Need my 4th set of rotors in 1.5 yrs!

[1MOREMOD]

The more aggressive the pad is the faster it will clear. I ran ds2500s as my dual purpose pad. Then pagid rs19s after that and just used them on the street too. Sounds like a school bus. All depends on how much track vs street you want to make it.

[larryn]

That is pad transfer deposit, which is normally caused by not bedding in the brake pads well, using pads that are not meant for the track, or not cooling the brakes enough.

FWIW, once I added brake ducting to my Pagid RS-19/Motul RBF-660 combo (running NT-01s), I have had zero brake issues, even with having my car dual driven at Laguna Seca (basically had multiple hour long sessions over multiple days), with no fade at all. It stops like I threw out an anchor with those pads too... and the pads last longer with the added cooling.

You can DIY ducts for ~$100. Best track facing mod I've done to my car, hands down.

[LightWerkz]

Originally Posted by ccondo

I am starting to wonder if it is deposits as well.

I am trying to determine if I should get some Pagid Sport pads for track/street use and I am thinking if it is deposits those pads would get rid of the deposits.

Here are some pictures of what my rotors look like:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caseyme...7635774625134/

This is after washing the car and I took a pressure washer (with a 40 degree head) to the rotors.

Do not get anything dual purpose. Go with a full race pad. Youll scrub off the deposits and also have a dedicated pad for the track.

[LightWerkz]

Originally Posted by Longboarder

No need for a BBK huh?

Go toss an S/C on your car, reach 155mph on the back straights of your track and brake hard (really hard) on a hot day. Then couple that with a downhill braking at 100+ and a couple other hard braking zones mixed in for fun. Then do that 15 times around the track.

When your stock brakes (even with upgraded pads) start vibrating and then your brake pedal hits the floor at ~ 120mph and you need to downshift hard and pull the ebrake to avoid going off the track into a pile of boulders you will find out real quickly the need for a BBK.

Trust me, I'd love to get a BBK, just havent felt the need for one yet on this car. I've had great success with a few BBK's in the past. I don't get my E90 M3 up to 155mph, but regularly to 130mph on our local track which is NJMP, with plenty of braking zones throughout the track and the setup hasnt let me down yet. Im using PFC 08's all around, with upgraded lines and motul fluid. Haven't had any issues yet. I dont need to bed them in, and I leave each event without any vibration issues. I run in the instructor group and the pace is fast with our local PCA chapter, so you can rest assured I'm not pussy-footing.

If you are S/C'd and hitting those speeds, and track the car hard, sure I can see the benefit. Lets face it, most of the guys arent S/C'd and are not pushing the car to the maximum.

I'm not arguing against the benefits of using a BBK (if you can justify the costs) but when the OP is using stock pads and all people respond with is to get a BBK, I find it rather silly.

[ccondo]

So you guys think it is pad deposit and a more aggressive pad will get rid of it?

I am looking around at about $500 for new pagid pads all around with new motul and braided stop tech lines. I am either going to do this or stop tech BBK in the front.

If I go with stop tech BBK and their street pads do you think that will be ok at the track (I do about 3-5 events per year). If so I know they wouldnt be noisy on the street.

[LightWerkz]

Originally Posted by ccondo

So you guys think it is pad deposit and a more aggressive pad will get rid of it?

I am looking around at about $500 for new pagid pads all around with new motul and braided stop tech lines. I am either going to do this or stop tech BBK in the front.

If I go with stop tech BBK and their street pads do you think that will be ok at the track (I do about 3-5 events per year). If so I know they wouldnt be noisy on the street.

I love the stop tech kit, I think its the best value out there. But no, do not use their pads on the track. You'll end up with the same problems.

If you got the money, go with the stop tech kit.

Either way, get some proper pads.

