FYI - Our stock brakes are sh*t

[Dragon]

I went to the track today and I could not even make three laps when my brake pedal went all the way to the floor. My brake fluid was boiling over.

If you take your car out to the track, my advice is to put some better (race) fluid in, install better pads, and put in the ss brake lines.

Besides that, the car ran great. I can't say enough about Koni dampers and my MGW shifter.

 

[usafimj]

This kit is for the front and rear. It comes with ss lines, pads, and fluid

http://www.radmustangs.com/BRAKE-PACKAGE-2005-MUSTANG_p_435.html

 

[Dragon]

That looks about right. Thanks!

 

[SlideWRX]

Pretty much every street car is going to have that experience. I'm guessing in Texas cooling ducts would be fairly important as well for track days.

 

[DusterRT]

A friend of mine boiled his recently flushed fluid at his first track day here in the relatively cool NW. High temp fluid should be the bare minimum you do before hitting the track..

 

[Vapour Trails]

Yeah, our stock brakes aren't that bad, but tracking means upgrading pads and fluid at minimum. Air ducts make a big difference.

 

[Random Asshole]

The name of the thread should be changed to stock rotors and pads are shit..fluid too

My "home track" is a road course which has been deemed one of the hardest tracks on brakes in the country by pro racers and pad manufacuters. (Blackhawk farms) Even with cooling ducts, I would have to cut my rotors after every track day. I also disintegrated every rubber part within a 10in radius of my rotor, except the lines, thank god. I'm on my second set of calipers and already need a third this season.

But I just did a 28 mile STRAIGHT stint on the full 3.5 mile road course this saturday at the autobahn country club without issue.

How'd I do it?
I just swapped out my stock fluid for Motul rbf600, swapped out stock rotors for RotorPros (250 for the ENTIRE set, skeptically cheap, but they fuckin rocked), Carbotech pads, and SS lines from MaxMotorsports/aka poorly rebadged stoptechs. Keep in mind that I had brake ducts from Quantum motorsports too.

So yes, any stock brake system is going to suck as bad as ours unless its an obviously higher caliber machine than a plain jane mustang. BUT, you can work with it so long as you take the right steps. If I'm not mistaken, the Speed World Challenge cars use the stock calipers.

 

[aeraceranthony]

Anyone use Amsoil brake fluid? There one of our vendors.

https://www.amsoil.com/a/high-performance-racing-brake-fluid

 

[SoundGuyDave]

I use Amsoil for the motor (10W40 synthetic), but I'll stick with Motul for the brakes. It's a known quantity, and I've had excellent results from it. If you use proper braking techniques, there's no way on earth that you'll boil it. I was just at Blackhawk over the weekend, and yeah, it really is hard on brakes, a lot harder than Road America or Gingerman. Blackhawk has three REALLY hard braking zones, turn 6, 7 and 1; and two fairly hard braking zones, 3 and 3d, on a fairly short (1:25-ish laps on street tires) course. Not a lot of time to cool things down, especially with relatively low airflow speeds into the ducts, and not a lot of "straight" where the flow is directly into the front of the car. I normally like to bleed my brakes at lunch and the end of the day, just to get the "used up" stuff out, because I had FIVE students across the weekend, I never got the chance. By the end of the weekend, the pedal was getting a little spongy, but still not bad. I'm pretty happy with that. Motul RBF600 fluid, Hawk DTC-60 up front, HT-10 in back, Quantum ducts, Steeda fascia, lines and duct inlets, and stock rotors and calipers. The biggest thing you need to watch out for with the stock calipers is overheating the aluminum castings and spreading the outside under heavy braking. As soon as you notice tapered pad wear (thin on top, thick at the bottom), swap the caliper out. With newtakeoff.com around, it's still a viable and cost-effective alternative to Stoptech, Brembo, SSBC or the rest. I would consider redoing the fronts if you were going to run enduros over a couple hours straight, but for the typical 20-30 minute sprints most of us do, the stock kit is no real problem.

RA: How'd you like Autobahn? We need to hook up one of these days at a track and have some fun.

 

[Thinkkker]

What track were you at?

 

[Kaldar142]

Off topic but what oil should I use for track days?

5w-20 seems pretty low

 

[SoundGuyDave]

Off topic but what oil should I use for track days?

5w-20 seems pretty low

10W40 overfilled by a half-quart works for me. I added an Accusump for insurance, but that weight held up just fine. I'm using Amsoil synthetic.

 

[Random Asshole]

RA: How'd you like Autobahn? We need to hook up one of these days at a track and have some fun.

