So what track brakes do all the cool kids use?

[the duke]

After only a 2-day track event (Open track day Saturday, Time Trial Sunday) I absolutely BLEW through a brand new set of Mountune "Track" pads. I'm down to about 1mm-2mm of material and honestly am completely unimpressed with how these pads were. Even the rear pads are worn pretty bad! I use to run the old Mountune Race/Track pads that were made by WinMAX and they were great. I could get a whole season out of those and I'd only have to rotate tires and change fluid. Granted I'm braking pretty late so I'm sure I'm lunching pads but these current pads have nothing on those WinMAX pads.

What's the pad of choice for a hard bite, high-temp compound? Again, I can get pretty late and stabby with these brakes. Also I need someone who can ship in like a week because the next Time Trial is at the end of the month

Bonus pic, I melted both front centercaps today. Usually I only melt one.

 

[Questionable]

I really liked Carbotech and G-LOC pads with the Fiesta.

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[green_henry]

Fwiw, when Mountune sold out their WinMax inventory, they told me they switched to EBC OrangeStuff. Do you have plastic hub-centric rings for your wheels? How are they holding up? Mine cracked but didn't melt; I replaced them with aluminum rings (which seem to be getting harder to find).

 

[maestromaestro]

For me, it’s XP8 from Carbotech. Yes, expensive - but, very reliable and predictable performance after an initial fade as they heat up. Also - Castrol SRF.

 

[M-Sport fan]

Bonus pic, I melted both front centercaps today. Usually I only melt one.

I would remove those for the track sessions anyway.

There are even some run groups which require you take off any removable wheel stuff which is not bolted/screwed down into the wheel.

 

[TemecFist]

Endless RF650 fluid and DTC60 front pads, DTC30 on the rear.

 

[Fusion Works]

BRAKE DUCTING. Get the temps down no matter what you do. If you melted the center caps, imagine what you did to the brake caliper seals and dust boots? Brake caliper seals are not happy when they start getting over 400deg. What do the boots for your ball joints look like?

The DTC60 is a good combination, but as with all race pads, DO NOT drive them on the street for any period of time. Race pads are extremely abrasive before they get to operating temps. Carbotech makes a nice race pad for the stock calipers. If you move away from the stock calipers you get a whole bunch of pad options.

The parts I used to build my BBK allows me to use a super common pad shape so tons of companies offer different compounds.

 

[Joshyfresh6953]

so im not a 'true' track go-er, just getting into it so I dont know how these stack up to other pads out there to be honest... but I've got these (PowerStop Track Day) on my car and i like them. Ive only taken my car to the track 2x but they didn't exhibit brake fade, never any smoke/smells or anything. When I had stock pads, they definitely weren't as good as these after driving spiritedly for 20 mins+

They make 2 types of track day pads. Track Day and Track Day Spec. TD is for road use and weekend track use (ones Ive got) and the Spec are meant for the track only . Can't speculate on the Spec versions

TD Pad Link

https://v2.powerstop.com/product/power-stop-track-day-brake-kit/#y=2018&mk=FORD&mo=FIESTA&ss=ST Models


TD SPEC Pad link

https://v2.powerstop.com/product/power-stop-track-day-spec-brake-pads/#y=2018&mk=FORD&mo=FIESTA&ss=ST Models

Does anyone here have experience with these pads as well? Id love to hear your thoughts as well!

 

[mattw]

I run Hawk DTC-60 in the front and DTC-30s in the rear, I previously ran Stoptech slotted rotors front and back, with RBF600. This setup worked pretty well, but if you push too many hot laps in a row it will start to have issues still.

I now run the same compound pads with Wilwood BBK upfront, with Wilwood GT36 rotors, and RBF660 fluid. In addition to all of this I also now run brake ducting, video on my install/setup here

View: https://youtu.be/Wu6FQ5cjS94?t=28
. This setup works super solid, and I haven't seen any issues with fade. My only issues is the brakes are super touchy, the stop you FAST even with light pressure. The Fiesta is overbooted from the factory IMO, and this setup really amplifies that more. I am debating trying another pad to see if that helps, but besides the touchy pedal, i am super happy with this setup.

Edit: I should also mention, I only run this setup at the track, on the street I run the Hawk 5.0 in the rear and Wilwood BP10(I think) on the front (previously Hawk 5.0 front). As mentioned above, if you daily the DTC-60s they will wreck rotors (so will the hawk street/race pads).

 

[the duke]

Fwiw, when Mountune sold out their WinMax inventory, they told me they switched to EBC OrangeStuff. Do you have plastic hub-centric rings for your wheels? How are they holding up? Mine cracked but didn't melt; I replaced them with aluminum rings (which seem to be getting harder to find).

Don't know who these are. I don't think they're EBC.

BRAKE DUCTING. Get the temps down no matter what you do. If you melted the center caps, imagine what you did to the brake caliper seals and dust boots? Brake caliper seals are not happy when they start getting over 400deg. What do the boots for your ball joints look like?

The DTC60 is a good combination, but as with all race pads, DO NOT drive them on the street for any period of time. Race pads are extremely abrasive before they get to operating temps. Carbotech makes a nice race pad for the stock calipers. If you move away from the stock calipers you get a whole bunch of pad options.

The parts I used to build my BBK allows me to use a super common pad shape so tons of companies offer different compounds.

Eh, the car is mostly racing now. If it's nice weather I'm on my GSX-R, if it's bad weather I'm in my old Jetta. I'm going to give the Hawk 60s in front and 30s in the rear.

Haven't gotten into ducting (It might not be legal for my various classes), and if I'm going to a larger brake set-up I honestly would probably move to another platform. As mentioned above I don't have to worry about having a do-it-all car now so I can look into other vehicles. Partly if I go with a new BBK I will then dive into full dampers etc. and I'm not sure I want to take this car that far.

