Thread: "THE" Brake Thread

I almost had an incident on the street with cold AX6 brake pads. No bueno. WHen they are cold, they are borderline worthless. And it takes a few good, hard breaks to warm them up.

However, the other end of the performance spectrum, the AX6 pads are wonderful. They truly shined at AMP and did a great job once they warmed up.

I did not change fluid last year and I should have. This year I have new Motul 600 RBF and Goodridge stainless steel brake lines on the platter for brake upgrades. And since I know how Nelson Ledges is, I am strongly thinking about downgrading the AX6 pads to the EBC greenstuff since Nelson Ledges does not need any fancy brakes at all.

I agree Kyle.I am gonna just leave my street setup on for Ohio. Save the xp8 for next time I need them again.

EBC GreenStuff is crap, it does not brake in any condition. Really wasted money.

What worked really well for me for even daily and track was Hawk HP+.

Not the first time I heard this, I thank you for your input and concern regarding my money. It was only ~$40 for the pads, I'm not sweating it too much. Perfect for the purposes I require of the pads and the car 99% of the time. Plus I can keep the nice pads for future conventions that visit tracks with more elevation changes and require a much more beefy braking system.

My only two arguments is I have to drive to and from the Convention ~460 miles each way and I need to have brakes that will operate below 50*F since I will be cruising for hours on end without any use of the brakes. As previously stated, the Carbotech AX6 pads were too cold while I was on the highway and it could have ended up with me placing my front end into some other cars rear end because the cold, dead brakes were not grabbing.

Secondly, the track in question, good ol Nelson Ledges. I know you have not been here to see and I wish you could join us over here for our Conventions. Along with the decades of experience in the Old Mans arsenal and the lessons learned from 2012, this track does not require much brake at all. I used Hawk HPS pads on my G20 with new Brembo rotors and dirty fluid. Seriously, two parts of a light tap of the brake are required at Nelson Ledges. The rest is finesse!

Brakes are pretty much a function of HP and weight (I can cite the formulation behind this if you need some math/engineering), so a lowly HP, low weight B/P chassis car can get away with a much lesser street/auto-x oriented pad before any ill effects happen.

@Storm88000, your ~200WHP, 2300+lb SE-R (I highly doubt a street SE-R weighs in around 2000 lbs without driver fully "wet"........and yes I did see yoru thread using a "truck scale" which is highly inaccurate for the lower resolution stuff, sorry) on street rubber should have no problem using some auto-x oriented pads around Nelson.

Get rid of those crappy off brand slotted/drilled rotors (they WILL crack. I have cracked every single one of the non higher end brand stuff, even the brembo stuff, on a VE track car prior), get some solid/vented/veigned rotors on the front (the cheaper the better, although Centric makes some of the finer quality rotors I have seen!), some Motul 600F fluid and some proper auto-x pads and you should be fine. The rear can get away with the cheapest rotor possible and some street ceramic pads. I can promise you nothing else is required.

BTW @Storm88000, how much actual track time outside of auto-x do you have?? Are you in an Advanced, Intermediate or novice/instructor group?? Do you have a log book perhaps?? If you run with SCCA or NASA, you should have one with notes and all. It will be a good judge of your skill level and just how much car you are capable of using

I believe you about the engineering.

As far as the weight, it really is very light, it is basically a mule and was a mule when brand new in '92. Crap I didn't mean that to rhyme. Doing everything reasonable I had it down quite low and yes I was told the truck scales are inaccurate, then someone told me how they were actually very accurate because it's a big problem if they're off and some states are real strict on the amount of weight a truck can take on a certain road so I have no idea. I can tell you that fully stripped besides the front seat there was quite a difference in acceleration & I barely needed to touch the brake pedal to stop when driving normally.

As far as the brakes, I got the front rotors from Greg @ G-Spec, I know rotors are rotors but I never had a problem with anything I got from him, hopefully it stays that way; they've been on the car with some pretty serious braking and street use for 2 years and they are fine, just the rear rotors are thin, it's possible they are originals as the car had relatively low miles on it when I got it. I've officially been a member of SCCA for 2 years, I had a gap between 2005-2011 when I was inactive. I had a '91 SE-R and then a '98 Sentra SE w/ bolt ons & the norm suspension back then which was AGX's with Eibachs and did 4 maybe 5 track events in the 2000-2004 time period, a few auto-x, and probably about a dozen trips to the dragstrip with like 30 something passes. Then I sold the cars and didn't do anything from 2005 to 2011, I drove a couple SUV's, even bought a brand new '07 Honda Fit which was sooo slow but gave me 98,000 absolutely trouble free miles, but when the 20th anniversary of the '91 SE-R came around I started getting that feeling again and I'm on my 4th SR20 powered car since then (a '91, '92 (current), a '93 and a '97) but this one is the best. I actually joined the SCCA this go around and did auto-x's and drag strip last spring/summer. I would not run in the advanced group but I'm not a beginner either so I guess intermediate.

@billc - thanks very much for your reply. I'll just get some rear blanks. Wanted to confirm that slots on the back would be pointless on the rear but since they need to be changed anyway I figured I might as well look into it.

@jagy & @Kyle - thanks for the info on the pads and for the info on Nelson. I've watched a ton of in-car youtube videos and it appeared to be a track leaning towards the faster side with a fair amount of braking but maybe guys who have in-car cams are more likely to be skilled drivers or have faster cars that get up to a high MPH then jolt on the brakes (although not like me who just gave his mom a scare).

Hawk HP+ worked very well for street/track car over here. Even in winter without single problem. Its same with Ferodo DS2500 pads, they work at low temperatures too. We had very bad experiencies with GreenStuff as they are very easy to fade or totally burn. EBC pads that can be considered as good is YellowStuff and up but i wont still buy them anyway...

Try them and you will see your own experiences.

I'm going to PM you right now for the best website to get them, morgan saved me $150 bucks on the CM FX500 clutch with a website he sent me.

Storm, if you are guesstimating what run group you are in, I am pretty sure you are very much in a the Novice group unfortunately. If you have no log book, there is also a pointer to how little track miles you have........I am not comfortable with "they've been on the car with some pretty serious braking and street use for 2 years and they are fine", as that is a very subjective and not a very scientific test, and unfortunately does not carry over to the track.

I have burnt up both stock, Dynalites (11" corrado slotted rotors) and Superlite (11.75" floating 2 piece rotors) based systems for one of our SE-Rs (some due to incorrect pad choice on my/supplier part and more just due to shear heavy/long braking zones and 130-140MPH braking zones repeatedly in one of the turbo track cars!). If you would like pictures, I can surely provide you with evidence. I can also show you my Novice group SCCA log book if you would like as well for citing some of my opinion/facts . It took me some time to get to the DTC compound I am at with the Hawk based pads. Just trying to help a brotha out

Either way, Nelson is more sweeping and you are mostly a Novice. Some auto- compound pads would do ya just right and close to stock rears . That and your tire compound and experience will never come close to even warming up some of the higher mu and heat range compounds of pads

Go get your car weighed at a true race car scale to see true weight.

Goodluck! K.I.S.S and you will be fine!

That's fine, I never said it was any type of scientific testing. I have a masters of science in psychology, that's all we talked about, how to do research studies properly. if I should be in novice that's cool, it's just for fun and everyone's different, better or worse than everyone in some area..