Best Brake Fluid For Track

Not sure I understand what you are trying to say about my driving technique. I'm not asking with respect to go faster or have more brake. Maybe I'm missing something but how could an improved technique keep the brake fluid from boiling and having my pedal go to the floor?

 

It's about getting more air to the brakes. Brakes merely turn kinetic energy into heat. That heat has to be dissipated. Bending or pulling off splash guards to direct more air, running ducts to the inside of a vented rotor or onto the caliper. All of this is necessary for proper thermal control. It's the building of the heat, without it being sufficiently dissipated between brake applications that causes this.

FBB is talking about braking too long, I'm sure. The braking distances, as people start out, are longer than they are after they become more comfortable carrying speed into the corner, thereby generating less (theoretically) heat because they release the brakes sooner. I have found small improvements with that idea, but my 8TB of driver performance data indicates that the best drivers shower down and show no mercy to that part of the car..

If your car can't generate equal or more than -1g longitudinal force under braking, and do it for a typical 20+ minute session a few times a day, get some air on it FIRST (after upgrading the fluid, as Rifledriver suggests).

 

Sure more air to the brakes, better fluid...

Seems to me a more advanced driver would be braking harder from a higher speed, and a less experienced driver having a lower speed and a longer braking zone... the heat differential between those two is really supposedly significant? Just doesn't make sense to me

I had the car in sport mode, and had left on traction control - have people experienced traction control leading to brake system 'failure'?

 

This. Somewhere on the great WWW are pictures of Schumacher braking at the Montreal hairpin. Both he and his competitors started braking at the same time. The difference was Schumacher came off the brakes a ****'s hair sooner than anybody else.

Now, if you are taking your Ferrari for a track day, none of this matters. You're nuts to drive a street Ferrari this fast on this track. Only bad things will happen. How do I know this? Well, google a track map of Texas Motor Speedway. Now, imagine yourself in a 550 Maranello. By the end of the front straight, you're doing the dirty boogie in 4th gear. How fast are you going, I dunno. I never had the nerve to look down at the speedo. You lift as you dive down to the bottom, and then shift into third before you swing around T2, after which you track out as far as you can go. The problem is T3 is a sharp right hander. Did I say sharp? I mean there are concrete barriers staring you in the face as you bear down as hard as you can on the ABS, which is doing the jump-back boogie. A 550 is one heavy car.

This is nature's way of telling you to slow down. Just because the car is willing, doesn't mean you should be. So you are right to be concerned about having the best brake fluid possible. But FBB's point, I believe, is that the best brake fluid is in between your eyeballs.

Good luck, Dale

 

What others have posted above is exactly what I am talking about. I can't do the math but if you heat soak for a long time at 800*F is way worse on equipment than a short burst to 1400*F in a similar way it will take a long time to cool your body in 80*F air but a short time at 32*F because of the differential to ambient temps. I'm not sure if that makes sense but it is true. Also when you run traction control some units have yaw/pitch sensors and when you exceed the desired angles the TC backs out of gas regardless of throttle position or better yet, and quicker responding, uses brakes to control angle. So you may be on the brakes heating your system and not know it if TC is on. I would read the manual and figure out how TC works. On track I use TC for a 1st session on an unfamiliar track, rain, or if my head is not in the game and I'm in survival mode. Otherwise you will learn more and perform better with TC off, but that also means you have to be more careful. Some TC is so good you don't quite know it is driving for you. Another issue that rookies have which I illuded to in my post about riding with a pro driver is that rookies tend to be violent on the controls. This upsets the car and over works all car systems. "Work" creates "heat" in all systems that must be dealt with. That is especially true with brakes. Even if you never race yourself but are just a fan of say F1 the talking heads talk all the time about heat in tires and managing the tires and guys making an assault on the guy in front and sometimes winning and sometimes loosing often because of how tires need to be managed. It is rare that you can beat the livin snot out of your equipment and make it to the end of the race. Here is a funny story from our SCCA T1 racing. There were 2 dominate chassis in T1 racing the C5 older corvette and the C6 newer one. The newer C6 was better overall but the C5 could be a winner under certain track conditions and the C6 had two achilles heals. One was that even with non-factory drysums the engines seemed to blow up more often, like this was such a problem that many new engines lasted only a few laps before we figured out we needed to dry sump them. And the second was they were heavy by class rules and ate their tires, the club racing board trying to equalize performance with weight. So interestingly, some tracks gave the C5 an advantage and the C6 could be pushed but in our races the C6 always lead the races. Often the pressure from the C5 would cause the C6 to loose in the closing laps from just burning up their tires where in the last closing laps the C5 would walk around the C6. Twice in 2011 their being pushed ended up with their blown engines. The funny thing about those drivers is that they wanted to lead the race from green flag to green flag and "hoped" they would finish before catastrophe. None of the C6 drivers thought about or even tried to just let the front running couple of C5's go by and hang on their bumpers until the last few laps and then mount a challenge on sound tires and unstressed engines. This whole racing tracking thing is very complex. So back to your original issue get some lessons and get some air to your brakes. Oh it is also possible on a street car that you don't change the fluid very often. Some guys flush only after a few years. So brake fluid absorbs water and water helps your fluid boil and you loose the pedal. So having newer fluid is just as important as having expensive fluid.

 

Dude, paragraphs are your friend.

Dale

 

I have won at least two SCCA National Championships using Ford Heavy duty fluid...it is a cheap secret weapon...but all fluids are hydroscopic and regardless of the rated temperature, water always boils first....you gotta keep it fresh.

 

Castrol SRF in the 430 Challenge cars I support, also on the race team I worked for.

Sent from R2D2

 

I have seen it many many many times.

 

As an update... my best guess was that the fluid in the car was ATE 200/yellow. Tested it and it was 2% water. During my flush of the fluid, little dark brown particles came out right from the calipers, along with a tiny amount of air from deeper in the lines. Still need to flush the clutch portion...

 

Endless RF650, bring at least 4 bottles.