I am feeling pulsing in the brakes though....

 

Totally. I got the Centrics (non premium I guess) for $35 each and they still got good life left in them - no fractures or anything. Dont waste your money on fancy rotors that look cool - cast iron works best and costs less. They were so cheap that I went ahead and kept them for track only uses and change them before each event, then back to the old OEMs after.

DEFINATELY make sure you flush out the fluid ALL THE WAY with new stuff if you hadnt already. They typ-200 is the gold stuff? I have never used it - always the blue stuff. And there is just no reason to take the car to the stealership once you have commited to trakcing it - you can do it yourself, S2ki will teach you!

And glad to see the brake problems didnt spoil your impression of this fantastic car

 

Yeah, the dealership is definately out of the loop from here on out! I got a service manual, a jack and 4 stands today, 2 torque wrenches and a few adapters and ALL of it cost less than having someone else change my brake pads for me.

It would take a lot to make me dislike this car - now I just dislike the dealership - or more specifically Honda America - they say "abuse" caused the damage and that the car isn't designed for the racetrack. I called bulls*** and asked about the S2K CR which comes with the same stock brakes (as far as I could find out online) and they just kinda shruged and said again it's a street car. (The guy also pulled me aside and said he agreed with me but there is nothing he can do about it because Honda sends the parts back and says abuse - not warranty. They actually have been very couteous and helpful interms of pointing me up the ladder for complaints to the head boss).

Anyway, I still don't buy that the calipers are destroyed, thought the piston boot is definately toast.

I will flush the heck out of the brakes, and yes the ATE TYP 200 is the gold stuff. I didn't use Super Blue because I didn't know if it would cause any problems with the ABS and the typ 200 has the same rating.

Thanks for the recomendations for rotors, I'll pick up another set here sometime and see if I can't get the rears turned.

 

I've put something like 35 track days on my S2000, where I've long been among the fastest out there. It's my daily driver and autocross car, also. It has 47,000 miles, and hundreds and hundreds of autocross runs.

My typical track day is 175 miles on a track (mostly at Pacific Raceways) which is notoriously hard on tires and brakes.

My calipers are original, and in fine shape.

Brake pads (Carbotech or Cobalt full race pads) last a long time--at least three or four days for front pads; twice that for rear pads. Similarly, tires (shaved RA-1s) last four days for the fronts, eight for the rears. Front rotors last four or five track days; rears last forever.

You may well be riding your brakes too much (as well as over-driving the corners), which causes too much heat build-up, which nukes pads, fluid, rotors and calipers. I have some sympathy with Honda's position.

YMMV

 

OK. You didn't say that. You only talked about how they looked.

There's a good chance that by over-temping the pads so much, you did deposit some of the pad material unevenly. That can ruin the rotors.

I think if you had just used better pads, all this issue would have been avoided. The rotors do crack, eventually, from track use -- but not from only two days of track use.

 

I won't say I wasn't driving the car hard, I definately was but you think I'd notice something a little earlier than my last session (boiled fluid for example which didn't happen till my last lap) if it really was me. And even if I was hard on the brakes and over steered the car, from what you (and others) have said you drive the stink out of the car all year long without problems... really think one bad day would blow all of it that fast? I still have quite a lot to learn on the racetrack and would never describe myself as anything past experianced amature. I am sure I am not the only amature driver on here to push the car on the track and I haven't seen any other posts about problems like this before. Maybe I'm being a little defensive here but something just doesn't feel right. I appreciate the input none the less.

(On a side note I went over there and they seem to think now that the rear calipers are ok, just the fronts need work).

As for how the brakes felt, I didn't mention it at first because I was planning on replacing the rotors and pads anyway and figured thats where the problem was, I will definately be using carbotech pads next time out.

 

 

Regarding ATE SuperBlue...

I always used off-the-shelf DOT4 (Castrol or Valvoline) in my 240Z for track days (245rwhp, small brakes!), never any problems.

When I first took the S2k (stock) to the track at Watkins Glen, I figured I would "step up" to ATE SuperBlue as a hedge against overheating the fluid. Carbotech XP8 fronts, stock rear pads. Over the course of the 2-day event, the pedal got progressively softer (but not bad enough to cause my lazy arse to bleed them).

Next event at Mosport I was sharing the car with a friend, and ambient temp was ~10 degrees warmer (85* vs. 75* at WGI). Same pads. Off-the-shelf Valvoline Synpower DOT4. The pedal stayed remarkably solid for the whole event without bleeding brakes, despite warmer temperatures and TWICE the track time, and thinner pads.

I know a lot of people swear by the stuff, but in my one-time anecdotal experience, I found ATE SuperBlue to underperform cheaper stuff you can buy off the shelf.

FWIW, YMMV...

 

MMV (my mileage varied ). Pacific Raceway must be killer on tires and brakes! I have 8+ days on a set of shaved RA-1 fronts and just broke through the last remnants of the tread pattern. Still look like tons of life left in them My XR2 front pads have been through 4 days (2 on hard braking track, 2 on an easier track) and I am just about halfway through the pad material, I am hoping to get at least 2, maybe 4 more days out of them.

 

Pacific Raceways is as old as I am, and still has some of its original 50+ year old pavement. There are at least 4 different surfaces as you go around, all very abrasive, with lots of bumps. There are several high-speed corners, and even my 1.6 Miata with a stock motor gets to or above 100 in three places on the track (and over 90 at another), with two of those being followed by braking zones where I have to slow by at least 50mph. Tires are chewed up something awful after a day there, and brakes go faster there than at other tracks I've driven (Portland; Spokane; Thunderhill; Spring Mountain). I also had my car on a semi-street alignment when I tracked it, so the camber wasn't particularly aggressive (which accelerates the cording of the outside edges of the tires).

But thanks for emphasizing my point that going through tires, rotors, pads, fluid and calipers in two days may indicate some driving issues, rather than equipment issues.