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.

 

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.

 

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.