Call me debbie doubter but isn't the purpose of bedding to transfer material and mate the pad/rotor surface for maximum surface contact between pad and rotor?

how can this be done without the rotor present?

Quoted straight from Carbotech's website FAQ:

"Bedding Procedure and Proper Maintenance

1. Why should I follow bed-in procedure?

Proper bedding of pads & rotors will result in greater performance and longer pad life & less rotor wear. Failure to properly bed in your pads could lead to friction materials chunking and breaking up. This could also lead to overheating your pads and causing them to glaze over resulting in the car not being able to stop or slow fast enough. "


"3. Do rotors require a bedding process?

New rotors just like new pads need to be bedded in. Brake rotors don’t require as much bedding as brake pads require. If you follow the brake pad bed-in procedure your rotors will be completely bedded. Proper bedding will increase the rotor life and make it more resistant to thermal cracking. By cleaning the disc surface you want to make sure you have completely removed any and all grease, surface residue, and debris that might contaminate or damage the brake pads."

http://www.ctbrakes.com/faqs.asp

 

There are two different types of "bedding". There is bedding the pads, which means the pad is heated to the point of all the excess binders/resins turning to a vapor. Then there bedding the pads to the rotors which you described.

 

Just bed them on the track. With aggressive pads, I could never get a worthwhile bedding in on the street anyway.

 

That would be awesome if say a company like project mu could pre bed a set of matched rotors and pads and all you had to do was slap them on and go fast. I hate "bedding" brakes on the street as it makes me feel like an a-hole and don't want the unnecessary burden of a ticket, insurance hikes and court dates.
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Yeah it would be nice but bedding pads is easy enough so it isn't a big deal really. It can be tricky to bed-in on the street but you just have to find a good spot. I have found I need to do 2 bed-in cycles to get the club racers mated up to the rotors properly. Usually doing about 8-10 back to back stops 75-5mph or until they fade, cruise until everything cools down, and then repeat.

But unless you are lucky and live close to a track or are trailering the car there, you will probably need to do another cycle on track anyway after driving for a few hours on cold pads. If I only drove on track I would just bed them on the track. Start at the back of the pack for the first session and keep an eye on your rearview.

 

Thanks for clarifying. It seems that any proper pad/rotor bed-in procedure would easily put enough heat into the pads to do the same though.

 

Agree, that's what we're talking about mainly. You don't want chunks of pad to break off and separate from the backing.

For our non-street legal cars, I just bed them on track anyway.

 

Oh it definitely will, the fade you feel when bedding the brakes (using certain pads) for the first time is the pads outgassing. Carbotech's "pre bedded" option is useful for someone who runs out pads halfway through a track day or race weekend and just wants to throw new pads in and go. They wouldn't have to worry about the pads "green fading" the first time they're run hard and assuming they use Carbotech pads exclusively, a nice transfer layer has already been laid down from the previous pads.

As an added bonus we found the "pre bedded" option to be more quiet on the street compared to the standard un bedded pads from Carbotech given the same compound.

 

Ah now that makes sense. :thumb up: The "green fading' is definitely something that wouldn't be welcome in a racing environment. I don't know if I buy that the "pre bedded" option would be quieter on the street though since that seems to be pretty dependent on the transfer layer.