458 Brake Fade on Track

Second time I’ve had my 458 on the track and second time I’ve experienced critical brake fade from overheating the rear brakes. This time I was at the beautiful Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, AL with Chin Track Days. I turned the paint on the rear calipers from yellow to orange, orange to brown and brown to almost black in about 6 sessions of hard driving. I am running the original rotors and pads with 7,200 miles on the car. As of now outboard pads are at 4mm in back and 7mm in front. Arrived at the track with Fresh ATE 200 racing fluid. Completely flushed and replaced fluid Saturday night trackside with Motul 660 racing fluid. Running with no nannies – all traction control all the way off! I’m an experienced, advanced driver with thousands of track miles and I’ve driven dozens of different high performance street cars and race prepped cars on the track in anger. I drive a GT3RS regularly on track. I mention my experience, the fluid and the nannies because I’m really not looking for any suggestions related to fluid, nannies or driving style – even though I’m quite certain I will receive those suggestions anyway.

I feel like this must be a somewhat well-known problem, but I can’t find anything helpful online about this being common…let alone aftermarket solutions. I don’t believe there is a failure of any kind, the brakes perform fine before they heat up. I believe this car is simply designed without enough thought to rear brake cooling. Is anyone familiar with the problem or better yet, know of an aftermarket solution?


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very interesting. fwiw, I have tracked my 458 five times and never had this problem.

 

Brake cooling issue on the car... 488GTB has same issues. Your GT3RS has excellent brake cooling for a street car as an example.

I have not seen anything to add/purchase to get cool air to the brakes. There seems to be zero aftermarket other than exhaust, wheels and add on carbon bits for the 458/488. Ferrari guys seems to not be into performance driving at all on a track.

Barber is not even a hard on brakes traditionally really... compared to my home track Sebring. I love love love Barber though and want to get back there again soon.

I come from tracking Porsche's...911's... type 997 and 991's. My 2019 488GTB is my 1st Ferrari and I have not tracked it. My 2018 GT3 was awesome on track and brakes never over heated. Never had too much trouble with Porsche's over heating brakes although on my 997's I turned red brake calipers to a deep dark red'ish brown over a summer of track days... not in 1 day like your 458.


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Is it possible to retrofit the 458 challenge rear under tray and ducting for brake cooling?

 

First, you are risking that your rear pads will crumble, fresh pads highly recommended, plus they will be able to provide better heat dissipation. Fresh pads are about 18mm, your current measurement of 4mm is way too thin for track duty, and barely sufficient for regular daily driving.

You might step down to Motul 600 as 660 reacts too easier with moisture and reduces its effectiveness. Castrol React has a really high wet boiling point:
https://trackdays.ie/best-racing-brake-fluid/

And, sorry not certain of what the 458 uses stock, but if not using stainless brake lines to the calipers, upgrade, rubber lines allow too much moisture breach, and expand giving inconsistent performance at the limit and don't efficiently dissipate heat.

Race guys I know that use 660 flush it regularly during the day...

 

I am no brake expert, but is it possible that some pressure is kept in the rear brake system causing the brakes to be partially engaged? That is, dragging pads? I have heard on on older cars when fluid cannot vent back to master cylinder, or there is a kink in a line, or other damage in the brake system this can happen.

From what you describe you are driving great, normal track braking, so there must be extra energy (heat) being generated somehow. Like I say, I know nothing about the 458 brake system, maybe it is just poor cooling air.

I will be installing new rotors on my 458 this month, so will have a chance to look into the system. Mine have not overheated, but I am not an advanced driver.

 

That's weird - normally the front brakes do most of the job (because of the mass transfer), so they should be the ones overheating first (on my 488, the front callipers' red begins to turn brown, but the rear are still gloriously red).
The 458 rear brakes cooling could be worse than the 488's, but it has not been widely reported so there might be a specific issue here.
Sorry I'm of no help

 

Binding parking brake ?

 

In which manettino mode were you ?
The 458 can put very hard time on the rear brakes, depending on the circuit and driver skills, if you are not in CST OFF mode.

 

Sorry, I should have read carefully your post.
Surprising, though, that in CST OFF you still kill your rear brakes.

 

As an experienced track driver, you are simply asking more of the brakes than they are designed to do. After 10+ years and 10’s of thousands of laps, I no longer driver street cars on the track. You need a proper race prepared car...

One of the most obvious differences between my 458 c and the street Ferraris I have owned is the brake ducting. Lots of it....

 

wow, and they are carbon ceramic too. ive never seen or even heard of calipers burning the paint off from overheating. and no problem on the gt3 is weird since both considered to be equal systems. maybe switch to challenge system? way too expensive to keep replacing street versions after couple of days. yikees. maybe switch cars altogether.

 

Porsche GT3 cars have better brake cooling...much better...and is a much better performance track car.

 

As others have said:
1) the GT3 is simply a better track tool. I hate saying it, but it's true. You won't be able to use the same brake markers for too many laps without discovering the differences between the two cars.

2) switch to the motul 600, not the 660. The 660 should be flushed at least daily. More if you're getting lots of expansion. (And make sure you're running the stainless braided lines!)

