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I'm looking at the PFC08 at the moment. Seems to handle a bit more heat than the Raybestos that are only good to 1300 degrees. I can't find any sort of technical info on the Stoptech pads.
In the grand scheme of things, yeah, but $380 for a set of pads is a bit steep in my book. But it's not much more than the SR32, and if they last longer, don't suck, and don't leave deposits I'll come out ahead. Fingers crossed.
Tonight I went after the passenger's door alignment. I didn't bother with the hinge to body bolts, just the hinge to door nuts. It's less bad, but far from perfect, but then again that RR quarter panel is fucked up pretty bad still.
I'll call this good for now. Next I shifted my focus to some reinforcent dealies to keep the mirrors from jiggling too much.
What a world of improvement. Even before these things I was better than before but now I am solid. Next I think I'll swap in a pair of power adjustable capable mirrors with a switch.
I have a brake temp stickers on my calipers.
Back in the 80s and 90s racecars like cars mine came with big 5 inch diameter brake hoses.
The brake pads back then needed extra cooling.
Now with my Project Mu pads they like to be closer to 500 degrees and if run cooler can fail.
So just put some tape on the brake hose intake screen and plan to keep the caliper temps a little warmer.
I wish that was my problem. Car is great for a lap or 2 then turns to crap. Maybe I need 5" ducts. I can't imagine a better cooling duct setup than what I currently have though.
This past weekend I got the car cleaned up decently. First I had to get it off the stands. Check out the back section of wheelwell liner from the fire.
I have spares, so this went in the trash. I got the car down on the street and jacked the one side way up.
Spray, let it dry, repeat until clean. Took a while with all the drying. You can't see filth when it's wet. I flipper the car around and repeated on the other side. Then washed the outside, then pressure washed the interior. Soooo much cleaner now, but not yet squeaky clean. Next we put it back inside and my 9 year old got it jacked up partway, she's still pretty light to be cranking on a jack.
Next I scrubbed the tire turds/streaks and scuffs off the best I could and dabbed some red touch up on spots that were gouged to primer. It's looking spiffier now, so I'll grab a stud gun and see what I can accomplish with that. I ought to be able to get the left side looking decent with that and a porta power.
Amazing how oil and dust collect after a couple races.
I had a front brake o ring fail and toss the car into some quality gold DG run off at laguna Seca.
By the time we got home a bucket of it had landed on the trailer floor.
Having a 4 off in Socal is a lot like CO, but Laguna doesn't count as Socal does it? I was there once forever ago before I had my comp license, it's still dirt out there isn't it? Mine was a bit worse from a 20 minute session of drifting/blowing donuts on a dry lake bed in the name of test. Me and the car were absolutely covered from head to toe, but I got to rip on the red dragon on a military installation so that will be hard to top.
Agree Laguna is Nor Cal but the run off was quality California gold decomposed granite.
So Cal as you know has mostly low or high desert tracks surrounded by rocks and sand, nothing green.
One of my favorite temporary tracks was on Navy North Island on Coronado here in San Diego.
It was on the Navy runways and taxiways surrounded by San Diego bay.
Since I am a Navy Vet and a retired FAA ATC it was a favorite of mine.
Last race there was in 2016, only 20 minutes from our home.
Having a 4 off in Socal is a lot like CO, but Laguna doesn't count as Socal does it? I was there once forever ago before I had my comp license, it's still dirt out there isn't it?
My dusty Laguna T6 off when the front brake caliper O ring failed.
May as well had a guy standing outside heaving 5 gallon buckets of dirt into your car. I had a similarish off back in 2014 when I licked all the clutch disc lining off the one side and it stacked up coming off the front straight of Pueblo. The back end locked and I immediately punched the clutch to no avail, I went into the dirt doing helicopters. So much dirt. Then it was stuck in 3rd gear because the clutch wouldn't release, took 2 hands to get it into neutral. Next I shoved it into 1st and hit the starter. Putt pitted my way up to 3rd gear and drove it back to the pits. Had a new clutch in for race 1 and sent it.
