I would agree with Nick... in our experience, just adding brake ducts to the stock system, and upgrading the lines/fluid/pads is an excellent way of upgrading the system for track use. I personally never saw any fade, even during long flatout sessions. FWIW, I was braking after the hill for the corkscrew at Laguna, so we were definitely using the brakes hard!

IMO, the suspension is in much more need of help than the brakes! One of the things that makes the King/Mugen SS2000 so much fun to drive is the suspension... the brakes are so good that we don't have to think about them.

 

uhmm, you have no pads left? Change your pads man!

 

The reason that we did brake testing at Button Willow was trying to collect data on the S-2000 brake system. I have seen a lot of information posted that is not true and conclusions drawn, with out data to back up statements . I am not saying that your set up does not work for you , or the products that you have chosen do not work . I am stating ,what we discovered by testing three different S2000's at the track . All three cars are running track tires . What was interesting was the car that had the brake ducts only showed a reduction in center rotor temperature . This is the maximum temperature reached . The area that the pads contact all reached the same temperature.
Many of the problems that people are having , are compounded .
A stock S-2000 with stock pads .
Pads will over heat , creating fade , driver will push harder on petal , increasing temperatures , fluid in caliper will boil causing drop in petal , front brakes fade , so rear brakes take up slack , then the rear brakes fade.
So what started this mess .
The front pads and the fluid in the calipers .
You go out and install high friction racing pads you increase heat in rotors , you must change fluid to handle higher temperatures . You start wearing out rotors from high friction racing pads . Performance of brakes when cold , not as good as stock . But the rear brakes are now fine . The reason is the front brakes are doing their job .
Adding brake ducts may help a full race S-2000 running 25 laps or more with no street time , But the tests that we did at Button Willow , showed no great improvement in rotor temperatures . Both cars we tested used the same manufactures pads . The testing that we are doing , is to explain, what owners can expect from a improvement that is made to their braking system and why .
To say that I did this to my brakes and it works is fine , but what improvements add what benefits .
I state again, that the problem with most S-2000 systems is brake pads first , fluid second if you match the pads to the way you drive you will get longer life out of the pads and the rotors . Many people are using high friction racing pads on their cars thinking that they are improving the brake system ( just touch the petal and you go through the windshield) . Our cars weigh 2,800 lbs we don't need the friction material that it takes to stop a 4,000 pound stock car or even a 600 Hp Viper . I have been very interested in people posting: "that their pads are eating the rotors , just installed new pads they are worse then the old pads that I had on the car before" .
By checking rotor temperatures you can match the pad to the way an owner drives his car , producing a easier car to drive and less maintenance on the rotors.
I am planning to do some testing this summer at Gingerman and other tracks in the Mid West . I would be more then happy to test your set up . We will be able to compare your car's brakes to other cars on the track . Rotor temperatures tell what the brakes are doing . A side note , higher temperatures can also be caused by dragging shoes ( part of the rotors for lunch bunch)
As you can see by the three cars that we tested , all of the brakes were working about the same . The only odd thing that we saw was Prolene's rear rotor running cooler than the cars with the stock rear rotor . If the rear was not contributing as much braking the front temperature would have gone up . Prolene only did 8 laps on that test compared to the others running 10 , but we don't feel that that was factor . Our best guess is the solid rear stock rotor is loading up ( becoming a heat sink) this is shown by the high center temperatures . As we do more testing we will try to answer as many questions as we can and pass this information along to all the people on the site.

The true improvement in braking , is the ability to modulate the brakes as required and eliminate over heating .

Information to the masses

brad

 

Thanks for the info Mr. Brake Man. It's good to have solid data. I only wish you had told me this *before* I cut the ducts out of my front bumper It *seemed* to me that the ducts reduced fade (I had none) vs. other track days without ducts when fade set in by lunch. Could have been the cooler temps, less brake intensive track, etc.

A good track to test brakes on is Streets of Willow, it's really hard on brakes. It's more an extended autocross than a real race track.

