AnotherWs6

iTrader: (17)

Went for a nice backroad romp Sunday morning, lasted maybe 15-20 minutes. Got the car up to 80-90 a decent amount of times and then had to slow it to about 30-40 for turns (wasn't trying to push it very hard through the turns) - Didnt notice anything until I was almost home and had to stop at a light from about 90 - HOLY BRAKE FADE! Some frantic downshifting and all the force i could muster on the brake pedal stopped me in time. Then doing about 20 I rolled right past the road my house is on - almost zero brakes. Now I was driving aggressively, but not crazy and the fade was ridiculous. Through some research it looks like, without spending money on bigger/different brakes I should
1 - Flush brake fluid and fill with DOT 4
2 - Upgrade pads (no idea whats on there, but i would bet its whatever was cheapest when the brakes were done at a shop by previous owner)
3 - Upgrade rotors - Apparently Baer makes stock replacements for these cars?????

So, I'm wondering if anyone has had good results by doing these basic things. This car is never going to see a track other than a dragstrip and I dont drive it that hard often. I would like to haul it down from speed a few times without losing my brakes though when the mood strikes. So what has been you guy's experience with the stuff I mentioned?

bene

iTrader: (16)

Flush the brake fluid with regular brake fluid and replace with a bottle of motul brake fluid or Super Blue, replace the brake lines with SS brake lines, and replace the brake pads with semi-metallic pads. You welcome. If your rotors need to be replaced, do it.

AnotherWs6

iTrader: (17)

That Motul fluid sounds good, googled it and saw it on Amazon. Lots of track use car guys giving great reviews. So thats def a god starting point. How would replacing the brake lines with SS help fade? I did do this on my truck, but just because I never wanted another break line failure ever again. Pretty pricey for a prebent kit, although a year or so later they obv still look brand new.

JakeFusion

iTrader: (7)

ATE Superblue DOT4, J&M Products Stainless lines (best for these cars), Hawk HPS Pads, and Best Brake signature plain rotors. You should be able to lock up the tires no problem and fend off fade reasonably with that setup.

If you need more fade resistance, the StopTech Street Pads do the trick but supply less brake force. EBC Yellow Stuff is another option. Both of those pads have much higher temperature ranges than HPS (which is much higher than stock).

Midnight02

iTrader: (8)

^^^^^ Do exactly what Jake said above and it will remedy the problems you're having -- better fluid, better lines, better pads and a simple blank rotor will be enough to make your tires the new limiting factor on stopping distance. The HPS pads are a great street pad that are much more fade resistant than your standard OEM replacements.

JakeFusion

iTrader: (7)

The Motul is a better fluid... 593/420 vs the ATE 536/388 boiling points.

Either would be fine, however. Just the Motul is more expensive... Around $20 for a 1/2 liter vs $15 for a liter of ATE. I'd recommend you have 2 liters on hand to flush the system.

AnotherWs6

iTrader: (17)

Cool, thanks for the advice everybody. Glad to see at least a couple of you with your cars on a road course..... I guess getting rid of the local autoparts store parts and fluid wont be as expensive as I thought it might. Good stuff.

Sam Strano

iTrader: (41)

I'll be blunt. You either got pad fade, fluid fade, or some of both. Rotors don't fade. Due to the unknown nature of the pads I'm sure you got pad fade (that's when the car just doesn't want to stop but the pedal is still good). You might also have gotten some fluid fade, maybe but it's less likely. That's when the pedal gets long, and that's most likely due to the fact that nobody flushes the brake fluid like they should....

If you need rotors, ok... but you shouldn't change them if there is nothing wrong with them unless you like to waste money.

ATE fluid is my biggest seller on the fluid side. It's not expensive, and many use it to track with. Yes there are bigger badder fluids, but you aren't exactly in need of that. You need something more than the junk that's in there (and could well be original).

I have a lot of pad options we could discuss. Depends how strong you like your brakes, how much temperature you really need, and what you can tolerate for dust and noise. There are some KILLER stopping street pads that won't fade on you, but they are messy.l There are pads that work really well, that I never fade myself on the street (but won't hold up for a track day) and are quiet and relatively clean.

