its a HPDE, not a race... if your brakes start to fade you simply go slower - who cares

 

or figure out why they are fading. I have only had fade when I was on stock pads, and used the brakes too much.

 

what did you do about the dust?

 

Washed the car the next day. I had a used set of Carbotech Panther + that I used on the rear, they were much more dirty than the Hawks.

Any company that tells you that their pad stops better, has zero dust, is rotor friendly and makes no noise is lying about something. That is like say you have the longest lasting race tire and it is also the fastest. You can not make the car stop better with out some dust and rotor wear. That is why I put the pads on just for the track day and took them off after. If you go with a high performance street pad you have made a comprise of wear over repeatability at high temps. If you go with a full race pad you are going to eat rotors and make dust.

btw the Natl T3 RX8 road racers run the Hawk HT10 and HT14. I consider the Blue a minimum for a track day if you are on race tires or on a track that has a lot of heavy braking zones.

imho it is not worth it to save a few bucks, or a little bit of work, to try and find one do it all pad. You go off at the end of a strait because you ran a street pad you will wish you spent the extra time and money to prep for the track day.

For me it is easy to prep for a track day. When I am putting on the race tires I change pads and bleed the brakes. When I get home I change back to street tires and pads and again bleed the brakes. It is cheap insurance and only takes a little time.

 

I agree the last thing you want to worry about are your brakes. Use Hawk HT-14 fronts and Blues on the rear. Put some GOOD fresh fluid in it and forget it. It is way better to have to much braking, if that is possible, than not enough.

 

Yep, the price difference between a good track pad and a street pad is a lot less than a car repair. It is not much work to change them out.

 

If your brakes begin to fade...

1) your fluid is not fresh and up to the task, or
2) your pad is not up to the task, or
3) your brakes are not dissipating enough heat, or
4) your car is underbraked for your driving method.

You're paying good money for track time. It's best to make the most out of it in a safe manner.

And yes, agreed, if your brakes fade- go slower (and even better, come back into the paddock, becuase fade doesn't get magically get better while on track).

 

the only reason i ask about the dust is because the dust from the Blues ruins finishes on wheels and can even weld to your car. i have heard horror stories about the dust

 

^^ pretty much any track type pad is hard on the finish ...esp of the wheels.

If you wash it off right away...and don't let it sit for weeks...most of it will come off. A good coat of wax before each event helps a lot too.

My track wheels are just destined to have dust imbedded in them....part of the cost of doing track days

 

I'm not going to claim I'm the greatest driver, or even a decent driver as I'm pretty new to the track seen...but Carbotech XP8 front and Bobcat rear has worked very well for me.

They once saw a 35 minute session last summer in 100 degree ambient temps. When I came in a guy right next to me with his BMW club racer turned his heat gun on my rotors: the fronts were ~400 F and rears ~335 F (I think). The carbotech's never faded, and I was the second fastest of the nine drivers in my run group that day.

 

xp8 and panther combo ftw

much better than the HP+'s or OEM

 

That's pretty cool....Mine were over 1000 degrees at one track day...I don't know how hot they were cause the pyrometer that I was using max'd out at that temperature.

They were smoking hot though

 

That's insane. What pads were you using that day?

I really didn't have a bearing for whether that meant I was driving fast or not. This was at GingerMan and I had been clocked before at like 1 minute 51 seconds and a guy with a STi that was a driving instructor at Grattan was putting in times around 1 minute 44. I was in the lowest classification, but was having my way with everyone accept a guy in a E46 M3.

 

HP+ on Racing Brake rotors......they don't like to be that hot.....they literally disappear before your eyes

I'm amazed though...they were still quite strong. Very little fade. I had new fluid, and they were new pads though.....pplus the rotors dissapate the heat fast. That was in the hot pits right after the corner.

I'm sure yours were hotter than the reading you got...they cool down a lot in 1-2 minutes...