3) but the biggest problem? Your pad thickness. Get some new pads in there.

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This is my first thought. Not that I really look, but have never seen such an issue attributed to any of our cars with carbon ceramic brakes, or even steel. Something is not right here.

 

I drove both cars and owned both in 2008 a bought a 430 Scuderia and never looked back I now own that car , a F8 Tributo, 812 Superfast, and a 488 Pista

I would never leave Ferrari it truly is a family all with the same interest and you are well looked after

The day I bought my Porsche, my Aston, my BMW and my Mercedes was the last time I ever heard my or had any functions from each of the dealers

I can’t tell you the events, track day’s , Corp dinners I been to

Switch you will love the car and the family


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Uh which Ferrari dealer is this?

 

I’d bet pads are not releasing enough and the following is happening:
-Brakes are applied hard into say turn 5 at Barber which generates a lot of heat
-tears are not releasing enough and lightly touching rotor which is not allowing heat from turn 5 braking to be released
-Brake temps have barely dropped by the time you break for the museum corner so you break hard and put more heat into them
-again the pads are not releasing enough so heat is not released
-continue this cycle for a few laps and the calipers will get extremely hot

I’ve rebuilt a lot of calipers from track cars and you would be surprised how many have inner seals which are no longer pulling the pad back after the brake is released. I would rebuild the calipers. If you can do it yourself it’s probably less than $100.

I would agree that a Porsche GT car is a better track tool as I have had many from stock to cup cars but as others have mentioned the Ferrari sound, looks, prestige is just amazing and there is no other auto brand in the world like a Ferrari.

Best of luck!


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Exactly. I just came back from COTA and 3 sec cost me the set of new brake pads I just had installed in my 812. Yup one weekend for pads and two for Corsa tires. They’re just not designed well enough to dissipate heat.

Bottom line- Ferrari brakes are just not made to track with speed- not enough fins in between the rotors and the cross drilled holes are inadequate and plug up too easily with pad material. They just don’t do well at speed.

But you’ll look good on parade laps.

Thank God my GT3 RS is bullet proof... and cheaper to run. The 812 is getting close to Challenge/Cup car hourly expendables....


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Hi gents, been away last eight years.
This is the first I’ve heard of stock rear brakes on fire, always been fronts. If not the e brake, then I suspect something in the ABS.

When I first started FC, I noticed all tracked Ferraris complaining about overheating brakes on the track, (except F40 &50), very short disc and pad life.
Paradoxically, my first post was what can be done about the 308 rear brakes, assuming using the Brembo big brake kit. I worked with Martin at Girodisc to adapt full floating F50 discs and calipers to the front and full floating 360 rears. I had a local prototype machinist fabricate a parking brake caliper bracket to fit in the stock rear caliper position and had him machine the front ears of the upright to accept Martin’s 360 caliper adaptors. I didn’t want to get into a balance bar set up, so adapted a larger Mc and fitted a n adjustable prop valve to fine tune the slightly too large rears. First track day, big grins, super consistent, unfadeable brakes and almost no appreciable wear.

Apologies for the hijack and braggadocio.
Good luck,
Chris

 

Why do you believe 600 is better than 660 and that 660 needs to be flushed...not just a bleed...and 600 does not?

 

^THIS x100.

It is not the fluid, pads or anything else. Ferrari street cars do not have sufficient braking systems to be driven hard on a track, period. They lack sufficient brake cooling. After tracking my 458 I had the same thing happen and needed to buy new CCM's (even though they were only 7% worn) because the surface had changed and become all rough due to overheating. The caliper color changed from Red to red-brown. Ferrari NA was zero help. Ferrari pretends they are race cars but the reality is they are not.

On the bright side, it sounds like you are solid driver on the track. My advice is track your Porsche and not Ferrari, and if you track a lot buy a race car. I own a 458 spider, a 488, and have an F8 spider on order-- I love my Fcars (but not on the track). I have several race cars and am on track ~50-80 days per year.

FWIW my cayman GT4 race car is 12 seconds PER LAP faster than the 458 at Sebring-- all the time and more is made up under braking and corners, the 458 is way faster in a straight line and top speed.

 

whats the difference between the ccm on porsche vs ferrari? they seem very similar if not identical on casual inspection. i know corvette used same brembo ccm as ferrari. wonder if porsche is different. or is it all due to cooling from superior ducting? overall weight? it should not be that porsche track braking is great and ferrari is terrible when they both use 6/4 piston caliper setup, huge drilled ccm rotors, etc. seems weird to me

 

its the brake cooling (ducting and airflow deflection)-- nothiong to do with the calipers or rotors.

 

Bingo. The number of vanes, slot width, etc etc etc! My Porsche mechanic- a former racer & crew chief says it makes all the difference in the world. Ducting, slots, vanes etc are designed differently for different racing applications- endurance v. sprints. Ferrari street cars have street brakes - my SA told me they’d last the lifetime of the car if you didn’t track it and only last a weekend or two if you do.

FWIW even though Porsche brakes are better than Ferrari he is an AP Racing guy and we’ll prolly go that route when replacing my GT3 RS’.....


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