Burned up my brakes at the track, now what?
 

I recently bought a 2019 NISMO Z with 16kmiles. After changing the brake fluid to AP racing, I headed to my local race track for some NASA HPDE. The first session of the second track day, I was really laying down some fast laps after getting used to the car. I was at ten tenths right up until the front brakes gave out. I exited the track, got out and looked at the rotors - both front rotors were badly scored. I assumed that somehow I had worn the pads out. But, after removing one of the front wheels to inspect the pads, I could see that there was plenty of pad thickness left. After getting home, I pulled the pads and found them to also have grooves - I was expecting to find craters.
I'm looking for recommendations for pads and rotors for a car that is street driven but I also want to be able to hit the track hard. I'm an experienced (retired) road racer and NASA HPDE instructor capable of pushing my Z to its limits on the track.

Brake cooling is a known issue with our cars. I recommend spending time reading the track forum

For now, though, solutions to consider include

Pads: Carbotech is popular with an XP10 and XP8 combo front/back. A pricier solution is also the Endless MX72 which is reportedly very capable on the track while also being low dust and quiet

Rotors: two piece rotors for weight and cooling through vented/slotted design. Options from cheapest to priciest are Z1, dba, and racing brake. The DBA material has known incompatibility with endless pads

Fluid: endless rf 650 is the best and priciest. Others are motul rbf660 and castrol srf

Brake duct: a bit more work depending on your bumper but this should make a big diff. The only off the shelf option is stillen which includes tubing and the brake shield mount. The inlet duct is only available for the 09-13 stock or stillen bumpers. A few places make inlets for the 09-14 nismo. All other bumpers require custom fitting

Titanium brake shims have been used by a few folks to positive results but they arent cheap or easy to find in stock

At your pace, you are gonna need more than just pads, rotors and fluids.

You’ll need cooling ducts.

Yep

Wow is the Endless fluid that much better than Castrol SRF? I see it's roughly $30 less expensive as well!

No personal experience, just hearsay. Porsche forum track folks says the stuff is incredible

How much street driving? Someone with your experience knows there's going to be a trade off with one set of pads on a dual purpose car.. better track performance and faster wear, or better wear and something like your current result on track. I wouldn't expect any 'high performance street' pad to perform to my liking on a track.
..or lots of pad switching and cleaning of rotors between events..

But, as others have suggested, duct cooling could be the solution for you and allow for a more street-able pad to survive the track.. but i don't have experience with ducts.

That's a wasted pad, so much material left.

http://www.the370z.com/members/2011-...911-064245.jpg
That's 110% used up pad.

Anyway my personal opinion is as such.
The car has excellent brakes (sport) and needs little little more then good pads and fluid to make it exceptional. Expensive two piece rotors are will not provide any real benefit and will cause heat problems sooner then a simple one piece. Not to mention it will eat a hole in your wallet sooner.
What I use is simple blanks, I can throw 3-4 away for the cost of a single replacement for a two piece. I use "Frozen Rotors" blanks because I notices a large amount of surface crack on regular. It costs about 110 a rotor with the "fr2015" 15% discount code which is less then half the cheapest 2 piece rebuild, not including the initial investment. Two piece rotors do have their place, in a striped out race car gunning for a prize and sponsors. XP10/8 are great and I use rbf600 but there are many good fluids out there, test and change your fluid reguarly.

I didn't have issues with the OEM rotor. The pads on the other hand if they're OEM or Nismo pads, I'd definitely look for something better. Nissan changed the stock brake fluid on Nismo's back in 2013. I'm not sure if they did it across all Akebono equipped vehicles.
I've had good success running Winmax W5 pads. I replaced my front rotors with a DBA two piece set. I've gotten fast enough to run up to the limits of RBF600 using 2" ducts on a very hot day. Adjusting my braking helped keep me from hitting it again. I experienced this at Sebring where there are several heavy brake zones.

Think everyone knows my set-up by now.

Pads - 10/8 combo.