[Longboarder]

Originally Posted by LightWerkz

Trust me, I'd love to get a BBK, just havent felt the need for one yet on this car. I've had great success with a few BBK's in the past. I don't get my E90 M3 up to 155mph, but regularly to 130mph on our local track which is NJMP, with plenty of braking zones throughout the track and the setup hasnt let me down yet. Im using PFC 08's all around, with upgraded lines and motul fluid. Haven't had any issues yet. I dont need to bed them in, and I leave each event without any vibration issues. I run in the instructor group and the pace is fast with our local PCA chapter, so you can rest assured I'm not pussy-footing.

If you are S/C'd and hitting those speeds, and track the car hard, sure I can see the benefit. Lets face it, most of the guys arent S/C'd and are not pushing the car to the maximum.

I'm not arguing against the benefits of using a BBK (if you can justify the costs) but when the OP is using stock pads and all people respond with is to get a BBK, I find it rather silly.

Fair enough. We don't have sufficient details from OP to know either way. That would good to get before further advice.

[Denk]

Great info here.

[jphughan]

I just got the StopTech BBK (first time with it out on the track this coming weekend ), but OP I had the same issue on the track and solved it without a BBK. My horrible steering vibration during medium braking after a 2-day event didn't go away even after several weeks of regular driving. I wasn't ready to drop the coin on a BBK then, but my mechanic/instructor said that if I just upgraded to a better pad it might solve the problem. His rationale was that the OEM pads couldn't dissipate the heat generated at the track as well as something better, so they just deposited all of that excess heat into the rotors when the brakes were applied, eventually causing either messed up rotors or messed up pads leaving uneven deposits.

So I switched to StopTech Street Performance pads for both road and track duty. On the road they worked exactly like OEM in terms of noise (none), dust, etc except for SLIGHTLY less cold bite when it's chilly outside (around 50 F), but that goes away after the first few brake applications and isn't enough to be an issue; you just notice it the first time and slightly increase your stopping distance early in your drives. On the track, they resisted fade MUCH longer than OEM and I never had that steering wheel vibration issue again. They do wear faster than the OEM pads, but the Street Performance pads in stock M3 fitment are a steal, so I didn't really care. I got mine from HP Autowerks, fwiw.

[1MOREMOD]

Originally Posted by Lute

Well if you consider that the OP is saying he's about to buy his 4th set of rotors in 1.5 years and now plans to spend even more money on pads, SS lines, and fluid. A BBK would have been about equal to what he has already spent. That is what I find silly.

LUTE the voice of reason!

[aus]

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=884790
It's nice to see PF put some clips on the pads since people use to say they would make a lot of noise without them.
Add these ducts and some tubing through the under-carriage to the wheel well and you may have enough braking capacity.


There's also a bunch of BBK's for sale, including a new STTrophie set-up and 4Seven's used front and new rears, and a 365mm Brembo fronts.

.

[lcrain]

Definitely pad deposits. These rotors will not warp.

First couple of days I did with a 100% stock car, I was so worried that I had toasted the rotors. They were vibrating so badly. After some reading on here I realized that they were not warped and the pad deposits from the stock pads were causing this vibration. Stainless lines + regular fresh Motul 600 + PFC01 and I am no where near the braking capabilities of this car. I am not brave enough to truly benefit from how great these brakes are.

Most track pads (legit track pads, dual purpose don't exist) will put deposits on the rotor when flying around the track hot, but I leave them in for a day or two after an event and they clear everything right up. Still on my first set and they are holding up great.

If you are doing 3-5 events a year, a BBK is a waste of money IMO.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by lcrain

Definitely pad deposits. These rotors will not warp.

First couple of days I did with a 100% stock car, I was so worried that I had toasted the rotors. They were vibrating so badly. After some reading on here I realized that they were not warped and the pad deposits from the stock pads were causing this vibration. Stainless lines + regular fresh Motul 600 + PFC01 and I am no where near the braking capabilities of this car. I am not brave enough to truly benefit from how great these brakes are.

Most track pads (legit track pads, dual purpose don't exist) will put deposits on the rotor when flying around the track hot, but I leave them in for a day or two after an event and they clear everything right up. Still on my first set and they are holding up great.

