How to restore OEM brake pads after a track day?
 

On Lap 2 of my first stint at Portland Int'l. Raceway in the FR-S the OEM pads bit the dust, so to speak. On the way home the brakes weren't the same so I swapped in new Carbotechs.

Now I'd like to reinstall the OEM pads but wonder if they need replacing with new pads instead. Is there a way to restore the barely used pads? If so, how? I'm hoping they can be sanded with ???? grit paper.

Here are a couple pics of the front set. The rears look similar but darker and shinier. All were giving off bits of black material bigger than dust particles.

TIA...

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...ps44cdd421.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...ps5e3a66ca.jpg

Sand off the surface, and see if they recover. It's difficult to say without seeing it in person. It should be okay since it appears only the suface is slightly glazed. The flaking is a good sign that it's only glazed on the surface.

put some sandpaper on a solid flat surface and give them a scrub, nothing fancy

throw them back on..

only thing is.. what's important is bedding them in. If you're throwing them on to rotors that have been used with carbotech pads, it may take awhile for them to scrub the carbotech residue and embed its own layer.

best to swap brakes in combos..

but realistically just put your stock brakes on after scrubbing them a bit, do a few miles of light driving and light braking

before you park it, find a place where you can gun it, then slam on your brakes hard and come to a stop, drive a few more minutes to cool off and park the car

Any special grit # or type of paper to use? I'll use brake cleaner on the rotors before installing OEM pads.

maybe 80 grit? Give the rotors a light scrub too

For the pads, anything that'll just take off that shiny surface layer.

As for the rotors, while it's not optimal, we swap pads all the time during our testing. Just do a few hard stops (stay OFF of ABS), and then give them time to cool. Alternatively, street driving for a few days will scrub off the old layer.

As others have said, sand down lightly those pads and then re-bed in the rotors. 7-10 60mph to 5mph runs and then allow them to cool with as little braking as possible. Allow them to cool 30 min or so without driving on them.

-Mike Paisan

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Brakes restored. Used #100 grit sandpaper that removed the top layer nicely, reinstalled and went out for re-bedding run. The first few applications had only about half the braking power expected as they squealed louder than any brakes I'd heard. Around the fifth time they developed full power and got quiet.

Thanks for the helpful tips everyone.

One last question: Should I do the same (sand pads and re-bedding) when re-installing the Carbotechs before the next track day?

Check out this video I made on Swapping between street and track brake pads. It may help you out.:happy0180:

Thanks Jeff, well done tutorial.

I also do a thorough rotor and caliper bath with spray-on brake cleaner during the changeover with pads removed. It rinses off quite a bit of old pad material from the rotors and pistons. It might help reduce the chance of different pad materials cross-contaminating and affecting performance, but that's only a guess. I know quite a bit of old pad dust is removed and the rotors before/after the bath look quite a bit like the rotors in your video using new pads for that purpose.