Longest Lasting Brake Pad (Page 2 of 3)

Our car is around 3k lb (maybe 2900) and have single piston iron calipers with no cooling.  We are still on porterfield r4-e, using maybe 1/4 of the pad per race, and I am the last of the late brakers.  I would look into your brake system.  Do some testing and check for brake bind and rotor temps.  You could be grinding the pads but not notice it in the pedal or the pads might not be up to temperature, which can cause excessive wear.  Also check them for chunking.  I had a bad set once, and they were crumbling after a race.

Our team (at least some members) do testing at track days to sort out the car.  Having a car with no problems makes for a much more enjoyable race.

I've run Carbotechs XP 10's on our light civic and for some reason it eats them within 8 hours or so.  I run the same pad on a much heavier Z and they last a lot longer...must have something to do with the drums on the rear of the civic.  Do they make XP 10's as a shoe and not a pad

No doubt that pad life is track specific. Eagle's Canyon was brutal on brakes.
The 450*F ambient air temps didn't help.

Perhaps that could be your problem?  Not enough rear brake effectiveness, making the front brakes have to work that much harder.  Have you thought about putting a more aggressive compound on the rear brakes?  Or converting to rear disks to get even more out of them?

We used the Carbotech RP2's and never had pad issues. Two races on them and we've got half the front pads left, and that's with crappy pads in the rear that aren't doing much.

We did, however, severely overheat the rotors. We kept experiencing terrible shaking from the front end when the brakes got hot. Part of this was blown upper and lower balljoints and tie rods of unknown condition, which exaggerated the condition. Lots of cooling mods coming, but we won't know how well they work until we get to the next race. 30 minute track sessions aren't enough to really beat on the car and work out all the kinks, unfortunately.

AutoZone 1/2 Ceramics, lasted entire 14 hour race. 'bout $50 a set, lifetime warranty, wear 'em down, take 'em back, tada.. brand new set for free!

Centric Ceramic pads + Homestead (easy track on brakes) = 3hrs
Avoid!

On Saterday night while we were waiting for our replacement transmission to show up we took a peek at the brakes and foudn them to be just fine.  This was after about 8 hours on the track.  We finished Sunday on them and still had pad left. 

We brought all kinds of new brake parts because everyone told us we would melt them at Gingerman...but....the transmissionw as what melted instead!

We bought Carbotech XP10s for the Jaggernaut. They did 106 laps at MAM (about 160 miles) and there were still stopping fine, but I still haven't pulled the brakes apart yet. I do know we could brake deeper into the corners than several other cars, and we had at least 1000lbs on every other car out there.

Has anyone tried cryo treated rotors and pads?  I've heard good things about cryo treated rotors but never had them done.  Its supposed to improve life, help with not warping, and lower temps but i havent seen any real tests i'd trust.  I can definitely see cryo helping rotors to not warp.

For rotors i try to get brembo or better.  Brembos seem to be the only rotors i've used so far that dont warp really when abused.  If you're getting some generic autopart store low cost driven rotors chances are the metal isnt so great in them.

Also, are the pads wearing evenly inside and out?  If not fix the slide pins and make sure the caliper can move in and out freely as well as checking the pistons.

  Brake hoses can fail internally and act like a check valve keeping pressure on the caliper.  You ccan check by applying the brakes, let off then open a bleeder.  If theres a bit of pressure/squirt when you open it you have a problem.  Also, make sure the brake pedal to master cylinder has a bit of free play.  If there is none the master can never back off enough to let all the pressure back into the master cylinder. As it heats up, pressure builds and drags the brakes.

Overcooling certain pads will wear the rotor and pads quickly.  Overheating is obviously bad for a bunch of reasons.  Our last event with 2x4" holes up front to 1.5" hose to the center of the rotors we lost brakes in the pits at summit point.  We had to (slowly) pour water on the front calipers because it kept boiling fluid as we bled them.  This was with hawk blue hp 10's? and ate super blue fluid.  It was in the mid 90's if i remember right.  After that we did a cool down lap for the brakes to make sure it didnt happen again.

"Drive the car, don't stand it on it's bloody ear"  The rx-7 guys 1 st gen were cracking rotors like crazy years ago when they cooled was it a radius in the hat aera or a metal erge problem? crio treating works great! Repco metal masters work great on 2250lbs and lighter cars!

Where is best place to order the Carbotech's??