 

[Fusion Works]

I get it. Some days I look at the FIesta and wonder how fast I could make it on track, but also can't realistically look at the strut and twist beam setup and accept that it would ever be more than mediocre on track. The engine is strong, the trans is good and there are a couple of decent gearing options, the aero isn't terrible and I think you could get it pretty light, but I keep coming back to the suspension as the real weak link. If you are gonna race a FWD, a dual a-arm Honda would be the place to start.

 

[kevinatfms]

Grab the Boomba air deflectors. They are cheap insurance and a nice little band-aid fix that alot of manufacturers have been using for years to add airflow through the brakes(Porsche, Ford on the RS, Chevrolet....etc).

I run either the stock "S" performance pads on autocross, daily driving and slower trackcross events.

On track days/HDPE/fast trackcross events i will run the Powerstop PST "Spec" pads. So far they have held up with the Boomba air deflectors.

I do have the Whoosh foglight deletes which will be getting true ducting to some custom backing plates in the future. But for as cheap as the Boomba deflectors are they work great.

 

[the duke]

So Ron came in clutch as per usual and my new set of Hawks came in. Autocross is this saturday so I figured I'd get the car ready, do the brakes and rotate the tires. Rear tires showed a lot of smeared rubber, but the fronts are actually pretty good other than just being worn. Next track day will even these things out. They're wearing well and they're wearing even so I'm not concerned.

The rear pads were not as bad as I thought, but regardless I threw the new Hawks in. Slight taper, but these are the 3rd set of pads on these rotors, and they're wearing well. The fronts... I FUCKING BLEW through these things. There's about 1mm or less of pad left. Luckily they were evenly worn and all pads showed little taper or complications. For how badly these things wore I'll be the first to admit that they wore well and they didn't fade until the last few laps. I'll give them that. Also I flushed the old Motul RBF600 for some RBF660 and you can see how dark the old fluid was, it definitely took heat.

And to make M-Sport happy I removed the centercaps from all the wheels

 

[green_henry]

So Ron came in clutch as per usual and my new set of Hawks came in. Autocross is this saturday so I figured I'd get the car ready, do the brakes and rotate the tires. Rear tires showed a lot of smeared rubber, but the fronts are actually pretty good other than just being worn. Next track day will even these things out. They're wearing well and they're wearing even so I'm not concerned.

The rear pads were not as bad as I thought, but regardless I threw the new Hawks in. Slight taper, but these are the 3rd set of pads on these rotors, and they're wearing well. The fronts... I FUCKING BLEW through these things. There's about 1mm or less of pad left. Luckily they were evenly worn and all pads showed little taper or complications. For how badly these things wore I'll be the first to admit that they wore well and they didn't fade until the last few laps. I'll give them that. Also I flushed the old Motul RBF600 for some RBF660 and you can see how dark the old fluid was, it definitely took heat.

And to make M-Sport happy I removed the centercaps from all the wheels

Yikes, how old was that fluid?

 

[the duke]

Yikes, how old was that fluid?

Eh, 2-3 months. The pads were brand new and had less than 100 miles before the track.

 

[green_henry]

Eh, 2-3 months. The pads were brand new and had less than 100 miles before the track.

2-3 months? Wow! I guess it's significantly more humid in Ohio, so that might explain it. FWIW, you might want to give Red Line RL-600 a try. It's held up very well for me, and it's a bargain.

 

[M-Sport fan]

And to make M-Sport happy I removed the centercaps from all the wheels

YEA!! No more liquefied ABS! (Or whatever the hell they are made out of. )

 

[M-Sport fan]

Castrol SRF is the wet boiling point champ if you're not going to flush the fluid totally out after every track session, and it's always 90%+ humidity where you are in the summer.

But yeah, rob a bank or something. $$$$

 

[Questionable]

Castrol SRF is the wet boiling point champ if you're not going to flush the fluid totally out after every track session, and it's always 90%+ humidity where you are in the summer.

But yeah, rob a bank or something. $$$$

When you can get it. I ran SRF in my car from 2017 until the start of this year, when it wasn't available. Apparently they only make a couple batches a year, and of it sells out, it's sold out until they make more.

That said, SRF is the best fluid for a daily/track combo car IMO because the wet boiling point is about 100° higher than anything else available. It's a little more than twice what it costs for me to get Motul RBF 660, but the bottles are twice as big (SRF comes in 1L bottles). In the end, it was cheaper for me because I didn't have to flush the system every two events. I'll buy it again.

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[Fusion Works]

Grab the Boomba air deflectors. They are cheap insurance and a nice little band-aid fix that alot of manufacturers have been using for years to add airflow through the brakes(Porsche, Ford on the RS, Chevrolet....etc).

I run either the stock "S" performance pads on autocross, daily driving and slower trackcross events.

On track days/HDPE/fast trackcross events i will run the Powerstop PST "Spec" pads. So far they have held up with the Boomba air deflectors.

I do have the Whoosh foglight deletes which will be getting true ducting to some custom backing plates in the future. But for as cheap as the Boomba deflectors are they work great.

Something that occurred to me after thinking about this a bit. The Fiesta uses a front air dam that goes all the way across the front of the car. There is no smooth path for air flow to go under the car to the deflectors. Unlike a Boxster, 991, Vette, Mustang, etc, there is no way for cooling air to get to those deflectors. All of those cars have a smooth underbody setup that could use a deflector duct to catch some of that air. Or they use a designated duct from the front of the car through the fender liner that dumps air into the wheel wheel that could then be deflected into the center of the wheel, likle the GT350, E36, etc.