Different pads for street and track
 

I have read on these forums a couple of people suggesting swapping brake pads before and after track events. That is, same car same rotors but different pads depending on how the car is going to be used. My question is do the pads require bedding in after each swap? I am thinking if one has hammered the brakes on track the rotors will have worn in a particular way and then putting the street pads back in they will not be mated the way the used to be. Also the transfer layer will have to be re-estabilshed for each pad type.

Would some one with experience of pad swapping please comment?
Thanks.

It's generally better to have 2 sets of rotors, but that just gives you a use for the stock rotors other than them finishing up as pot plant stands.

Sounds like a pain. I wouldn't bother with it. I'd just go with a streetable pad that holds up on the track rather than getting the theoretical best performing pad possible.

In an ideal world yes rotors and pads but this isn't required. You are giving up the time it takes to tranfer pad material vs. The extra time and expense to swap rotors. Now a real race pad that is not brought up to track temp will be very abrasive to your rotors so you shouldn't run them on the street unless you don't care.

Now the reason most track pads squeal is because of the lack of pad transfer. If your brakes squeal on the track you probably aren't braking hard enough for your pad selection. This does have a side benefit however. If you drive a little on the street with your race pads and they start to sqeal most of the pad material is scrubbed off the rotor and thats your signal to change your pads. This way you'll get less pulsing until the street pads have transfered material.

Next time you hit the track yeah you'll have to transfer race pad material but braking is so hard and hot this happens very quickly in my experience.

Thanks,
Phil Grabow

I did a video on this topic a while back. Swapping Between Street and Race Brake Pads. In the video you'll see the cold race pads peel the pad material right off of the discs on my Z06. I also did a video on bedding your pads that you might like...check 'em out, and let me know if you have any questions. :thumbsup:

I used Cabotech XP10 pads on all 4 corners with slotted rotors on my 1999 BMW M3 for 3 years. I ran them year round, winter, summer, on track and off in Minnesota. The pads sometimes made noise, dusted a great deal and wore rotors because they were never up to temperature on the street. The wheels normally had quite a bit of brake dust on them as it was impossible for me to keep up with the cleaning. Also, the wheels had black marks that would not come off due to the brake dust sitting on there for so long. When I sold the car the front pads were on their second set of rotors. This was not a big deal as rotors for this car were in the same price range as the XP10 pads. It appeared that the pads would probably have lasted for about the same time as the second set of rotors. The second set of rotors were cryo-treated and seemed to be lasting longer though. They certainly made less noise.

Would I do this again? Absolutely, I am planning to do something similar with my FR-S. The reason I went to this in the first place is that I am an instructor for the BMW club and I am on the track every couple of months throughout the year. I am also very busy and I just cannot be bothered replacing the pads (let alone rotors) every time I need to go to the track. I tried some "good for street and track" pads once, and they melted (well, extreme fade) after 3 laps in the dry on a short track with snow tires. After that I decided to just go with a full track pad and live with the downsides on the street. I will probably go with the Carbotech XP10's again for the FR-S.

You beat us to it Jeff....I was going to post that up!
LOL.

You'll do that until you lose brakes, then the effort will be worth it to you. I've been there.

I normally only switch pads, use to switch rotors as well but as I've gotten older and even more lazy I now just stick with pads. :shrug:

But yeah, proper way would be rotors and pads. Not a concern when switching to track pads IMO, but I have noticed less bite switching back to street pads.. however that could be mental also since the initial bite on street pads tend to be lower anyways.

My record was 9 or 10 sets of front rotors in one year with Hawk blues 100% of the time...

Heh...I'm in the same boat. Despite knowing the proper way to do it, I've had CL RC6 brake pads in my Miata pretty much since I bought it. It screeches, always has dust on the wheels, and my neighbors don't like it...but the world is an imperfect place. If I was running a BBK on that car, I'd be far more concerned about it, but the discs are cheap, OEM-style throw-aways.

FWIW, I had reasonable success running XP8s on the front and rear of my S2000 on the street and track. Rotor wear and pad wear were reasonable. Only downsides were dust (a brown-colored dust that cleaned off easily enough, just have to stay on top of it, which I didn't...) and lack of bite when stone cold (a few low-speed stops and they were OK).

IMO, XP8s should be plenty for a stock FR-S/BRZ.

Other pads that can take the heat on the track, but you also can live with for daily driving? Somebody recommended Ferodo 2500.

Edit: Anybody tried the stock pads on the track? How fast will they start fading. How import is the brake fluid?