I'm not sure if this is normal or not but my brake pads are not wearing evenly on both sides of the rotor. On both sides of the car in the front, the pad on the piston side of the caliper has twice as much pad material as the outside pad. I know some uneven wear is accaptable but to me what's happening with my pads seems to be pretty extreme. Any ideas, reasons why this is happening?
Thx



BTW:
-this is about 3-4 track days
-pads are Cobalt XR2s

 

I am actually very annoyed and shocked after finding out how the S2000 tends to heat and destroy brakes and rotors!!!

I faced the same thing you got on my fist track even (track prepped S2000 that weighs less than 2600 pounds)

I am still in the process of rebuilding everything in the brake system as the whole braking system was over heating.

Our front calipers are one piston and you will face uneven pad wear since the caliper can not press on both pads with the same strength. If it was 4 or 2 piston caliper it would press on those pads

 

One thing to check would be the caliper slides.



Make sure that both parts 15 and 20 (20 being the piece that you undo the bolt from to swing up the caliper and change the pads) slide in and out of the carrier (part 8/9). The boots that cover these sliders have a tendency to get ripped when you change the pads a lot. This will cause the grease inside to dry up, especially under track heat, and the bolts to rust and seize. If the caliper can no longer slide, it may only be applying pressure on one side.

Also run XR2s in the front. I make sure to swap inner versus outer between track days since I swap to street pads every time in between anyway. However, I haven't noticed anything that would suggest the extremely uneven wear you have experienced.

 

Thx for your replies Both calipers move freely on the sliders and the rubber, bolts and everything else is in perfect condition; I re-built both calipers completely mid season last summer. One thing I wasn't doing is swaping inner & outter pads between events; I'll start doing that from now on thx for your help.

 

in addition to removing and regreasing parts 15 and 20, part 16 should be cleaned with a wire brush to allow the ears of the brake pads to slide on them.

 

how many people here actually swap inner and outer pads for each event ? Im curious , also will brake cooling ducts help eliminate uneven and excessive pad wear?

 

That's really extreme. I usually have the pads wear unevenly, but never by so much. I would say there is something wrong with your car, or possibly with the pads.

 

Mike is right on. I have had some difference in outer and inner wear, but nothing like that. I would take everything apart, clean it and grease it.


I use CT XP 10's and 8's and can out brake almost anything on the track. Even when I put on some older OEM pads by mistake for the track, I destroyed them fairly evenly.

 

i cross rotate my pads like one would cross rotate tyres to even out the taper wear every 2-3 trackdays.

i am doing up a system (car is in the shop today) to duct to both caliper+inner brakepad and to the centre of the rotor on all 4 ends of the car right now. will contribute my setup when i'm done.

it definitely helps to keep away brake fade (i'm running on a caliper only front duct and rotor only rear duct at present) and preserve fluid life. I cannot quantify if it actually helps pad life and rotor life but i have done 60,000 kms including >10 trackdays with ds2500 type pads on stock rotors and have not cracked my rotors (although they are pretty thin now). Other s2000 owners without ducting have cracked rotors in about 6-8 trackdays with maybe 20-30,000 kms.

the ds2500 tend to have crumbly edges when used hard in hot lapping (i can go for 10 hot laps without stopping) so i'm guessing that bringing rotor temps and brake pad temps down with ducting will only help prolong lifespan.

my setup has been slightly altered from the pics here. it will look very different when i collect the car tonight.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34561226@N05/...in/photostream/

 

I noticed my wear was due to the rotors I was running. Swapping back to oem solved the issue. Cheap rotors are not the way to go with aggressive pads. I think this was due to a tolerance difference and the cheap rotors had the wrong distance from one side of the caliper to the other.

Also, I run the factory shims on the pad touching the piston and run without on the outer pad. This seems to help equalize the heat.