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upgraded to R comps, do I need to upgrade brake pads now?

Joined
12 August 2004
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161
So I bit the bullet this past week and upgraded to Nitto Nt01s (previously on Ad08s). On my previous setup, I was using the stock brake pads (upgraded fluid of course) that came with the Stoptech big brake kit (front and rear), and was actually quite happy with them. They were consistent, bit well, and didn't have any issues with heat/etc.

My question is, now that I am on better rubber is it stupid for me to try and use the same stock pads? Ideally I want to try my next track day with the same pads and see how it goes and upgrade only if neccesary, but don't want to if people with more experience then me have tried this and burned through stock pads on Stoptech kit in less then a day on the track.
 
There's no need to upgrade the brakes at this time. The big difference that R comps will make is they will let you go faster through the turns. The amount of braking you do shouldn't increase dramatically.

I've used R comps with stock pads with no problems.
 
There are so many things to consider when you start to upgrade any system on the car, the track, the driver, any performance mods, tire, and current setup. I would look at your current wear rate and look at what brake issues or non-issues you are having now to decide what to do next. The move to R-Comps will allow you to be more aggressive on the brakes if you want to as the higher grip level will give you a higher braking potential, but just because you have does not mean you will or should use it. Most guys that make the move to R-Comps from Street Tires take a few track days to get a feel for the new grip level and you will have to work up to the higher corner speeds you will now be able to do.

The higher corner limit can and should lead to a higher average speeds and a greater amount of braking, but that is very much track dependant as since you can now carry more speed into the corner you do not have to slow as much before you go into the corner, but on a track like COTA where all the straights end at nearly 180* turns you will be braking a lot no mater how fast you can go through that corner at the end of the strait.

When you run off this set of pads try another pad and compare for yourself, pads are cheap so this is something you can try for yourself. Just make sure you keep good notes on what you have tried and what you like so if you do try many different pad setups you will remember the ones you liked best.

Dave
 
^^^ Good post. Oh, and you forgot something...

When you run off this set of pads try another pad and compare for yourself, pads are cheap so this is something you can try for yourself. Just make sure you keep good notes on what you have tried and what you like so if you do try many different pad setups you will remember the ones you liked best.
What you mean is, When you run off this set of pads try another pad and compare for yourself, pads are cheap and you need to replace them every so often anyway, so this is something you can try for yourself. ;)
 
For what its worth- In the summer when I run R comps I use a mis-matched pad set up. Ill run Project Mu HC+ in the front and Porterfield R4-S in the rear. The Mu's have a friction coefficient of (0.43~0.58μ) from 200-1100 degrees where the R4-s have a .38 ~ 48 @ 200-1100*.
With the Mu's on the front on a HOT (103 ambient) 15 lap stint theres a bit less modulation but the bite is still there. Under the same conditions the Porterfields starts to overheat, fade and destroy itself.

BUT
I prefer to run R4'S on front and back as much as possible, and lately with my car being a pre madonna and only letting me do a few laps at a time anyways i just keep the R4S's on year round. Im a really big fan of the pedal feel with OEM calipers removed ABS and new fluid and Porterfields. When the pads are in their mid range heat threshold I can brake extremely late and stable, though, i think that a lot to do with weight reductions and car set up.

Your mileage may vary. I own the ST40 stoptech kit with the larger rotors and calipers ive just never felt the need to put them on. Mainly becasue I rather buy $100 blank rotors a few times a year over dropping $600 just for the stoptech rotor hoop without the hats or hardwear once.
 
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I agree that the oem calipers can be optimized to work just fine depending on your local tracks and your ability to manage brake application each lap.I remember a cartain Dal driver who impressed me with how resilient the oem system could be at texas motorsport ranch.
 
I was using the stock brake pads (upgraded fluid of course) that came with the Stoptech big brake kit (front and rear), and was actually quite happy with them. They were consistent, bit well, and didn't have any issues with heat/etc.

