My very first session on track ever, one of the things my instructor told me was to do a good cooldown lap and also drive around a bit in the pits to help everything cool off; the rule was not to go straight in and park. I'm surprised that it seems like many of you were not taught that.

 

RacingBrake.com does sell a two piece rotor made for the stock S2000 caliper. I ran that system for over a year and got 27 hours of track time out of them. I'm now using their Acura brake caliper BBK.

 

Many don't just go "straight in and park". Almost all of the fast guys I know drive around the pits to cool the brakes down, yet they still crack rotors often. How much is enough? Just drive around until your next session?

 

Well, that's why I just skipped ahead and upgraded to StopTechs. Done. But I still always take an easy cooldown and drive around the paddock a bit. And usually, I'm the only one doing it coming off the track from a session as I see practically everyone else going straight in and parking. There was one guy in the last 4 track days that went and drove around with me coming off track.

 

I know all the s2k challenge guys cool their brakes...

 

When you guys park in the paddock after your session, do you leave your car parked in one spot and then they crack? Or do you let the car sit for a few minutes, then roll the car forward or backward so a different part of the rotor is covered by the brake pad?

When I was a mechanic in Speed World Challenge GT and Touring we would typically park the car, let it sit for 5 minutes then roll the car around (couple feet front or back)in an effort to spread the heat from the calipers across the rotor, instead of letting all the heat soak be absorbed into one spot on the rotor. We would do this a couple times after each session. We would also jack the car up and take the wheels off to help the cool down.

 

I've tried rolling the car every few minutes, and the rotors still crack...

FWIW, the crack is never under the pad when it appears, but always away from the caliper. At least, all the times I've caught the crack while checking for cracks between sessions..

 

I may have had their upgrade and replacement options confused, but when I first looked at the racingbrake site they mentioned using an accord caliper because the stock caliper couldn't handle the thickness. I found your site and when I followed your link to racingbrake, I found an s2000 option that doesn't mention replacing the calipers, so it looks like a go. BTW, good info on your site, Rob. I'm guessing you reused your hats when you went to NSX calipers, right?

As for driving around in the paddock afterwards, I believe it is more important cool down and not use your brakes on your cooldown lap than it is to drive around in the paddock afterwards. If you use your cooldown lap to cool your brakes, you are getting the airflow from 50+mph average for ~3 miles. You are going to be hard pressed to get that kind of airflow driving around the paddock at 5-10mph between sessions. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying driving around in the paddock doesn't help, but that last lap is more valuable.

It's so disappointing that Honda didn't put more effort into the braking system on these cars. I never had to worry about cracking rotors on my porsche with stock brakes, the car stopped much better than the s2k, and I'd stay out for 40 min at a time during time trial warmups(plenty of people would do enduros on the same brakes and pads I was using).

 

^ I wouldn't be discouraged so quickly. Especially if the rotors didn't crack on your car. I personally don't have issues with crack rotors. And I get the cheapest generic blank rotors. They last +8-10 track days and I change them out proactively (before they crack). This is with XP10s & RA-1s. Again, irony will probably bite me in the ass & I'll start cracking rotors more frequently from now on. Or maybe what I think is hard braking is really not hard at all.

 

I went the Endless route