If you are doing 3-5 events a year, a BBK is a waste of money IMO.

Nice! Fyi PFC01s are known to eat rotors very quickly, so keep an eye on rotor thickness if you've got a micrometer, or ask a shop to check for you somewhat regularly whenever the car is in for anything that will require the wheels to be off. It only takes a few moments if the wheels are already off, so the shop might even do it for free. If the rotor wear bugs you, you might want to think about PFC08 pads which I'll be running on the track for the first time this weekend. From what I've read, they give you about 90% of the bite of PFC01 but the pad lasts 2-3x as long while ALSO allowing the rotors to last longer, compared to lots of other pads where you either have either fast pad wear or fast rotor wear (or both).

I'm doing 4-5 events per year (but all 2-day events) and got a BBK just for the front to simplify pad swaps and gain extra heat capacity and therefore fade resistance; thought about the rear but StopTech's own website argues against rear brake upgrades in pretty much every case on front-engine cars. Never tried race pads on the stock calipers, though I did run StopTech Street Performance pads and liked them on both road and track, and I'll continue running them in the rear stock calipers on the track with PFC08 up front, which seems to be a relatively common setup.

[lcrain]

Originally Posted by jphughan

Nice! Fyi PFC01s are known to eat rotors very quickly, so keep an eye on rotor thickness if you've got a micrometer, or ask a shop to check for you somewhat regularly whenever the car is in for anything that will require the wheels to be off. It only takes a few moments if the wheels are already off, so the shop might even do it for free. If the rotor wear bugs you, you might want to think about PFC08 pads which I'll be running on the track for the first time this weekend. From what I've read, they give you about 90% of the bite of PFC01 but the pad lasts 2-3x as long while ALSO allowing the rotors to last longer, compared to lots of other pads where you either have either fast pad wear or fast rotor wear (or both).

I'm doing 4-5 events per year (but all 2-day events) and got a BBK just for the front to simplify pad swaps and gain extra heat capacity and therefore fade resistance; thought about the rear but StopTech's own website argues against rear brake upgrades in pretty much every case on front-engine cars. Never tried race pads on the stock calipers, though I did run StopTech Street Performance pads and liked them on both road and track, and I'll continue running them in the rear stock calipers on the track with PFC08 up front, which seems to be a relatively common setup.

I have heard that too about the 01 on rotors. I will certainly keep an eye on them. I love the way the PFC 01 bite, but I only have 3.5 days (days, not events!) on them and they might have 2 days left if I am lucky. I will definitely be trying the 08 next time as most people I have talked to that have used both have the same sentiments as you. Easier on rotors, much more life and almost as much bite. Again, I don't think I am a good enough driver to really take full advantage of such an aggressive pad like the 01. They have been awesome though!

Glad you like the BBK. I personally cannot justify the money on a BBK when the stock setup is already so good for my needs.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by lcrain

I have heard that too about the 01 on rotors. I will certainly keep an eye on them. I love the way the PFC 01 bite, but I only have 3.5 days (days, not events!) on them and they might have 2 days left if I am lucky. I will definitely be trying the 08 next time as most people I have talked to that have used both have the same sentiments as you. Easier on rotors, much more life and almost as much bite. Again, I don't think I am a good enough driver to really take full advantage of such an aggressive pad like the 01. They have been awesome though!

Glad you like the BBK. I personally cannot justify the money on a BBK when the stock setup is already so good for my needs.