So what are the pads that come with the Stoptech kit comparable to? Or do you just use the OEM Acura pads in the kit? I'm sorry I don't have experience with them. I too use NT01's but I run the stock system with ABS disabled, like illwillem, and I use Hawk HT10 front and Hawk Blue in the rear. I had tried Carbotech AX6's all around and was "getting away" with that setup but may have reached the capability of that pad. End of season last year I did an event at a track I know well now and had vibration develop dramatically at the rear by the end of the second day. Beginning of this year I changed rear pads and rotors with new AX6's and did an event at my home track with cold ambient temps- brakes felt fine. Then went to an event at a track I know well and changed front pads and rotors with new AX6's, ran 2 days and had light vibration at the front - the weird thing here is that I was bedding them in on the way to the track and on the 4th bedding procedure began to feel some light vibration. Then in late April went to a new track, it was and still is confusing to me because the vibration progressively worsened at the front, and I was at the same time running my 235/17 275/18 NT01's for the first time, coupled with the fact that it was a new track for me so I was depending on the brakes more initially as I was learning the track. I really couldn't figure out if I got a bad batch of pads, rotors, or I was simply overheating the AX6's due to the above mentioned changes in car and track? Were the AX6's simply not durable enough to stand up to the heat generated from an NSX on 235/275 NT01's? I went with a setup that I liked back in the day on my S2000 (HT10 front/ Blue rear) and also made some brake deflectors for the fronts per DDoziers recommendation - this brake setup worked perfectly at the last event.

Keep in mind when you make a change from a street tire to an NT01, you SHOULD be faster, but it may take some sessions or events to start utilizing the extra grip at hand....or maybe not at all - I think that depends on the type of driver you are. Even if you are not yet braking later or harder on them, you might still be exiting the corner faster as you can be picking up the throttle earlier from apex to exit, so you may find yourself arriving at the next corner faster than when you were on streets, and you might be standing on the brake pedal harder at this point. It starts to get complicated from here as some corners you might find yourself using LESS brake pedal effort to decelerate the car appropriately for turn-in as there is more grip available, but then other corners, like the first corner after a long straight you could be arriving at 5-10mph faster possibly because you have exited the last corner that much faster and now your using more brake pedal than on streets and a higher load on the actual pad and rotor in the same amount of time.

I don' think anyone that has moved up to dedicated track pad has ever regretted the increase in braking power and ability to withstand higher amounts of heat for a longer period of time (like illwillem's summer time setup). I remember 8 years ago I took my S2000 to my home track for the first time, it was totally stock on street tires and I had read on s2ki alot of people saying "you'll be fine on OEM pads, maybe buy new ones for the front" so thats what I did, along with a high temp fluid. I completely erased a set of OEM pads in 6 sessions and drove home on the concrete backing plates! That was a track where you would brake from 125mph-55mph, 95mph-40, and finally 85mph-40mph and out onto a long straight to cool things down a bit. I realized that I was driving beyond what the OEM pads could handle and promptly switched to HT10/Blue combo and it felt like I had a $10,000 brake package on the car in comparison when I returned to that track.
 
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So what are the pads that come with the Stoptech kit comparable to? Or do you just use the OEM Acura pads in the kit?
You can't use the Acura stock pads with an aftermarket big brake kit. Such kits need larger brake pads, and there are aftermarket pads that fit those.
 
Also note that R-comps are not all the same. Some are better than others at longitudinal grip, some are better at lateral grip. For instance I have found that kumho v700 are really good at acceleration and braking but only so-so on lateral grip . NT01 are in my experience average for an R-comp . Just keep that in mind as you try various sticky tires.
 
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Its should be said were talking about a couple different things here. 1, brake pads ability to deal with high temps repeatedly and survive. 2. Brake pads that can deal with high temps and still do what you want them to do.

In my post above I basically said that i have a set up i like but it cant deal with a ton of abuse. My 'fix' to that was to use a pad that isnt really what i like but works better Under X or Y condition.

To point 1)
The Stoptech "performance street pads" are NOT really meant for any serious track driving. As always, they may be fine for some but if your really using your brakes and new R comps they are not going to be ideal. I have looked in the past and never could find any actual compound data for the stop-tech pads. I remember reading they maxed out at a .42μ Coefficient. Never seen anything printed to back that up, but that sounds about right. That would be just a hair above OEM in friction at probably a slightly higher temp than stock. The added volume of a larger rotor and surface would take slightly longer to heat load- but on a track like SlipAngle was describing with a 125-55mph zone thats maybe the difference of one corner before they give up the ghost and not being able to lock up at all.

To point 2)
I drove my Front wheel drive track car at the opposite end of the spectrum than I drive my NSX. In FF I brake late and stabby; in my NSX I roll on and roll off smoothly. To be smooth I want to choose a pad with a linear feel, something that starts off almost dull then ramps with pressure. With a pad like that and no ABS Im able to keep the car juust on the threshold of lock up where you hear your tires, thats when you know that you're using the R comp grip. With the Project Mu I find it more difficult to get in right on that edge of lock up consistently.

I tried to find a good illustration of this, its pretty difficult with out being in the car to feel it yourself. Heres something from last year in my car, in the first lap you can hear that feed back in talking about. This track particularly has a few corners where being able to threshold brake consistently is key for a fast lap time. Turn 1 and turn 3 are biggies for that.
 
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