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Finally figured out why my cheap performance pads were ruining my track days
I spent 6 months chasing bad braking feel at Thunderhill, swapping rotors and bleeding fluid like crazy. Turns out my $50 brake pads from Amazon just couldn't handle the heat past lap 4 no matter what I did. Last month I borrowed a friend's used set of Hawk HP+ pads from his Integra and instantly dropped 2 seconds off my lap time. Has anyone else burned through cheap pads way faster than they expected?
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ivan_murphy8023d ago
That bit about lap 4 is exactly where I've seen it fall off a cliff too. Were you getting any warning signs before the fade hit, like a change in pedal feel or smell, or did it just go from grabbing fine to nothing all of a sudden? I had a set of no-name ceramics that would feel solid for three laps then turn into ice skates right when I needed them most coming into turn 11. Just curious if the failure mode was gradual or a hard wall.
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gray_morgan22d ago
Maybe it's not that deep though. I mean, yeah cheap pads suck, but are you really pushing a daily driver hard enough to notice the difference between lap 3 and lap 4? Most people out there on track days aren't setting any records anyway. Kinda wonder if the placebo effect is doing some work here too, since you borrowed a friend's used pads and suddenly dropped 2 seconds. That's a pretty huge jump just from pads alone unless your old ones were literally falling apart.
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