I saw that link on the Corvette forum too. Good read but definitely not what's happening to me. They go from good to not stopping the damn car. And I heat checked the rotors faster than I should have. I'm going to get some rotor paint to see just how hot I'm getting, but I had an epiphany earlier. The one thing different between my setup and my friend's is the plenum ducting at the rotor itself. Look here, the outlet is less than half of the 3" pipe. I need to flare out the exit somehow to let more air through.
This is V3, V2 was similar the way it cut off airflow. V1 was this if you recall.
Look closely and this one has a nice wide outlet, but the plenum is too small in diameter as it's meant for 12" LS1 rotors so it leaks and performs the same as V2/3. This is the only thing that makes sense to me right now. Hopefully Blainefab gets back with me, I can't seem to get a response from him the last couple of years and he's the one that made the V1 ducting. He does really good work, I also have his wheel spacers, shift ****, and roll cage.
I swapped out both front brake lines for Stoptech pieces. That's not to say they were plug and play.
I've always known both sides were different, but never knew why. Here's the driver's side mount next to a pair of what I thought were LS style mounts.
The survey determined that was a lie.
After verifying what LS mounts actually look like on my 98 donor car, I plucked this mount from it to match the driver's side. I like the LS line setup a lot more than the excessively long LT stuff.
Next I changed out the brake ducting. It's crazy how tore up that stuff gets over just a couple of years. Next is when I had that epiphany. No surprise, but here's how much air gets through and how much doesn't.
And here's the plan to dump more air into the rotors.
In my mind, this will draw more air as the added duct will play with the forward direction of rotor rotation. Tomorrow I'll grab a chunk of 3" pipe to pinch down and zap in. I'll trace the cardboard template onto the pipe twice, but mirroring itself to accommodate both sides.
New brake lines make me happy.
On my C5Z track car I burned up my wheel bearings with R rated tires and had to get the SKF bearings.
Maybe the improved brake ducts will help save your wheel bearings.
Thanks for the motivation as today I'll be in the garage doing final race prep on mine.
The C7 bearings did seem to barf a little grease out, but they still have preload and feel good. Tonight I snagged a chunk of 3" exhaust pipe to cut these pieces out of.
Those are both 3" pipe, but damn that chunk I grabbed today is beef! So much so I didn't want the added ounces as added unsprung mass. I found a chunk of 23ga steel sheet just big enough to cut 2 pieces out of and tried to bend them around the pipe. Nope. Next I tried to choke it around the 1 5/8" piece I grabbed Sunday. Nope. Eventually I squeezed it down to the appropriate radius, though crookedly, and had to square it up to fit.
My welder won't calm down enough to tack this properly so I'll see if I can't use my friend's to do so. Check out the increase in area it can release into.
While significant, I don't know if it will really make a change in brake cooling. I'm hoping to hit an open lapping day this Friday to see how the PFC08 and revised plenums work out. The rest of the car is fairly solid for the short term.
I did something similar with stock C5 brakes and the horn shape seemed to help with cooling. I have wilwood now with bigger rotors and they still run hot. I used aluminum flashing to seal the slits in-between the two pieces and that didn't seem to do anything. So I took the ducts out completely and gonna try that since I saw that AP video that sometimes ducts are less effective.
Finally getting back at this thing, I finished securing the extensions and plugged the gaps with JB Weld.
Hopefully this is the ticket. I'm thinking of snagging a more aggressive rear pad, something more fade resistant, assuming that's even a factor here for me. I could really use a recommendation on rotor paint, I do want to leverage my next outing to gather some objective data on brake temps.
Get the Genesis brand paint from Pegasus. It reads lower temps than the other brands which you will need for the rear brakes. Not cheap but it works the best.
This gives a good visual for just how much more air can flow. New fire bottle. New brake ducts. Another view of the ducting.
Today is test n tune at Hallett. I'm liking the car and I'm curious how long these pads last. I did a short/easy first session to bed the pads and came in. Gave them a try on my second session and they seemed to hold up. Third session was even hotter and I think we got to know each other. Not sure if it's the PFC08 pad, my ducting, or both, but I can definitely work with this now.
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