Advice on brakes for a trip to Tail of the Dragon.
 

I have done a little research but was hoping some of you guys can give me some advice. I am heading down to the dragon for my first time. We are going to be down there for a week, so a lot of drives I imagine. I'm close to needing new pads/rotors anyway and I've heard under hard driving OEM can fade pretty fast. What would you guys recommend for this? The rest of my driving the stock pads are fine. Should I just replace with new OEM? Go with Winmax W1? Also just blank rotors? Replace the stock brake fluid? I know I am probably over thinking this.

lol...bring snow tires. its coming down again. tdot salts their side.




its a 2-3 kinda road. you might hit the red line in 3rd after parsons branch going towards deals gap but watch for the dip in that lane....do stay in your lane.


the skyway is where your brakes will glow.

Should have mentioned we are not heading down till summer. Yeah I plan to stay within my abilities and definitely not crossing center line. Are you running stock pads/fluid? The guys i'm going with plan to drive skyway.

If you're going to hit it hard, at the very least, upgrade fluid. You might want to upgrade pads to something more aggressive too but that's up to you, OEM should be fine for some spirited driving.

Stock pads and rotors should be fine. In my 39 years of driving, I've only needed a pad upgrade on track days. Flushing your brake system every 2 years or so is always a good idea. I like ATE fluid. If you can still find the blue (US fed regs kind of banned it), alternating flushes with the gold makes it easy to see when you have a complete flush. Carbotec pads are my favorite for the track, but they can be noisy on the street, and they were $350.00 a set last i checked.
http://www.autohausaz.com/search/pro...4haBoCIfjw_wcB

Fresh fluid is always a good idea. My car is new (<2k) so utterly stock.

Lots of fun roads in the area. I usually play nocturnally but I did take a slow cruise there last month.

Thanks for the replies guys, I'm going to stick with stock pads I think and just change the fluid. Car will be 3 years old (35k miles) in June, new fluid isn't a bad idea.

Changing the fluid on stock pads is a waste IMO (unless you're flushing with OEM fluid). You'll get pad fade long before you boil the fluid with stock pads.

I would get a good hybrid pad (Project mU HC800, Ferodo DS2500, etc) and upgraded fluid. It'll be better on the street, and definitely not fade for this trip.

The park opens some other cool roads after April 1st. Shoot me a PM before you come down.

ATE 200 is the blue equivalent but fresh anything dot 4 is good.

The reason you want to change brake fluid every 2-3 years is because brake fluid is hydrophilic, that is, it attracts water. The longer it stays in your car, the more water it absorbs. Water turns to steam at 212 degrees F, and that can cause you to lose your brakes under extreme use temps. Water can also cause corrosion in the brake system and cause premature failure/wear of seals etc. Pad compounds are selected to match operating temperature range for a given application.

Coming from someone who has run RBF600 with OEM pads on track, I don't really agree with you that the pads are the problem. They did start to fade after around 20 minutes on track but it wasn't severe and never got worse than a certain point. They should hold up to some spirited street driving.

I'm not saying it isn't a good idea to upgrade them anyway because the OEM pads DID fade and it's good to run a more aggressive pad for more aggressive driving but I don't think it's required.

Using stock equipment is fine.

If you intend to change your fluid for street use, Motul RBF600 (or any standard DOT4) will work. If you start autocrossing competitively, then looking into a higher quality DOT 4 is warranted.

If you are looking for some pad upgrades, Winmax W3, Ferodo DS2500, and Project Mu B-Force (or HC+800) are excellent upgrade options. We do carry these products as well. If you want something a little less aggressive, we also have our own CSG street pads that are meant to cover the uprated street activity. :thumbup:

I run the dragon 15 times a year as I live very close. I cooked OEM pads there after many runs. Usually feel pad fade in the last third of the run. I would upgrade fluid and pads or you might run into problems that force you to back off and cool things down.