The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Newcomers → Brake Pads for 24 Hour Lamest Day Event, Dodge a Pad Change
On our 94 golf we had stock rotors (4 wheel disc) with brembo pads up front ($15 on discount from tire rack) and stock pads on rear.
We didn't change through the 24 hours and were only off track for driver changes/fuel/and one front end check. Nelson is probably the easiest track on pads in the country; if you're driving a really slow car too
We ran the entire event minus an hour or two for penalties (I'm NOT innocent) and an alternator swap. So I figure it was about 22 hours out there. We ran SSBC pads on the car (Camaro) and we lasted the whole race, but the pads are mostly gone, the rotors are trash and the drums/shoes are wore out. Fact of the matter is I'm very happy with those results the Camaro is heavy and has very crappy brakes on it from GM. I had pads all ready to go if we needed to change them, we checked about about hour 18 and things were just fine!
i was barely using the brakes. i didn't see what they looked like afterward, but can't imagine too much wear
+1 in our 6er. I couldn't believe how fast the track is. What fun.
-Tap into T1 ballsack to initiate slight oversteer and rotate a bit.
-Tap into T4 urethra to rotate
-Bit of trail-braking thru T8 head of dong if passing (most of the time)
-Tap entering T12 t'aint
-Depending on traffic, medium to heavy pressure thru T13 (didn't have 2nd gear, so car
lugged badly here and we got passed a lot trying to pull outta the t'aint with such a tall diff.
ratio and moderate understeer)
I just looked at our brakes, still look new, 11ish hours + Friday. We had put on new rotors, drums, Wagner HD fleet pads, shoes, hardware, calipers, hoses, lines, wheel cylinders and flushed with dot 4 (1 ton van)
We ran 2 races (Gator Rama and New Orleans) using Wagner EDGE Thermoquiet Pads and Brembo Slotted Rotors. We didn't have any problems. No fadding and they had great bite all weekend.
A lot of good advice on here. We were also trying to avoid doing a brake change, and since we had a heavy car (Camaro) and a couple of inexperienced drivers who were likely to have a little trouble getting on and off the brakes quickly, I was concerned about cooking street pads. Unfortunately, our car didn't make it far enough to accurately gauge pad wear (only 22 laps), but FWIW, I put Hawk Blue pads on the front, and HP+ on the rear. The Blues don't need as much heat in them to work effectively as some other race pads, but still have much better fade resistance than street pads, so I figured they were a good compromise that would work reasonably well for both our experienced and inexperienced guys, shouldn't be too hard on the rotors, and should have made it the full 24 hours.
I put on new rotors and calipers all the way around, ran ATE super blue fluid, figured I had all the bases covered. But what did I NOT do, that came back to bite me in the ass? I didn't replace the rubber hoses. The left front hose swelled pretty much shut, leading to some "interesting" brake performance. Both front hoses on our parts car had the same issue, so we had to go track down some new hoses. Lesson learned.
A lot of good advice on here. We were also trying to avoid doing a brake change, and since we had a heavy car (Camaro) and a couple of inexperienced drivers who were likely to have a little trouble getting on and off the brakes quickly, I was concerned about cooking street pads. Unfortunately, our car didn't make it far enough to accurately gauge pad wear (only 22 laps), but FWIW, I put Hawk Blue pads on the front, and HP+ on the rear. The Blues don't need as much heat in them to work effectively as some other race pads, but still have much better fade resistance than street pads, so I figured they were a good compromise that would work reasonably well for both our experienced and inexperienced guys, shouldn't be too hard on the rotors, and should have made it the full 24 hours.
I put on new rotors and calipers all the way around, ran ATE super blue fluid, figured I had all the bases covered. But what did I NOT do, that came back to bite me in the ass? I didn't replace the rubber hoses. The left front hose swelled pretty much shut, leading to some "interesting" brake performance. Both front hoses on our parts car had the same issue, so we had to go track down some new hoses. Lesson learned.