Rotors - Racing Brake.

Fluid - Castrol.

Ti shims.

Brake cooling ducts. Started with the Stillen 2" kit. Then adopted that to a 3" hose.

Much thanks to everyone who has replied, lots of very good advice. How much street driving? The car's somewhat of a garage queen, avoiding rainy days (usually), it's not my daily driver. I think I have a pretty clear path forward - more advanced pads and rotors, add brake cooling. I understand that there will be a trade off between street driveabililty and the ability to drive at the limit at the track. Frankly, I bought the car primarily to have something to play with at the track, but I wanted something streetable as well. I'm sure it can be done.

It's not like racing pads will make it dangerous on the street. I confidently run DTC60 front and PFC-01 rear 24/7 on my 350Z (using stoptech front calipers and brembo rears). The dust and noise are noticeable but I really don't put too many street miles on it. If it's cold out, the first stop might be a little weaker than normal.. but it's not terrible. I've grown to like my squeaky brakes.

If I were driving 20+ miles to and from work every day or something, I would make a different choice.

I run Carbotech XP8's all around with brake cooling ducts on the street with Motul RBF600 fluid. My squeaky brakes just annoy everyone but me. Stopping is key.

:rofl2:I have a feeling a lot of us are practiced at answering the question, "Why does your car make that weird noise?"

It’s really old
It needs brake oil
It has arthritis
Hungry mouse in there somewhere
It’s a Nissan thing

Its really easy to swap pads out for track days, thats what I do. 1 set for the streets and one set for the occasional track days.

The issue with that is the other pad material left on the rotor when you switch. I've had issues where my pads and rotors kind of looked like the OPs (not quite that bad) when switching from street to race without a clean rotor.

One way to clean the street pad off is to just run the race pads on the street.. it basically acts like a lathe when cold and will do a pretty good job after a 100 or so miles of street driving. Then you are ready to bed in the race pads for optimal performance.

I've also heard of Carbotech's Bobcats. Supposed to be a street pad used along with XP series race pads and I guess due to some similarity in material avoids the steps listed above.

This is what I’m doing or will be next track day. I was switching between xp10/8 and stock and then found the compounds to not really play well together so now I have the 1521 for street but I haven’t switched back to xp10/8 since I haven’t had a track day since. Now I need rotors too cause I got some shimmy goin on, feels like the rear but I want 2 piece all 4 corners so I’ll run with it till I can replace em all.

I switched between XP10/8s and Stoptech Sports (309s) for a time. Oh man, they did not like each other. I had to get my rotors turned, and might get 1521s for the next street set to (hopefully) avoid redoing my rotors every time I go to the track.

My setup is a lot like Rusty's
Pads- Carbotech 10/8 combo
Rotors- Racing Brake
Fluid - Brembo HTC-64
Ducting- stillen kit w/2" for now, but will be upgrading to 3" ducts in the near future.

I don't have the Ti shims for the pads though, but this setup is pretty solid. I've yet to experience brake fade at all in 20-25min sessions at Laguna Seca.

When we refer to Racing Brake, is this the place?: https://racingbrake.com/

zz

Yes

Sorry to hi-jack, but if tracking on XP10 and occasional street driving, does the cold temp lathe effect remove that initial transfer layer? I guess what I've been wondering is whether I need to re-bed the pads after stints of short street driving and before track days? Thanks!

I just run track pads all the time. The only time you have to be very careful is on the interstate when it is cold and raining. Got to remember to press the brakes from time to time with long instances of no brakes at all.

In the last 2 weeks. I've driven from south of Pittsburgh, to Grand Rapids, to Denver, to Bloomfield NM with my set-up. That's over 2,500 miles. The only issue is coming to a stop. They do make noise. In the rain. They do feel different. But will still put your eyeballs in the windshield.

