I did 2 track days at Calabogie (http://www.calabogiemotorsports.com) this past weekend with 2 friends, with 6 total hours of track time. It was a blast- definitely the biggest and fastest track I have been to. Since we had been to Calabogie before, we were put in a run group with vipers, vettes, many 911's, and some ridiculously fast 3 series bmw's. Needless to say, all of these cars got a quick point-by as they approached rapidly from behind me. My car is stock aside from a CAI and upgraded brake pads.

I put new ferodo 2500 pads and new OEM rotors on a week before this event. I bedded them in properly, bringing heat up slowly, etc.. and drove them for a week, remembering to get on them at least daily so they went through some heat cycles.

By the end of the second day, I was getting a vibration that felt like warped rotors. My braking was excellent all weekend, but the back straight put me at just shy of 120mph and standing on the brakes to 50mph every lap. There were a few long hard braking zones on this course.

My questions are why did this happen, and how can I prevent it? I have searched and read many threads, and spoken to a few people to see what might help. Suggestions or info I have found or heard:

1. It is important with a Honda to have rotors, even new ones, slighty turned with an on-car lathe, so slight differences in the hub can be smoothed out. This is a PITA because it will cost me money!

2. The ferodo 2500s really aren't meant for the track at all, despite what was recommended to me and I overheated them and hot-spotted the rotors thus warping them.

3. Honda rotors are garbage, they were probably off from the start and/or are made of cheap metal.

4. Ferodo pads are garbage.

5. The stock caliper brackets are flexing under such stressful braking, and the pads aren't being pushed into the rotor evenly because of this (what the hell did I buy a sports car for?)

Overall, I have no complaints. The car was incredibly consistent, and the brakes never faded.

The wheels were torqued, calipers torqued down properly, etc... I am not entirely new to this and have never had this happen to any car I have owned in the past.

Here are pics of the front rotors and pads, note the ferodo's are about 60-70% used from two track days!














My friend is going to turn them (as little as necessary) tomorrow. Anyone have recommendations? Can I finish off these pads with street driving and not re-damage the rotors?

 

Well, to me it looks like you cooked the pad. 6 hours on the track is alot on time. Clearly things got hot.

1. Never heard of of this.

2. Sounds like the pad is the problem, not the rotors.

3. Nope, not true. Many fast track junkies ues them with out a problem.

4. Agreed. They were not up to the task.

5. Sounds like you asked too much of the system. How about you get a better pad. Again, most of the fast track junkies use the OEM calipers too.

 

I was at the track yesterday and a M3 had a pad that looked just like those and he had massive 6 pad brembo's running ferodo pads

 

it is 100% #2

 

The pads crumbled, they suck. Try Hawk or Cobalts next time.

 

Thanks for the help guys- I will definitely go with different pads next, and plan to go with a dedicated track pad, since it is easy and quick enough to swap them out anyway.

If you ever get a chance to go to Calabogie, don't pass on the opportunity! It was a blast.

 

It sure is fun....and extremely hard on brakes. 6 hours of track time in 2 days?! I'll deduce that you were running some long sessions as well. Did you feel brake fade or boiled fluid at all?

 

30 min sessions x6 each day, and for the incredible deal of $175/day. In hindsight, one day would have been enough. My arms and shoulders ached for 2 days.

The brakes never faded, not even slightly. I had experienced brake fade on the (fairly worn out) stock pads before, and at a much smaller track. This is why I wanted to upgrade before the Calabogie event. I guess the Ferodo's were a bad choice.

I was running fresh ATE superblue, I bled them the week before the event to be sure I wouldn't run into problems. I have no brake ducting, but it was a fairly cool weekend with temps no higher than 71deg.

I will say that I was braking MUCH later than most of the other cars on track. I could actually hang with some 911's for 1/2-3/4 of a lap, purely because I was braking much later particularly at the end of straights. To be honest, the car had more braking in it but I wasn't willing to push it any further, for fear of going off course (2 black flags and you are out!). Someone with more experience could have been even harder on the brakes, I am sure.

I should mention that I was running street tires as well- with a set of R compounds I may have been able to fade them, but there are long sections after the straights at Calabogie that give them plenty of time to cool.

I will definitely be heading back to that course!

 

The fact that the brakes "never faded, even slightly," speaks well for them. They weren't up to 3 hours of heavy braking per day - you need a race pad for that - but they hung in there.

I used to use them on my RSX for street duty and light track use. They were good for that purpose. That they didn't crumble or break says to me that they handled the abuse pretty well, all things considered.

The important thing is, it sounds like you had a fun day at the track and now you know what you'll need next time out.

How did the rear pads do?

 

#2 for sure. It's a sport pad, they actually look really good and performed great considering.

Just look at the disk color, way overheated, no way its not going to warp/collect pad material unevenly.

Good man on the ATE.