Snag a set of braided steel hoses for the car, they are reasnoably cheap for the Camaro. We ran russels on ours, gave the pedal a nice feel in addition to a bit of extra saftey. There have been Lemons cars that have melted the rubber hoses in past races.
smackela wrote:A lot of good advice on here. We were also trying to avoid doing a brake change, and since we had a heavy car (Camaro) and a couple of inexperienced drivers who were likely to have a little trouble getting on and off the brakes quickly, I was concerned about cooking street pads. Unfortunately, our car didn't make it far enough to accurately gauge pad wear (only 22 laps), but FWIW, I put Hawk Blue pads on the front, and HP+ on the rear. The Blues don't need as much heat in them to work effectively as some other race pads, but still have much better fade resistance than street pads, so I figured they were a good compromise that would work reasonably well for both our experienced and inexperienced guys, shouldn't be too hard on the rotors, and should have made it the full 24 hours.
I put on new rotors and calipers all the way around, ran ATE super blue fluid, figured I had all the bases covered. But what did I NOT do, that came back to bite me in the ass? I didn't replace the rubber hoses. The left front hose swelled pretty much shut, leading to some "interesting" brake performance. Both front hoses on our parts car had the same issue, so we had to go track down some new hoses. Lesson learned.
Snag a set of braided steel hoses for the car, they are reasnoably cheap for the Camaro. We ran russels on ours, gave the pedal a nice feel in addition to a bit of extra saftey. There have been Lemons cars that have melted the rubber hoses in past races.
Yeah, it was one of those things I knew we should do, ideally, but ran out of time, money, etc. I always run braided hoses on my SCCA cars, pedal feel is definitely a plus, but thought we'd be OK without them on the Lemons car. In hindsight, new rubber hoses probably would've been fine, but 15-year-old rubber hoses--not so much. Live and learn.
Tiptoe the rat wrote:smackela wrote:A lot of good advice on here. We were also trying to avoid doing a brake change, and since we had a heavy car (Camaro) and a couple of inexperienced drivers who were likely to have a little trouble getting on and off the brakes quickly, I was concerned about cooking street pads. Unfortunately, our car didn't make it far enough to accurately gauge pad wear (only 22 laps), but FWIW, I put Hawk Blue pads on the front, and HP+ on the rear. The Blues don't need as much heat in them to work effectively as some other race pads, but still have much better fade resistance than street pads, so I figured they were a good compromise that would work reasonably well for both our experienced and inexperienced guys, shouldn't be too hard on the rotors, and should have made it the full 24 hours.
I put on new rotors and calipers all the way around, ran ATE super blue fluid, figured I had all the bases covered. But what did I NOT do, that came back to bite me in the ass? I didn't replace the rubber hoses. The left front hose swelled pretty much shut, leading to some "interesting" brake performance. Both front hoses on our parts car had the same issue, so we had to go track down some new hoses. Lesson learned.
Snag a set of braided steel hoses for the car, they are reasnoably cheap for the Camaro. We ran russels on ours, gave the pedal a nice feel in addition to a bit of extra saftey. There have been Lemons cars that have melted the rubber hoses in past races.
Yeah, it was one of those things I knew we should do, ideally, but ran out of time, money, etc. I always run braided hoses on my SCCA cars, pedal feel is definitely a plus, but thought we'd be OK without them on the Lemons car. In hindsight, new rubber hoses probably would've been fine, but 15-year-old rubber hoses--not so much. Live and learn.
Hope to see you guys next time, maybe help break the reputation of the Camaro at Lemons.
I will be back, but not in a Camaro. Hopefully some of the guys from our team will stick with the Camaro, though, because it should be competitive if it holds up.
As for me, I'm still looking for the perfect Fuego. Even if I find it, convincing my new teammates to drive it will be a totally different story.
Stock dodge stratus brakes with the absoutley cheapest pads and rotors napa sells held up fine for us in about 10-12 hours of on-track time. I was only using the brakes hard once and moderately twice. Hard at the end of the back straight into the left hander. Light/moderately at the end of the front straight and again into oak tree. The whole rest of the track they spent their time cooling. zero brake fade issues even after an hour of running it hard.
Napa clutches, on the other hand, seem to last about 5 laps.
We ran Hawk blues up front and cheapy pads in the rear. Braking was AWESOME.
We used valvolin synthetic brake fluid (500F boiling point). Next year I may suggest DOT 5 silicone fluid. Very high boiling point, but you can't leave it in long as it does not absorb water, which is why you don't use DOT 5 for a street machine.
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