Autobahn was insane. My buddy got sponsored some slicks for his c5 z06 and I watched him lose it in turn one (at race speed) because his seat reclined on him at the worst possible moment. Thankfully, he and the car made it out fine.

As for me, I took my second class win (in a row) The NSSCC HSAX director was running in my class this time and I was scared shitless because I've never ran race speed at that track. Then, after the high speed autocross, we did 8 laps of that mini-nurburgring of a full course. They basically took your ax times from the day and gave you an total timed "goal" to match. I destroyed mine by 47 seconds. I actually had the fastest overall time out of everyone, and there were fully slicked closed and open wheel cars out there! (I had good luck with traffic) But, they lied to me and said to run "all out" before we started. I asked specifically if the name of the game was to match OR beat the goal. I guess they didn't want us to cause traffic?

I believe the winner was under a second difference of his actual time and his given goal. Talk about consistency.

We totally gotta hit up sometime at an event. My buddy was talking about nasa at gingerman coming up. After that 28 mile rally though, I'm a little weary on running like that in my DD. I hit an oil slick or something on a high speed exit. I had the wheel turned all the way to full lock to save it. (at like 60+mph) I got some awesome video with my goHero mounted to my bumper real low. Looks like I'm going 200mph.

Next nsscc event at blackhawk is august 15. You should come out.
What did you just do out there, NASA? What was your best lap?
Mine was a 1:26.xxx (standing start)

I've pondered on oil usage myself, you really think 10w-40 is necessary/beneficial?

 

[SoundGuyDave]

"mini Nurburgring" I love it!! Yeah, Autobahn is a long sonofabitch, isn't it? Nice job on you class win, by the way! I've never had a transponder on the car, and I'm saving for a Traqmate, so I have NO lap times at all. 1:26 is quick around Blackhawk, though, you must have been hauling the mail! I was instructing, so I wasn't all that focused on pushing the car that hard, I was mostly taking laps for fun, or demoing different things to students.

I won't be able to make the August 15th date, but I'll be at Autobahn with MVP on August 3rd, and back at Blackhawk on the 8th and 9th with NASA, and that just about shoots my budget for the month. If you haven't run Gingerman, come on out with us in September, it's a good time. Great town, and well worth the drive. NASA has a very firm focus on safety, and Gingerman is an extremely safe track. Don't push the last corner, but other than that, you can go off just about anywhere and not hit anything.

As far as oil goes, 5w20 is just too thin for what we do to the engines on track. 30 minutes straight at 3000-7000 rpm will just kill that oil. Is 10W40 necessary? probably not, but is it beneficial, I would have to say yes.

 

[Kaldar142]

Yeah that's how I popped my wrx motor. Running 5w30 on a fully built 450whp motor LOL should of used 15-50

So amsoil 10w40?

 

[race4food]

I just upgraded to the GT500 brakes for $600.00 that is only 200 more than that kit..
I really dont think there is much help for the stock GT brakes even with good fluid and hawk pads.. I think the rotors are just flat out too small for a #3500 car.
Why Ford didn't just use the proven 13" rotors and PBR/cobra calipers is beyond me..
The GT500 brakes are AWSOME.. just a tad heavy.. I'm trying to get a actual price on the light weight rotors that after a bit of google searching "seem" to be lighter than the stock GT rotors..

 

[FR500GT]

I just upgraded to the GT500 brakes for $600.00 that is only 200 more than that kit..
..

Please tell me that was a used takeoff kit for that price? haha Otherwise please tell us where you got a new GT500 Brembo kit new for that price!

 

[Gray Ghost GT]

I plan to eventually upgrade my front brakes to the Wilwood caliper and 14" rotors to support the weight of this car at speed. However, IMHO, the best use of time and money is to first ensure your braking technique is optimized, e.g., use of late and threshold braking, which allows you to maintain a higher speed in the turns while allowing your brakes more time to cool between applications. The next time you drive with an instructor - have him check your braking technique. There's always room for improvement of that key skill - proper braking is just as important as using the "go fast" pedal.

 

[Kaldar142]

Yep, i minimize my braking zones.

with my braking setup thats one advantage i have over alot of cars believe it or not, or maybe i'm just alot harder on the car than most people on the track with me.

i brake way later than everyone and much harder too.

Gotta love Stoptechs + hawk DTC70s + 285s

 

[Branomano08BlackBullitt]

I want to get some Take-off Brembos but I don't want to change my stock Bullitt rims I wish there was a way to have both but there isn't one I know of in the end I will probably just get some different rims just wish I didn't have to.