can someone take a look at my brake pads?

[lx93]

So I am going to bring my FiST to the track for the first time next weekend and I have no idea whether the OEM pads of mine with 6000 miles can handle track duty. I am running direzza Z2 tires. Can someone take a look at how much life I have left on my pads? Whats a general rule of thumb for determining how much life is left on pads?

Thanks in advance

 

[lx93]

first one is the read pad, second one is the front pad

 

[RAAMaudio]

Unless hot out and you are hard on brakes you will probably be fine on those tires unless you really work the car hard, brake late, trail brake, etc.....fronts do nearly all the work so they are the ones to be careful with a bit.

It might not be a bad idea to source some pads for the front before you go, track pads, stock if you can find them, etc....just for the insurance so you can drive home if you burn them up.

I have had to drive 75 miles using gearing and the parking brake before though it was from cracked rotors, not fun but not that bad.

 

[Chuckable]

Like RAAMaudio said, bring some stock replacement pads with you just in case. If you leave the nannies full on and drive heard for multiple sessions then you could get to the point of wearing the rears very thin, or even wearing them out.

 

[RAAMaudio]

My rear XP8's barely wore, it was my fronts that took a beating, XP12's but I recall now some have used up quite a bit of their rears.

I am hard on brakes but I am one to hit them at the last moment and when needed trail brake but most of my use is when still going straight which be harder on the fronts than the rears. I have a very different setup on my car over stock, more rear camber, less toe, etc....perhaps just called for less nanny intervention, cannot really compare my car to a less modded one. (often times I wish I had left it more stock like I planned when I bought it, less work, more driving time, only 2200 miles in a year so far)

 

[rodmoe]

Like RAAMaudio said, bring some stock replacement pads with you just in case. If you leave the nannies full on and drive heard for multiple sessions then you could get to the point of wearing the rears very thin, or even wearing them out.

Been there done that with NO nannies on the Carousel at Road America eat my rears of 5 days old though they were street/autoX pads.. They are wearable items and if gone can ruin a weekend..

 

[RAAMaudio]

Interesting.

I kept forgetting to turn off the nannies on as never tracked a car with them and forgot all about it and ate up fronts more than rears in two track days, rears barely worn.

I was thinking the fronts were due to the nannies doing there thing but honestly I never felt the nannies do anything until I purposely over drove the car to see what it would do in adverse situation and mostly in tighter corners.

The camber and toe change in the rear was done to prevent high speed oversteer which could change the dynamics of the car considerably even on slower corners so my results may not be a good reference in this issue.

 

[rodmoe]

True without need for Torque Vectoring the brakes would not wear out as quick...

 

[RAAMaudio]

Did you have the LSD installed at the time?

Also I found I had to keep the fuel level above half a tank or the rear of the car was unstable jumping on the brakes just before marker #2 at 130 MPH or so, not enough to cause any serious issues but a but unsettling at that speed, tank fuller, perfectly stable.

Getting more weight off the front of the car has been a major process since then so the DHM bumper and IC will help a great deal though adding some back, EFR, manifold, and 6 lbs just in lighting but I pulled off more than adding way out front even with bigger radiator.

I will have to run more fuel the next times out but later I will have more parts in the back of the car and leave them there.

I might end up spending the money on a CF hood and painting it as well as bigger vents than the vented version comes with.