Cool! Good luck with the 08s. The BBK was a borderline value call for me, and an unexpected windfall of cash I got put me over the edge. My rationale was mainly that over time I'd end up saving money in the (potentially very) long run. The pads are now easy enough to swap that I'm willing to do it, plus the street pads will last longer due to the larger physical size without costing much more (though right now PFC 08s in ST60 fitment are $500 for one axle!!). The rotors should last longer as well (again, more area to distribute the wear), and that plus the fact that on a BBK you only replace the friction rings rather than the entire rotor makes them ultimately cheaper per mile too. I also talked to some people who ran CotA in heavier cars like ours and experienced massive brake fade on stock setups even on regular tires, and since I want to run CotA when it's next available AND am contemplating going to tires like the AD08 Rs or BFG Rivals in the near future (and possibly in larger sizes if I get a dedicated wheel setup), I thought this would be a proactive step toward coping with the extra heat that would result. Even though a BBK is less fun and sexy than larger/stickier rubber, I realized if I got the tires first and then had a heat problem, I'd immediately need a BBK, and this way I get to spread out my spending a bit.

But all that said, I made it out of Blue group with nothing but better fluid, Street Performance pads, and camber plates which I installed primarily to stop cording the outsides of my tires rather than for the extra grip, so I can absolutely see where you're coming from especially if you've got full race pads in the stock setup, which I never tried mostly because I knew I didn't want to run them full-time, didn't want to pay a shop to swap them all the time, and thought swapping them myself on the stock setup would be more hassle than I wanted to put up with.

[tlrid3r]

Look I'm on a set of stock rotors that I have done 6 track day and 2 was a 2 day event, so that 8 track days and its my DD. I never run stock pads at the track. I use hawk dct70. which are not rotor friendly. One day I got lazy and ran my stock pad at the track, after 2 sessions I got all this shaking on the steering. That was cause the pad glazed over. I installed the hawks soon after and all better, shaking gone. That hawks are so hard the stripped the brake material transfer and bedded them self in. I'm now back on the stock pads and rotor still good. you probably didn't wrap your rotors just had bad brake transfer layer. put a dial indicator on it and check run out.


Buy better pads for track. Also make sure you got good fluid and SS lines

[lcrain]

Originally Posted by jphughan

Cool! Good luck with the 08s. The BBK was a borderline value call for me, and an unexpected windfall of cash I got put me over the edge. My rationale was mainly that over time I'd end up saving money in the (potentially very) long run. The pads are now easy enough to swap that I'm willing to do it, plus the street pads will last longer due to the larger physical size without costing much more (though right now PFC 08s in ST60 fitment are $500 for one axle!!). The rotors should last longer as well (again, more area to distribute the wear), and that plus the fact that on a BBK you only replace the friction rings rather than the entire rotor makes them ultimately cheaper per mile too. I also talked to some people who ran CotA in heavier cars like ours and experienced massive brake fade on stock setups even on regular tires, and since I want to run CotA when it's next available AND am contemplating going to tires like the AD08 Rs or BFG Rivals in the near future (and possibly in larger sizes if I get a dedicated wheel setup), I thought this would be a proactive step toward coping with the extra heat that would result. Even though a BBK is less fun and sexy than larger/stickier rubber, I realized if I got the tires first and then had a heat problem, I'd immediately need a BBK, and this way I get to spread out my spending a bit.

But all that said, I made it out of Blue group with nothing but better fluid, Street Performance pads, and camber plates which I installed primarily to stop cording the outsides of my tires rather than for the extra grip, so I can absolutely see where you're coming from especially if you've got full race pads in the stock setup, which I never tried mostly because I knew I didn't want to run them full-time, didn't want to pay a shop to swap them all the time, and thought swapping them myself on the stock setup would be more hassle than I wanted to put up with.

You will love COTA. I did it in June with BMW CCA and it was a phenomenal weekend. The track was very fluid. I found the line easy to pick up. At the time I was using EBC yellow pads, which were only slightly better than stock, if any at all. I bought them looking for a dual purpose pad and was left unimpressed on both the street and the track. I started swapping pads before events, takes about 20 min. COTA is actually pretty easy on brakes from my experience. Plenty of fast sections to cool them off.

Whenever BMW CCA schedules the trifecta again I will be out there.

[ccondo]

So I decided to get some Pagid Sport pads, stop tech brakes lines and new better fluid. I get the car back tomorrow. From normal driving the vibration in the sterring wheel has gotten better under braking, but I think there is still brake pad residue on the rotors.

