I've had enough with these crappy brakes

[codestp202]

I have now gone through 3 sets of pads and rotors on the FiST doing Autox and track days. Keeping them cool was the first issue, started with the boomba deflectors, then moved onto full on brake cooling ducts.

EBC yellowstuff ran pretty well on my car but I needed a new set of pads up front for my Laguna day yesterday. Had a new set of Hawk Street.Race pads (NEVER BUY THESE), and a set of Centrik premium rotors on the front, and a new set of rotors and my old Yellowstuff that had a lot of life on the rear.

It was my first time at Laguna and ended up setting a 1:52 which I'm very happy with. However, the brakes would be smoking after each 15 min session. The Red paint bubbled off my calipers, and the brand new rotors are so scored from the pads that you could file your nails on the grooves. I'm surprised I didn't light anything on fire with how hot they were. I'll take a picture of the rotors later, it is insane. This is obviously a pad issue, because I tracked at Thunderhill where the temps were much hotter with Yellowstuff and didn't have the smoking issues. I'm just sick of these undersized brakes that are not up to the test of hard track abuse.

I finally bit the bullet and bought a Wilwood kit from 2J Racing shop, he had a 10% discount code and the proceeds went to the hurricane. Picked the solid rotors instead of cross drilled and Wilwoods medium track compound pad. Bought them as soon as I got back from the track and the anger of shitty brakes was still on my mind so I couldn't turn back from the $800-900 cost.

Vs the Rears

 

[sidewaysallday]

I had the same issues. Went to yellowstuff from stock and scored the hell out of my rotors so I added cooling and went to DTC-30's which worked a bit better but still didn't cut it. I would be blowing through a set of the DTC-30's/blank rotors every weekend which was crazy. I said screw it and went with the Stoptech's and rota grids and wont be looking back. The fade resistance and pedal feel are indescribably better than stock (not really a shocker there). What I really was after, however, was pad selection! I found that the only real track pad made for the FiST were DTC-60's and I didn't feel like swapping the pads/rotors every track day. So I now have PFC pads and can swap them out without upsetting the rotors.

So far I've found that the stock rad and stock brakes just won't cut it at the track. We'll see whats next to go....

 

[Xaendeau]

This is expected.

I believe this is more of a problem with compound manufacturer trying to market to too many crowds. Realistically speaking you can't make a track pad be gentle enough on the streets, and you can't make a street pad survive on the track, check out the rated temperature range:

Pulled this off of tire rack: https://www.tirerack.com/images/pdf/product/Hawk-Compound-Charts.pdf. DTC60s seem to be the best application for the fronts, rears might like one step weaker...don't think they will heat up enough.

As far as I am concerned, if you track your car in a serious manner with grippy tires...you are going to have to swap to a track oriented pad soon than later. This isn't just with the FiST, this happens with most cars. 350z/370z? Can take out the brakes in a few short laps. Focus ST? Melts. Mustang GT? Seen the pad catch on fire. Old Miatas? Have to grab like XP10/XP8 combos. Even the FRS/BRZ has been pointed out to brake issues, the Brembo package seems to help, but people I have talked to have said it is lacking. WRX? Lacking. WRX STi with brembos? Heard mixed things for multiple 20 minute sessions.

It sucks, but street pad for steet things, race pad for track things. Auto-crosses seem to work best with aggressive street pads, or at least that is what the folks in the two local SCCAs have told me. Only way you can get around this, is to get HUGE rotors and pads so that they don't heat up enough to get out of a street pads thermal range. That is what they do on Corvettes, Z-whatever Comaros, GT350s, Porsches, and so on. Even then, if you switch from aggressive street tires to racing slicks, you often have to switch to compounds like XP12/DTC60 anyway. Can't have everything.

 

[codestp202]

I had the same issues. Went to yellowstuff from stock and scored the hell out of my rotors so I added cooling and went to DTC-30's which worked a bit better but still didn't cut it. I would be blowing through a set of the DTC-30's/blank rotors every weekend which was crazy. I said screw it and went with the Stoptech's and rota grids and wont be looking back. The fade resistance and pedal feel are indescribably better than stock (not really a shocker there). What I really was after, however, was pad selection! I found that the only real track pad made for the FiST were DTC-60's and I didn't feel like swapping the pads/rotors every track day. So I now have PFC pads and can swap them out without upsetting the rotors.

So far I've found that the stock rad and stock brakes just won't cut it at the track. We'll see whats next to go....

This is expected.

I believe this is more of a problem with compound manufacturer trying to market to too many crowds. Realistically speaking you can't make a track pad be gentle enough on the streets, and you can't make a street pad survive on the track, check out the rated temperature range:

Pulled this off of tire rack: https://www.tirerack.com/images/pdf/product/Hawk-Compound-Charts.pdf. DTC60s seem to be the best application for the fronts, rears might like one step weaker...don't think they will heat up enough.

As far as I am concerned, if you track your car in a serious manner with grippy tires...you are going to have to swap to a track oriented pad soon than later. This isn't just with the FiST, this happens with most cars. 350z/370z? Can take out the brakes in a few short laps. Focus ST? Melts. Mustang GT? Seen the pad catch on fire. Old Miatas? Have to grab like XP10/XP8 combos. Even the FRS/BRZ has been pointed out to brake issues, the Brembo package seems to help, but people I have talked to have said it is lacking. WRX? Lacking. WRX STi with brembos? Heard mixed things for multiple 20 minute sessions.