 

Yes
Being able to test to solve a problem is the answer . We will try to do just that in the future . Some one that's having a problem on a certain track , we should be able to determine what's causing the problem and what the easiest fix would be. One of the benefits of the S-2000 , is the cars weigh about the same , tires about the same ( you need to know , stock or racing ) speeds that stock cars can reach are about the same . When some one like Jason or Aaron drive a car really fast on a track , depending on the coarse they might use the brakes less than some one trying to drive fast . On other tracks they might be the ones pushing the brakes to the max . Most of the time , these drivers make up , is through the corners , They may have slightly higher end of straight speeds . Their ability to carry the speed through the corners , means that they did not have to convert as much velocity into heat.
Sharing this information helps every one improve the way they are able to drive the car.

brad

 

Brad,

It shouldn't come as a surprise that peak brake temps were the same with or without the ducts. Afterall, think of when the peak temperature occurs. It would occur at the end of a long, hard brake application, and at the point of peak temperatures, the speed of the car would be quite low. Low enough so that there is not sufficient airflow through the duct to make an effective difference.

Now, what would be interesting is to plot the brake temperature in real time around the track. Using this method, I would predict that you would find that the average temperature with brake ducts would be a measurable amount lower than without.

 

brad,

Help me to understand this heat stuff a little better.

All three driver's hit 600 degrees front and two of the three hit 400 in the rear rotors. So #3 pads and/or the kit lowered Prolene's to 300, right? Which would seem a good thing, overheating the brakes is not good. The one S2000 that I saw overheat at Gingerman melted the boots in the back, as I recall.

The big difference in results comes with heat in the hat, where the wheel bolts on: 250/200 vs 400/350 vs 500/350. Looking at this either the brake ducts or removal of dust shields helped second driver over the third driver, right? And, clearly the hat temps between driver #1 and the others were significantly lowered. But the rotors are not. Since the rotors in all cases are higher then the hat, what's the significance of the hat readings. Are we concerned about the heat transfer to wheel bearings, etc. or what?

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by S2kRob
[B]Brad,

It shouldn't come as a surprise that peak brake temps were the same with or without the ducts.

 

cdelena,
I don't know what happened to the other post where you responded to my post to this. Anyway, I reread my post and it did sound kinda preachy and I'm sorry. Sometimes it's hard to interpret things people say over the internet when you can't have a face to face discussion, but my fault for not chosing words more carefully.

Back to the point of your response that "the best advice is to not let it happen at all." I couldn't agree more. Especially with less experienced drivers that you may be teaching, you want them to really learn to avoid an early apex mistake (which is probably the most dangerous mistake you can make). However, at some point, every driver makes this mistake as they learn to go faster. Afterall, the only way to ultimately increase speed through the turn is to take an earlier and earlier apex (a technique that shouldn't be taught until someone is very experienced). My original post was meant to give advice for dealing with this inevitable mistake. That doesn't change the fact that your advice is even better. Basically, you are saying that the s2k is particularly tail happy and can snap back on a spin, so do everything in your power to avoid a potential spin situation. Once again, very true. Unfortunately, the only way to go faster is to get closer and closer to the edge of that spin envelope. Which reminds me of a quote by Mario Andretti "if you are in control, you aren't going fast enough."

You are also correct that one drive of an s2k doesn't make me an expert on the s2k and its handling behavior. My only experience in catching the second part of a snap back spin (of which experience I've got WAY more than I should probably admit ) is in cars that rotate at least as fast as the s2k, if not considerably faster (911s, 914s, etc.). That doesn't make me an expert on the s2k, far from it. Unfortunately, that experience in other cars does make me somewhat knowledgeable in spin catching (I've also got some knowledge in how NOT to catch a spin, both the first half and the second ).

Anyway, if you want to talk about techniques for catching that second half I'd be glad to discuss it. I'm sure I could learn some good stuff from your experience particular to S2Ks.

Thanks to everyone for all the great discussion on brakes. Sounds like the s2k has pretty good brakes, but probably not quite up to the task of hoosiers. Along those lines, is there any "low hanging fruit" when it comes to weight reduction of the s2k? I'm kinda surprised that such a small car weighs 2800lbs. Really surprised actually. It feels lighter than that. How about seats? Anybody install recaro srds or equivalent? Does anyone make a real rollbar for track use? Doesn't look like it from the racing posts. Any other weight reduction possibilities? Why is it so heavy?

