Brakes on F8

Curious, what " mode " were you driving in?
Comfort
Sport
Race
ESC Off

Asking, as the rear brakes are passively doing a lot to keep the car stable while cornering, managing slip angle, etc... all without you knowing.

What mode you are driving in will determine how much these " nannies " are functioning behind the scenes.

S

 

The brakes on the 488/F8/Pista suck for track usage.

You need to upgrade them, at least pads and fluids.

As to the rears, it's traction control. Usually means you're doing something that would normally result in driving directly into a wall and the car is doing everything in its power to prevent that from happening. Some driving instruction would minimize some of that, or a better understanding of the proper brake points, driving lines, etc. at your local track would also help minimize some of the rear pad wear.

 

Thousands of miles in Porsches on track here too..... Ferrari doesn't have the brake cooling nor tuning for track use like Porsche does. Also keeping it in race mode for the track with your experience after you get a feel for the car is likely working the brakes way too much. I know this happened with me.

The carbon rotors Ferrari uses are a totally different layup schedule and makeup than Porsche carbon rotors an the Ferrari brake pads are for street only not track use at a skilled level either.

Yes you can totally use the Ferrari carbon rotor, stock brake fluid and street stock pad but after a few laps on certain type of track the brake lose feel, and over heat.

 

Lots of good and accurate advice here.

Never thought much of the brakes in the 458. I think the F8's are better, but not by much.

When I bought a Challenge 458 and started tracking it, I was shocked at how much better the brakes are than the spider. Night and day.

All you can do with the F8 is go with better (track) pads and use SRF Castrol to minimize fade.

Though I no longer track the spider, I was eventually running with everything off, which prolongs rear pads (Road Atlanta and WGI can be e bit hard on brakes).

 

Going from two 488's which I tracked, to my new F8. First time on track with F8, used normal braking point did not make my turn in. Scarey. Took to dealer and they agreed brakes were not normal. The did their break in (or brake in?) and after that brakes were fine.

 

OEM brakes of the 488 are sub-par and I suspect the F8's are not massively improved.
I switched to Surface Transforms rotors and Pagid RSC1 pads (also replacing the rubber lines with steel ones) and it's definitely a better set-up.
Regarding the excessive use of rear brakes, in race mode it's possible to minimize it since the system gives some margin before intervening... so depending on the way the car is driven, it will not be triggered (of course the difficulty is to go close to the limit, because too far means driving is slow, and crossing the limit makes the system go into action).

 

I am willing to bet the pads are making 90% of the difference, the STs do offer better cooling due to their design.

I did the SS line thingy in the 458 and brakes felt a bit less squirmy, with the unintended consequence of setting off the ABS a bit more in hard braking. Oh well, I don’t track it anymore.

Challenge cars have real brakes. I think you have the 488Ch, no?

 

My 488 is a plain GTB, it goes on both roads and tracks and is enough for my limited skills...

 

I find that it does take more brake pressure than i was used to in order to get the stopping power I wanted into turns. But I've done 40+ laps consecutively in a session and didn't experience any brake fade. I did wear down the front pads in 3800 miles though (8 track days) and replaced them with Pagid RSC1 pads, which feel a little better.

The only real issue I experience is when I'm done with a session, I get the warning message to keep driving at a moderate speed to cool the brakes, which means I circle the pit area a few times. But that doesn't affect my on track experience at all.

 

Seems to be a lot of good insight on tracking the F8 in here. More than I expected to be honest. Happy to see it

 

when i first began thinking about a Ferrari, i read a lot of threads about tracking - and, i noticed a majority of the respondents, in fact, almost everyone complained about not enough brakes, on the track, everything from 308, 328, 348, 360, all had issues with running out of brakes, or the need to frequently replace components.
IMHO, the singular issue is the inability of the stock brakes, to get rid of the kinetic energy, (HEAT) developed during track laps.
The first step is to replace the pads with track capable pads and fluid.
If this doesn't work, add air ducting to the eye of the disc.

I started with a very stock 77 308, added 360 wheels (and higher performance tires).
Rather than go incrementally, I contacted Girodisc after i had scored a set of front F-50 brakes, (355x32mm discs and huge calipers).
Martin said they could make full floating hats and caliper adaptors to work on the front and recommended the 36-40 mm, Brembo "Lotus" caliper for the rear, for which. they made the caliper adaptors and hats. I had a local machinist mill and helicoil the front ears on the rear uprights to accomodate the Girodisc caliper adaptors and CNC a pair of adaptors for the 360 parking brake calipers, for the original rear caliper mount lugs.
The machinist made an adaptor to mount a 1-1/8 Summit master cylinder and i added a 4-position brake proportioning valve to tune the bias.
After swapping out the highly metalic, (read scary in the rain - pads), the brakes were bullet proof, Hand of God, Dead linear and very low wear.

When the 400 HP, $400,000 cars were leaving me on the straights, i could catch them later in the session, when their brakes were on fire and they had to slow down half way down the straights.

Some say that "Big Brakes" are over rated, but i found that they are some of the biggest performance gains, for the money, you can make, and, beats doing frequent rotor and pad replacements,($$$$).

Waist of money for street use, factory stuff does just fine.
chris

 

The F8 already has ducting to the calipers/discs. Could it be better? Sure. But I've never had a problem with brake fade even with factory fluid and pads. I did upgrade both fluid and pads anyway though
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I took the F8 to the track yesterday and experienced similar issues. I always drive it in CT off mode and I push it pretty hard (1:37 at Laguna and 1:58 at Thunderhill East, here in NorCal). After a few laps, I get both a heat and a fluid warning, pretty much on every lap and specifically after the 2 fastest straights with the subsequent hard braking zones. The warning signs are quite distracting and frustrating, of course...

I've upgraded my McLaren 600LT with Surface Transforms and Pagid pads. But I do about 8-10 track days / year with the LT. Since I only do about 2-3 with the F8, I'd rather not change the rotors and just upgrade pads and fluid. Any recommendations from these sites?

https://competitionmotorsport.com/collections/racing-brake-fluid

https://competitionmotorsport.com/collections/ferrari-racing-brakes

Thx in advance.

 

I'm pretty happy with the Pagid RSC1 pads. I use the Motul 660 and I get through an entire track day, around 50 laps, without and brake fade

 

+1 for Pagids and Motul 660, or alternatively Castrol SRF. Agree I wouldn’t change rotors if doing that few days in the F8. Pretty decent times from what I can tell.

You should get yourself one of those 570 GT4s if you like Macs and are doing that many combined days on track. You’ll be much safer in a factory race car.

Saw two on track at Road Atlanta this past weekend, looked good to me.

 

You're like the 5th person to recommend me to go for a full race car in the last 2 days... . Thx for the suggestion. Frankly, I'm not sure I'm there... yet. It would also require more infrastructure (trailer, garage space, etc) and I'm just not that committed to it... yet. But definitely worth considering in the future.

I also did get 2 very similar responses from trusted and experienced sources. For now the ideal and more economical solution will be the Pagids RCS1 and RF-650 brake fluid. Really hoping this will be enough. If not, will likely either go for rotors or just not track the F8 (really hoping that's not the case... as I'm having too much fun with it, see picture...)


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