It sucks, but street pad for steet things, race pad for track things. Auto-crosses seem to work best with aggressive street pads, or at least that is what the folks in the two local SCCAs have told me. Only way you can get around this, is to get HUGE rotors and pads so that they don't heat up enough to get out of a street pads thermal range. That is what they do on Corvettes, Z-whatever Comaros, GT350s, Porsches, and so on. Even then, if you switch from aggressive street tires to racing slicks, you often have to switch to compounds like XP12/DTC60 anyway. Can't have everything.

Yeah I looked at some of those other compounds, but it just makes sense to get the big kit. Killing pads and rotors in a few sessions is no bueno. I would love to get 3 trackdays out of a set of rotors and pads on the front. I got the polymatrix e pads which will function on the street and are good for light to medium duty track racing. I'll probably end up getting a set of their cheapest street pads, then pop thepolymatrix e's in when I get to the track. I know wilwood makes more expensive higher rated pads but I'm going to start with the e's and move up from there if necessary.

 

[codestp202]

Updated and added pics

 

[TyphoonFiST]

Did you say you got front solid rotors?

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[codestp202]

Did you say you got front solid rotors?

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Yeah, I opted for the solid vs drilled/slotted. I might get slotted next time around. I didn't want to worry about any type of cracking.

 

[TyphoonFiST]

I thought you meant like totally solid....you got vented/stockers....I like my Cryo frozen centric slotted rotors....work great....get them from Rock auto...cheap ...cheap and cheap...then I went with Carbotechs pads

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[codestp202]

I thought you meant like totally solid....you got vented/stockers....I like my Cryo frozen centric slotted rotors....work great....get them from Rock auto...cheap ...cheap and cheap...then I went with Carbotechs pads

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Yeah my bad. They are just normal wilwood vented rotors vs wilwoods drilled / slotted

 

[M-Sport fan]

I, and many others call those "blank" rotors, for the express purpose of NOT having the above confusion.

I am surprised that Wilwood even offers the blank rings as an option, as Brembo, and others do not on many of their kits.

 

[codestp202]

I, and many others call those "blank" rotors, for the express purpose of NOT having the above confusion.

I am surprised that Wilwood even offers the blank rings as an option, as Brembo, and others do not on many of their kits.

That's the nice thing about Wilwood, they offer a huge range of rotors for my kit. Blank, blank with curved vent fins, drilled, slotted, drilled+slotted, plus a few more all ranging from $40 a rotor up to $140 a rotor. I personally don't need anymore more then the blank with normal fins, and I don't see anyone needing anything more then that until they got into legitimate road racing.

I especially wanted to avoid drilled rotors as I would most likely crack them, and I don't want the extra risk as I'll be pushing them hard.

 

[Ptuning_Nate]

My co-worker has the wilwood kit on the front and ran DTC-60 pads at the speed ring event recently and craked both front rotors (2 piece blanks) in multiple places (also has brake ducts)

 

[TDavis]

I keep going back and forth when wanting the WilWood BBK lol. I see good reviews then people saying they cracked/failed at some point.

 

[Ptuning_Nate]

how often do you track your car? Also the speed ring is pretty hard on brakes

 

[Butterybunz]

I have decided to avoid the Wilwood BBK. After some research I've found too many people having issues with it for track use. I'm sure it works fine on the street but so do the stock brakes...

 

[TDavis]

how often do you track your car? Also the speed ring is pretty hard on brakes

I have decided to avoid the Wilwood BBK. After some research I've found too many people having issues with it for track use. I'm sure it works fine on the street but so do the stock brakes...

Yeah, TBH I'll probably hit up the track once or twice but it will by no means be a track junky.

 

[Ptuning_Nate]

Looks like Stoptech offers a kit, anybody used their kit for the fiesta before? From the picture i saw it looks like the kit comes with slotted rotors but distributors sometimes use generic pictures.

 

[TDavis]

Looks like Stoptech offers a kit, anybody used their kit for the fiesta before? From the picture i saw it looks like the kit comes with slotted rotors but distributors sometimes use generic pictures.

[MENTION=5592]Accel Junky[/MENTION] has had them. IIRC you need spacers for the wheels so the calipers can fit.

 

[Woods247]

I bought acceljunky’s kit and tracked the car a couple of times since. The Stoptechs are outstanding even with the lads they came with. My OZ wheels are close to OEM spec. I had 12mm custom spacer made to clear the calipers. I couldn’t be happier. No fade at all during 20min sessions on a hot day at Road Atlanta.

 

[codestp202]

I'm averaging a track day a month. Have done 1 day on the wilwoods so far with Polymatrix E pads at Thunderhill. No issues so far but I think the pads are the limiting factor. Doing another day on them at Laguna in November. We'll see how they do there. When I pulled off track and shot the rotors with my temp gun, they were well over 800 degrees. This is with cooling ducts similar to Wood's pics above.

I'm happy with the brakes so far. I haven't had any issues with cracking but I've only done one day so far.