Track pads

Looks like I'm heading to the track monday and based on the fact that I could only make it 4-5 laps before brake fade last time, I'm going to upgrade my pads. I put in an order for the Hawk HP Plus pads as they are apparently less severe on rotors than the other Hawk options while still providing good high heat performance.

Are there any other good pad options out there that won't chew up the rotors? I almost got the Blues as I've had excellent experience with them in our Chump Porsche 944 - around 40 hours of racing on them with excellent feel and zero fade and the rotors are still in good shape, but not sure how hard they'll be on the rotors of the f355 as it obviously generates a LOT more speed and weighs 500-700lbs. more than our stripped out 944. I'd probably limit myself to 10-15 lap stints depending on how warm it is and how the tires hold up, so that's what I'd need the brakes to hold up for.

If it's warm enough, I plan to run the Hoosier R6's and I'm worried I'll lose the brakes again, so will probably run the first half of the day on my Conti DW's before swapping over if everything goes well.

 

I run PFC 11s on my M3 race car and would highly recommend them.
I have also run the 08 "endurance" compound. Doesn't quite have the initial bite of the 11 but lasts a bit longer.
Can't go wrong with either.

 

I use Ferrodo DS2500 pads.
I get 5 track weekends on a set of pads and I got 30 track days on a set of rotors.

I put these on because I had "to leave the track" when the stock pads overheated with brand new fully flushed fluid 2 days old. So clearly the stock pads are not up to racing or high performance driving, and clearly the fluid was not the problem. Since putting these on, I have over 35 track days on the car without a single episode of pad fade. Several times I had to rotors so hot one could roast wienies through the vent holes in the wheels even after a cool down lap--in these cases, the rotors turn a nice "battle ship" grey color.

 

Where do you get them? They don't seem to be as available as the hawks. Any comparison to the hp plus? From what I gather they're a very similar performance envelope.

The overheat is exactly what happened to me, they faded after 4 or 5 hard laps and I went off track. I didn't have to leave, just had to cool them off after every few laps. The pedal was still firm, so the fluid didn't boil (I had flushed the fluid the night before with fresh ATE blue). I ordered some stop tech fluid along with the pads so soft pedal shouldn't be an issue.

 

Ate super is not a performance fluid. If you bleed before you run it helps greatly. I like Carbotechs xp line. I would split xp 10 front and xp8 rear. Or xp12 front xp10 rear. If you are agressive xp16 front xp10 rear. Cool thing about carbos is it is easy to pick you pad and guess results. Most other pad makers dont have enough depth in their line to match a pad to the track conditions. Xps go from 8 to 24

 

I did some research and picked Ferrodo,
I told my mechanic my choice. He did the rest.
Never tried a different pad as the problem went away and rotor life was good.

 

I figured it was a little better than the valvoline you can grab at the parts store, either way they didn't go soft and I picked up some better fluid for this session. I'm also going to try royal purple in the gearbox and see how that goes.

Is there a reason you like a less aggressive pad in the rear? Is the stock proportioning too far back or just your driving style? I tend to trail into turns and haven't had an issue with the stock setup, but maybe more aggressive pads will unsettle the rear if I trail it too far into turns?

I have to figure out a run plan this week - it's a full track rental so virtually unlimited track time and I don't want to just go out there lapping without improving things (myself, car). I should have a couple of cameras I can mount and will have basic GPS based telemetry so I should have a ton of info to look at afterward.

 

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