock pads and after 10 min they were fading fast.

Between students I changed to the xp8's

then bed them in on the trip back to the hotel.

Next morning - night and day difference.

Haven't taken them off since

used them at VIR and the roval at Atlanta Motor Speedway

Step-son used them for a teen driving school

 

I do need to see what I can do to keep them from moving in the caliper cause they chirp a lot.

They are NOT comming off the car until they are done, and a new set will be going on.

 

With Hawk blues on a Mustang I was changing rotors everytime I changed pads

[Stoopalini]

Reading Wilwood's tech tips, they recommend a very specific procedure for bedding the rotors and pads, separately, and I am wondering if skipping this is why the rotors wore down so quickly. They very specifically recommend sanding/grinding the rotors to remove the previous pad material, but this seemed tedious, so I didn't bother.

 

If a recommended procedure seems tedious, there is probably a very good reason for it.

 

Race pads do not inherently bite very well against a rotor, so the bedding procedure is very important to achieve good performance. When bedding pads, what is actually happening is, pad material is being transferred to the rotor face. This is why you need to get them up to proper temp, to allow this transfer to occur. after this has happened, the brakes bite much better because the pad is engaging pad material embedded on the rotor, instead of a clean rotor.

 

Even though you didn't bed them properly, pad material was still transferred to the rotor during your track event; it just wasn't done evenly therefore you didn't have 100% of the capability of your setup available to you.

 

That said, race pads have a very aggressive compound, and my guess is the pad material which was transferred to the rotor during your track event ate through the street pad compound fairly easily. Add to that the possibility the race pad and street pad compounds could be caustic when mixed together -- if so, it will destroy the rotor in short time.