AnotherWs6

iTrader: (17)

Thanks for chiming in Sam. Pad fade sounds right. Pedal didnt go to the floor, it just didnt do anything when I pushed on it if I recall. I would of course prefer not to change my rotors if I dont have to. (I hope I didnt warp them, havent driven the car since).

And yeah, I bet the fluid is original, so of course changing it would be a good idea regardless.

I'm definitely not looking for dust or noise. I'm not racing the thing, but need something that can hold up to an occasional back road romp for at least a few minutes. What I experienced this weekend was ridiculous. My truck can fight off fade better than this car. So what do you recommend? Feel free to PM with suggestions if you want. Thanks.

Sam Strano

iTrader: (41)

I'll PM you.

AnotherWs6

iTrader: (17)

Took the car to work this morning and no shimmy, so I'll be checking my rotors visually this weekend for wear. Hopefully they're OK. If so I'll be going with pads and fluid recommended by you guys and Sam. Thanks for the help all.

Mods89

I'm interested in the pads that are quiet and relatively clean. Lol I need to change the pads and rotors on my t/a.

AnotherWs6

iTrader: (17)

Give Sam Strano a call or check out his website. In our PM's that is exactly what I said - quiet and clean - and the pads he recommended (as did others) are Hawk HPS. He even has a package deal for the pads and Best Brake rotors. Check him out.

www.stranoparts.com--814-849-3450

Sam Strano

iTrader: (41)

Glad to hear you didn't warp the rotors!

FASTFATBOY

iTrader: (23)

Have you run it hard again? Could possibly be pad knockback if you are cornering hard enough.

If it does it again, left foot tap the brake prior to braking hard to see if it helps.

1BAD02WS6

iTrader: (-1)

What is pad knockback?

FASTFATBOY

iTrader: (23)

Most commonly comes from the rear, but if you have worn front wheel bearings that can do it also.

The axles in these cars can move in and out a small amount, the calipers on the rear are designed to "float" put if you corner hard enough the axle moving in and out will push the pad back into the caliper.

When you get to the brake zone the pedal will go to the floor until it pushes the rear bad back onto the rotor, will feel like brake fade.


If you tap the brake pedal a couple of times prior to the brake zone it will reset the pads.

Try it and see.

AnotherWs6

iTrader: (17)

I havent run it very hard yet. Went back out last Sunday morning for a romp, but to be honest I was pretty nervous about heating things up too much. Last time the fade just kind of came out of nowhere. Luckily when it first occurred it was on a straight stretch. I dont want the fade to rer its head when I need to slow for a corner.

As far as pad knockback, I am not really familiar with that either, but I did use the brakes several times after the first major fade that day, and was hitting them hard so I would assume that if what you are talking about was the case they would have reset by the time i got home.

I am definitely going the pad and fluid route advised by others here as well as Sam Strano, but I'm still up in the air about rotors so I havent popped for anything yet. They arent warped but I can feel a little ridge between where the pads sit and where they dont so theyve got some wear.... I'd really just like to do a pad slap...

FASTFATBOY

iTrader: (23)

To get the very most out of the pads the rotor needs to be flat, new or resurfaced. Follow pad bed in procedure to the T.

Sam is most likely right, the fluid flush will do the most as most likely is original and has a lot of moisture in it causing it to boil.

Sam Strano

iTrader: (41)

Chances of pad knockback are low, but possible. Easy to find out. Next time he steps on the brakes and gets a REALLY long pedal, just pump it once and if things are back to normal, he's got it. And at that point needs to look into new front hubs. That's actually the biggest source of pad knockback. As the bearings wear the runout gets greater. The more you toss the car around hard the more the pads can be pushed around, driving the pistons back into their caliper bores.

Again this is not typical of a street car unless the hubs are way beyond gone. You see it most commonly on autocross cars where we slalom hard throwing the car back and forth continually, and some on the track like in esses sections of courses. Not that it can't happen other places, but much less common.

If you think the rotors are ok, don't swap them. You can always do that later if you need to. Swap the pads, put new fluid in and see where you are. Much cheaper and if you don't need rotors, or maybe only need two it's a lot cheaper than swapping stuff that's fine. Oops, there I go again with the not selling stuff folks don't need thing. I'll never be rich *sigh*.