F430 Street / Track Brakes

Looking to upgrade brake fluid and pads prior to a couple of HPDE-type events at COTA in March. I'll probably end up doing several of these events a year. Otherwise my 430 is for the street, so looking for an opportunity to upgrade over OEM (if practical) but not make huge compromises to date night driveability.

Should I consider ceramic pads? (I have steel brakes) The manufacturers I see popping up are Porterfield, EBC, Pagid and Hawk. I'm familiar with Hawk from the domestic muscle car scene.

Anyone have experience with these or others that I haven't mentioned? Recommendations to both pads and fluid based on experience are welcomed and appreciated!

 

If you track experience is limited to having a street drivers license and don't go on track then having fresh fluid properly installed and bleed in the system is more important than type. If you are a brake killer or over use the brakes or fade them castrol SRF is the best you can get but it is expensive. Many say CoTA is hard on brakes. I raced CoTA and did not find that to be the case but my racecar does have really good brakes. If you are a newbie stock pads might be just fine. If you want something more track worthy look at the carbotech pads. They make pads XP8-XP24. There are 6 track worthy pad compounds from least aggressive to most aggressive. Many use 1 grade higher on front than rear and lot of the carbotech guys recommend that. But the cool thing is you can move up and down that line to see what suits you and your style. It is alot easier to place yourself in the carbotech line than say serach around the infinate permutations and use a PFC01 front and Porterfield R4S in the rear.

 

Thanks for the info. I'm probably between intermediate and advanced on skill but I haven't driven on COTA. I may not need the upgraded fluid, but if I'm going to flush the system why not?

 

Enjoy yourself. CoTA is an awesome track and quite a treat. If you are an F1 fan driving a real F1 track has more meaning. A funny thing is driving CoTA then watching F1 on CoTA and seeing how fast the corners come up for the pros. It is like we are slower than the safetycar.

 

Search should find a lot of threads for the subject, also look in the Sticky Theads for DIY.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/360-430/415957-diy-brake-system-fluid-change-flush.html

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/360-430/415422-diy-brake-pad-change-scuderia-spider.html

I will be attending the event too. Should be a lot of fun!
Hope to see you there.

 

Yes, I'm very much looking forward to it!

 

Thanks for the links.

Are you attending the Forza event and/or the BMWCCA event?

 

Use ds2500 on my Car. Works very Well on trak
Ferrari F430 Products: Street and racing brake pads

 

I went with these pads, the Ferodo DS2500, after killing my OEM pads at COTA during the FORZA event. Took great care on the bedding-in process.

Was back out at COTA again this weekend. Pad dust isn't any worse than the stockers, occasional squeak on the street, significantly more bite than OEM on the track after getting warm.

 

What was the exact bedding-in procedure that you followed?

 

There was information included with the pads. IIRC, it was 25-30 stops, about 50% pedal pressure each time, and approximately 4 seconds each. I'm lucky that I live very close to a divided 4 lane highway without a whole lot of traffic so doing this wasn't a problem.

I progressively increased speed (and thus heat) throughout the process.

It may have been overkill, but I repeated the process the next day.