 

Hmmm...it definitely wasn't immediately when they put the heat gun on the rotors. By the time they did I was already out of the car and had taken off my helmet. Not to mention the 1 lap cool down where I never hit the brakes. For sheer academic pursposes I'd be really curious to see this summer and have contemplated getting a pyrometer for such purposes.

 

but you still wouldnt have an accurate measure, you would still have that cool down lap to mitigate your temps

 

on the STU car I have Hawk DTC30 compound that were custom machined from another model pad to fit the RB/RX-8 calipers, they're only available for a few racing calipers. It's a dirt track racing compound rated for 100 - 1200 degF range. With the RacingBrake front BBK and rear rotors the braking decel is way better than OE even cold.

On the Stock car we have Hawk Black front and DTC30 rear, also custom fit to the RX-8 calipers. Had to go with Black in the front because there's not a big enough DTC30 pad available to make an OE size front shape.

All of the above make a coal mine look clean, big piles of dust fall out when you hit the lugnuts with an impact gun after only a few autox runs.

After reading may of the posts I'm going to pull back on the Hawk Ceramic recommendation. Frankly, it seems to me that many of you are way overusing your brakes. You can burn up any caliper/pad/rotor/fluid combination with a heavy enough braking foot. The whole point is not to slow down any more than is needed in a very smooth manner so as not to upset the lateral grip transition. Sounds like some of you need a few lessons in friction circle dynamics.

 

I agree. Short, smooth disciplined braking zones, smooth technique (heck, we're in street cars- not in race cars with super high spring rates- where threshold braking begins NOW- then modulate) leads to fade free, proper wearing brakes.
I had to adjust my initial brake modulation when getting back into a street car on the track, as open wheel cars demand a much, much higher initial pedal compression to initiate threshold braking- as the car's body won't dive forward like a street car will.
It's all about finding the right balance between your driving style and the compound which you prefer to use. My only recommendation is that your compound of choice can sustain lapping on a track safely. Cheers.

 

Deceleration = Heat.

There is no easy way to do 130mph to 50 mph without heating things up.

I suppose I could try slowing down...and letting the M3's and the crappy STI drivers by...but come on....a guy has to stroke his ego a little once in a while.

 

If getting track records require "overusing" the brakes, it might be worth it.

 

Just inspected the HP Plus' on my car for tomorrow's track day. I've had them on the car since Dec. (totalling 5000 miles). They're about 1/3rd (front) and 1/4th (rear) worn in thickness. They've seen 2 track days and 5K miles of street driving. Front rotor has the slightest minutia of a lip (barely noticeable with the fingernail). Rear rotor has no lip.
Been lazy about cleaning the wheels and the dust is beginning to pockmark the finish (as expected). I can live with this as a tradeoff for not having to swap pads after an event.

Edit: Just got back from Homestead. Pads held up very well. End of last 40 minute session (4th of the day) I was threshold braking into ABS at basically every threshold brake zone and not even a hint of fade from the HP Plus'.

Cheers!

 

I've got a set of HP+ waiting to go on but may end up buying some Project MU HC+ (http://www.mackinindustries.com/md/p...ypehcplus.html) instead. That's a nice range!

I'm curious why Hawk doesn't list any temp ranges for anything on their site.

 

Open the box your pads came in, there is a yellow card with the temps. The HP+ is 100-800.

 

To the OP: by chance are you talking about the upcoming Redline Time Attack! (exclamation mark theirs, not mine) event later this month at Buttonwillow?? I'm planning on attending, for the Saturday HPDE, not the Sunday timed events. well, maybe I'll see ya there.
(to address the topic at hand, I'll be using some Axxis Ultimates that I had bought for everyday use, but turns out they are much noisier than OEM...so they will recieve a proper thrashing at BW!)

GULAMAN

 

For street, autocross and HDPE I got Hawk Ceramics last year. I'm very pleased with them. They did quite well at Summit Point and VIR. Less dust, almost noiseless.