Probably not. I usually consider my first session of the track day to be the bed-in/test. More cognizant of how they are performing.. but they are usually on point after a couple laps (after the initial 'warm-up' lap). At worst, you'll need to end the first session a little early for fade..
I'd say to give it a shot without the added process of pre-track bed-in once and see how it works for you.

THIS :iagree:

I will defer to those with more track experience than I, and i see your point generally that a blank 1 pc has more mass and therefore more thermal capacity than a 2 pc . .

but don't all our current 2 pc options also have superior internal venting (for lack of a better term) to funnel air through the inside and therefore cool better on track?

is it your experience that the venting doesn't matter as much as just having more mass?

There is a couple of things that go in a rotor. Internal cooling, what type of cast iron, how it's cast, hardness of the cast iron. Some rotors are a powder that is put into a mold and cooked until it's molten. Then left to cool.

The main benefit of the two piece is it allows for the rotor to expand and contract separate to the hub. It also allows the rotor maintain better contact with the pad as it wears over time. Temps generally reach higher peak because of less rotor mass, but they cool back down faster. If your rotor gets too hot, you can crack the ring, so taking too much material runs a greater risk of that happening.

Ive never ever had this type of issue but Im sure it can depend on what pads you are switching between. On the front I have Mintex Extremes for the track and DS2500 for the street. On the rear Bobcats and XP8's. The Mintex Extremes have almost no stopping power until they are heated up so no good for daily driving.

Some 1 pc also have similar designed directional internal vanes for drawing and dissipating air. Take DBA for example, both 5000 (2pc) and 4000 (1pc) series use the same “kangaroo paw” internal vanes.

I think for #91 specifically, he’s saying the marginal performance benefits don’t outweigh the cost saving from using cryo treated blanks. One can buy 1 pc with the internal vanes, then send to get cryo treated....or some sites actually sell cryo treated stoptechs.

Venting is the same internally. Every mfg. has their own little version of better but as long as they have some form of curved internal venting you're good.

Less mass is great, but now now you need to add cooling, the faster heating and cooling stresses out more components, higher peak temps, and on top of that more money. If your racing then yeah none of that matters, for an extra .2 seconds or whatever, could mean a position. I'd see that money better spent on another track weekend (more seat time), 18" wheels (less weight, lower costs, more selection), aero, data analysis, etc. If replacements were more inline with 1 piece rotors I could see the benefit but, to me it's a money sink within a money sink.

The Z1 2 pc rotors are too weak for track use. They're cute and lightweight but they don't hold up under real use. This is what my research indicates - I won't be using my Z1 2 pc rotors on the track.

The Racing Brake 2 pc rotors on the other hand are much more solid and do hold up. Rusty, how many times have you had to replace the rotors on them? Ever?

I'd be interested in the comparison of how much track time you can get out of an RB setup vs the equivalent cost of ~5 sets of cryo treated blanks. Not suggesting that money couldn't be put to better use somewhere else. Just pondering.

What happened to your Z1’s?

Mine were track used. I purchased them before I got serious about my build and was planning mostly street use for them. Figured they would be ok.

But talking to the seller and several others and looking around online, it just seemed like they weren't really up to snuff for track use. So now that I've started building the car for the track, I'm looking at replacing them. It's hard for me to justify anything other than the RB setup.

I've gone through 3 sets of pads without cutting the rotors. The next set, I'll cut the rotors to see what they look like.

I also have a set of Z1 two piece lying around. I chose them bc it seemed like folks seemed to use them fine.

I could see how their durability varies based on how hard the are used.

As a relatively notice level guy i cannot imagine i would be beating on them the way a real track junkie would, so i think they're fine

My set up will be:
Z1 2 pc rotors
Endless MX72
Stillen brake ducts
titanium shims
tires undecided (Nexens are out of stock, looking at NT05)
fluid undecided (Endless RF650 or Motul RBF660)

That will probably be more than sufficient for my skill level for now

:iagree:

I was not trying to insinuate that they cannot be used on the track. But I know I am hard on my brakes in general and my comments about the rotors are intended to reflect expectations for myself.