My question is how should I go about trying to bed my brakes in with residue still being on the rotors? I know these pads are more aggressive so I was just thinking about driving like normal until the steering wheel vibration goes away and then bedding them?

Any help is appreciated.

[1MOREMOD]

Originally Posted by ccondo

So I decided to get some Pagid Sport pads, stop tech brakes lines and new better fluid. I get the car back tomorrow. From normal driving the vibration in the sterring wheel has gotten better under braking, but I think there is still brake pad residue on the rotors.

My question is how should I go about trying to bed my brakes in with residue still being on the rotors? I know these pads are more aggressive so I was just thinking about driving like normal until the steering wheel vibration goes away and then bedding them?

Any help is appreciated.

You can do what your suggesting if you don't plan on tracking anytime soon, or just use a bed procedure a few times to speed up the process. Few 60 to 10 stops fairly aggressively each day for a bit then do full bedding.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by ccondo

So I decided to get some Pagid Sport pads, stop tech brakes lines and new better fluid. I get the car back tomorrow. From normal driving the vibration in the sterring wheel has gotten better under braking, but I think there is still brake pad residue on the rotors.

My question is how should I go about trying to bed my brakes in with residue still being on the rotors? I know these pads are more aggressive so I was just thinking about driving like normal until the steering wheel vibration goes away and then bedding them?

Any help is appreciated.

Originally Posted by 1MOREMOD

You can do what your suggesting if you don't plan on tracking anytime soon, or just use a bed procedure a few times to speed up the process. Few 60 to 10 stops fairly aggressively each day for a bit then do full bedding.

Definitely do NOT bed in your pads while you've got uneven pad deposits, or pad deposits of any condition from a different pad compound!! That will only exacerbate the problem. What you need to do is brake moderately for a while (and ideally with intervals between brake applications) to allow your pads to continue scraping existing pad deposits off the rotors rather than heating up and laying down more of a transfer layer. Using race pads for this purpose will likely make this go faster and with less risk of a new transfer layer being put down because they're more abrasive and don't heat up as fast, but even street pads should get the job done. THEN feel free to go ahead and bed your pads in, though given that it can be tough to find an appropriate place to perform the bed-in procedure, I often won't bother doing a bed-in because for street driving I find my brakes work just fine without a perfect transfer layer. Even for the track, depending on the layout of the track you can usually use the first couple laps as your bed-in procedure anyway.

All that said, my steering wheel vibration persisted for about 3 weeks after a track event before I gave up and took it in to the dealer, where I got new pads and rotors for free, so fixing your uneven deposits problem may take quite a while of light braking.

[ccondo]

They said the rotors are warped. They said they cleaned off the deposits and they are still bad.

I might be just doing BBK now.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by ccondo

They said the rotors are warped. They said they cleaned off the deposits and they are still bad.

I might be just doing BBK now.

I'm always suspicious of warped rotor claims, especially after reading StopTech's article about the issue, but if you go a BBK I like the StopTech kit. I got the ST60 for the added heat capacity of the larger rotor but the ST40 might do you just fine and leave you with more wheel choices (including the OEM 18s, which don't clear the ST60 caliper). Fyi I only got a BBK on the front axle because StopTech themselves argue against rear BBKs on front-engine cars as long as you have a properly designed front BBK -- reason is that front-engine cars practically never have a heat problem on the rear axle, and a good front BBK will maintain the OEM pressure-torque relationship, so brake imbalance on a single-axle upgrade isn't an issue either. So unless aesthetics are that important to you, save the money and keep weight down back there. Had my first track weekend with the BBK (PFC 08 race pads up front, StopTech Street Performance pads in the rear) and it worked VERY well, huge improvement over my previous OEM setup with Street Performance pads in both axles. I'm mixing pads on the track to save the effort of swapping pads in the OEM rear calipers, which seems a fairly common setup, and the Street Performance pads are just fine for the track in the rear even now that I'm in Yellow group.