Thanks again.

-dc

 

The reason that you do rotor testing is to match pads to the application that the car is being used . I the case of Button Willow the maximum temperature that the rotors reached in 10 laps was 600 degrees F . The reason that Prolenes car had lower hat temperatures, is his car is running two piece rotors . The area that the pads run on are cast iron , the area that the wheels bolt to are forged aluminum . The rotors are mounted to this hat with stainless steel bushings and bolts . The hat is made with a castle design ,these are like fingers to reduce contact with hot rotor . This also allows air to move up through the hat from the out side of the car . In the past it was posted that the one piece rotor on the fantastic Honda design , moved the heat in to the wheel to help cooling . You see by the testing that this does not happen . All you do is heat the "s'it "out of your hub and wheel bearings . The brake ducting did remove 100 degrees from this area . This is a area of the stock rotor that does not get good air flow . Because of the poor air flow it will heat sink ( continue to rise until it reaches a point that the heat produced matches the heat rejected ) Did we reach that temperature? , I doubt it. I think that GTRPower running 15 to 20 laps would be a better test of that . But we did find out that the "hybrid" system was not heat sinking and was able to handle this heat with no problems , and NO AIR DUCTS . This means no additional weight , a bonus of 9 pounds per wheel missing at each front corner . (If we were removing brake ducting this would be a greater savings)
The bias that GTRPower is referring to , is the front to rear amount of braking on the car . This car was designed for street application by Nissin for Honda . Nissin supplies the brake parts to Honda . I am sure we are going to find many of the same parts from our cars braking system, will be on the new RSX . Maybe Honda had both cars being designed at the same time. ( This car is not a 50/50 rear driver)
When you install racing rubber on a car like the S-2000 the ability of the car to pull more G's when stopping will increase , because of the greater traction the tires allow . This will make the weight in the car move forward during braking . This requires the front brakes to do more work , and the rear brakes to do less work . On the stock car you can balance this by changing pads front to rear . So far in our testing we have not seen this to be a major problem . With the times that Jason has shown , it seems like it is not causing him a problem.
The rear rotor that Prolene is running is also a two piece design . Same hat and attachment method . The rotor material is different , it is a custom alloy steel design . We are again retaining the heat in the rotor only , not storing this heat in the wheel hub area . We feel that the testing is showing a HEAT SINK EFFECT in the rear rotor . The front brakes on Prolenes car reached the same temperature as the other two cars but the rears were cooler . He is still stopping the car from approximately the same speed . If the bias on his car was out of wack because of his HYBRID system . His car would push in the front , under braking . Also the front temperature in the rotor would increase . This was not the case .
I will be doing cool down testing for the techno's on this site . What some of you are asking is , take the car up to 120 mph , brake as quickly as possible , drive car 500feet pull over see what maximum temperature was see what rotor temperature is at that time.
These types of testing are neat , but on the track, rotor and pad temperatures are what you need to know.
When we first showed the light weight rotor for the rear , most people thought it looked great , but would not work . The design was built to reduce weight and promote air flow , over its surfaces . Our goal was to see what temperatures it would run at . Some of these rotors will run 300 to 400 degrees hotter than this with no problems . This rotor style was use on a few racing Vipers , they would get the rotor to glow . This would be in a long race with high terminal velocities .
The reason that I got involved in the brakes on my S-2000 was to improve the way they performed , not to get a big hunk of red or blue showing through my wheels . When I learned a lot about brakes I realized that to reach maximum performance you would have to match each component to the car , not just move a component from one car to another .
My goal has been reduce weight , improve ability to modulate and improve the ability to reject ,the heat produced .
One of the other things that we will be interested in testing is with dust shields and without . We feel that the dust shields reduce the inside face of the rotor from radiating the heat from its surface , plus the air flow over its surface is greatly reduced.
Time will tell . Again we will test any ones car when we are at a track event . This will give them a better understanding of their cars braking system . We will share this information with this site.

brad

PS
The reason that we have the brake components on this car is "COST". They do the job and cost was the decision maker. They tried to save weight in many area's , but the money ran out.