Supercharged111

Well this weekend was educational. Last year I ran the stock ceramic pads until they were gone, then upgraded to Carbotech XP10/8 for the track. What a difference! Well this year I installed some spindle ducts and expected the cooling to be so much better, I decided to use my semi-metallic street pads to shake the rust off. Bad idea, I boiled the fresh Wilwood 570 on short order. The increased pedal effort required more distance to stop and cooked the fluid. I didn't realize how badly until I took the point by and proceeded to blow the next corner. There was a nice runoff that connected me to the other end of the track, so I just jumped back on and pitted. Luckily, I brought the Carbotechs with their rotors just in case and swapped out before the next session. The brakes aren't much better than last year now. A hard lap or 2 will still slightly boil the fluid it seems. The difference now is if I take it easy for a lap, the brakes come back to 100%. They didn't bounce back so quickly last year, so I know the ducts are working better, but not quite good enough. The issue is that, with the Carbotechs in place, the slight boil I do get increases my pedal travel slightly which makes it very difficult to hit a heel/toe without upsetting the car. With the pedal higher, I just reach over and blip the gas. With the pedal lower, I'm trying to miss the gas so I don't accidentally hit both at the same time. I have to rock my knee over to the left and I can't push down far enough to threshold brake at the end of a straight without hitting the gas too, a bit of a pain if you ask me. They say the SS pistons keep more heat in the pads and less in the fluid, but the outer pad can only give heat away to the little bit of caliper it does touch so I don't see the increase in pad heat being that substantial. Are SS caliper pistons my last line of defense before splurging for that $70/liter Castrol SRF? I'm only in HPDE2 now and my tires are bald RE760s that I'm going to replace with NT05s for my next session and I'll be at a familiar track that's much harder on the brakes. I'd like to not be held up by boiling brake fluid and I don't have thousands to blow on a big brake kit. Yes, I braked a little early over the weekend, again unfamiliar course, but probably not as bad as you might think, especially once the Carbotechs went back on. I'm glad I did that, because it's convinced me I never want to do it again! Street pads do nothing at 100mph+.

Edited to add pics. Quick recap, track setup consists of spindle ducts, dedicated rotors with my Carbotech XP10/8, and fresh Wilwood 570 for every event. Still trying to prevent fluid boil.

brkntrxn

Interesting. I race my C5Z06 and I don't even have spindle ducts on it. Never had brake fade or boiled fluid. I'd suggest you have someone look at your braking technique.

trapp

Go with Castrol SRF.... It's worth every penny! I have never boiled my brakes yet with it.

Supercharged111

What do you use? Your brakes are as.good after 20 minutes as they are at the start?

brkntrxn

Carbotech XP12s front and 10s rear.

They are as good at 40 minutes as they are at the start.

Supercharged111

What type of fluid?

sperkins

Something isn't right. Unless you're running around on 10yr old brake fluid, riding the pedal or have sticking calipers, there's no way you should be boiling the fluid.
My guess is you overheated the street pads and lost all confidence in the brakes from that point forward??

Supercharged111

A bit of that yesterday, but not last season. I was pretty decent on my braking last season at a familiar track. I'm hitting that same track May 4-5 and anticipate pushing harder with tires that grip better. The stopping power is always there with the Carbotechs, but the pedal travel and response inevitably deteriorates halfway through the session. Is theWildwood 570 a popular fluid or is it yesterday's news and prone boilingng?d

fatbillybob

When the group of us ran T1 on oem brakes with ducts as a datapoint we did not have brake boiling issues. We did crack oem rotors on trackday 3 and went through front carbotech xp12/10 combos in a weekend. Later the xp16 came now the xp20. I happen to run the stoptech T1 kit with Xp20's up front and I like them. Having a pad that can take the heat is important too.

Supercharged111

For those of you not boiling fluid, what fluid do you use?

John Shiels

buy SRF period everything else is

Supercharged111

That's the distinct impression I'm getting, but I can't afford to flush that stuff before every event like I can the Wilwood. I am inclined to thinking though that since it's so good I wouldn't need to with the wet boiling point being so high, seems it'd last longer. I'm googling impressions of the 570 and coming up empty handed so far.

Supercharged111

Is that a bot? Dude has 2 identical worthless posts.

I'm really racking my brain here, it sounds like 1 of 2 things: 1, I'm doing something wrong or 2, Wilwood 570 isn't all that. Even if I was God, there's no way on these crap tires that I could push hard enough based on the impressions I'm getting to boil decent fluid. I frequently get the eyeballs bugging out of my head sensation when I go for the brakes and I got all 5s on my passport last time for braking. Granted I was graded on an HPDE2 level, but I figure my braking can't be so bad that it's causing me to boil, can it? They don't boil when I brake early behind someone else who brakes too early (although they're typically going slow anyway), only when I drive at what I call my learning speed (fast enough for me to learn the line without forcing it). Calipers float freely and fluid stays clean. No leaks or anything, just a slight softening of the pedal. My flushing procedure consists of cracking the bleeder, then pushing the caliper pistons all the way in. I then suck the reservoir dry (the side I can reach, which I believe is the front channel) and refill with fresh fluid. I next proceed to bleed the brakes, I usually pull 120cc per wheel and move on. It always comes out clean, so I never know when the new fluid hits because it doesn't stay in the system long enough to get dirty.

sperkins

No need to suck the resevior completely dry like that. A soft pedal isn't uncommon on our cars.

Supercharged111

What's the cause then and the fix action? Is it possible that I'm not boiling the fluid and experiencing something else?

crimlwC6

Get the SRF. It eliminates one variable in the basket of various problems you could have. I used to bleed air out of the brakes between events; I haven't bleed the brakes in 6 or so events using SRF. It's hard to know over the internet how much your driving style could be factor. From personal experience, the more I've driven at the track the more I realized it was about me vs. the brakes (I went to ducts, various pads, different fluids etc). I did eventually get Wilwood calipers. 2 cents.

Supercharged111

Well if you're going 6 events on a batch of fluid, that's quite reassuring. I can swing it here and there, but not $70 per event for the stuff. I did more searching and thinking on the spongy pedal, and what I saw didn't describe my symptoms.

crimlwC6

I've come to the conclusion that the spongy pedal is not going away. I installed wilwood front calipers for the thicker pads (saves money in the long run). I haven't tried SS pistons or new hubs.

brkntrxn

I use ATE Super Blue. So does a bunch of my racing buddies.

The "soft/spongy" pedal just seems to be a part of this platform. I live with it, run the car hard, and the brakes have never failed.

StreetSpeed

Another vote for SRF. I just switched it in mine after a fellow instructor told me he did 40 days in his 135i race car without even bleeding them. Also, I was instructing my brother In his Mustang GT at Summit Point Main in March and he lost his brakes going into 10 due to boiled Superblue. That was a scary moment.

OP I'll be at Pocono in 2 weeks with an identical setup to yours plus SRF. I'll let you know how I make out.