Surprisingly I couldn't find a thread about my questions, every post I saw posing the same question were asking about ceramic pads.
I changed my front bump stops in April, and had a look at my pads while they were out. By eye, they had 10mm, +/- 1mm left on them. Now, a little over 6 months later, the brake pad warning light has gone off on them. I'll admit I drive a little agressively, and have done 1 track day (~50 min track time), but I feel as though they should last quite a bit longer than that.
I would assume my current pads are non-ceramic as they produce a ton of brake dust. The pads were last changed with the last owner, who serviced them at a company that builds
Porsche
race cars, so they may have put some more agressive pads on it.
It will likely be 1-2 weeks to get some new pads shipped in and find time to fit them. Considering the warning came on just now, and my previous wear rate, would there be enough left in them to last that couple weeks?
I don't know anything about types of pads, hence this post. My car sees mostly street driving, with one track day per month. Is there a certain type of pad I should look for while getting them?
I know on my
987.2
, the brake light showed up when there was about 1/3 of the pad still left. IMO, the warning comes up WAY too early in the pad life. (See post
https://www.planet-9.com/threads/wh...s/what-did-you-do-to-your-987-today.57344/page-464?post_id=2218600#post-2218600
)
If yours is doing the same, I'd say you have plenty of time left on the existing pads. The easiest thing is to take a look between the wheel spokes to see the pad - you should be able to see it well enough to see how much is left. As long as you can see pad there, you should be fine. Worst case, you can pull the wheel to get a closer look, but it's probably not necessary if you have an open-enough spoke pattern.
As for types of pads, if you are doing real track days, the recommendation is to get track-specific pads. That said, it sounds like you don't do that often, so maybe you're not that heavy of a tracker? In which case, you could just stick with the street pad? If you are more serious, keep in mind that these cars swap pads easily from the back of the caliper, so why not? There are plenty of track pad recommendations, but IIRC the Ferodo DS2500 is one I have seen often?
For street, you can do whatever, of course. I recently switched to Akebonos to reduce dusting and they are awesome. I expect other ceramics would probably be good too, but these feel as good as the Textars (OEM) to my untrained foot. You can see that thread here:
https://www.planet-9.com/threads/ak...2-non-s-2010-front-wheels-and-or-a-pictorial-on-how-to-just-replace-pads.255829
I've had a look and it does seem to be a bit premature, I have about 3mm in the rear and 2.5mm in the front. I don't know what the pad thickness was new, but I would guess 10-12mm. A quick google comes up that pads can be used at any thickness, as long as there is no metal on metal contact. I'll keep an eye on them and replace them at 1mm.
While I don't track the car very often, I will push the car quite hard on days that I'm there. I would imagine the main difference between non-ceramic street pads and track pads would be the rate they wear?
I've got a track day coming up
next
weekend, would the 2.5-3mm I have left be enough for the day? The day would consist of 5 sessions with each being ~10 min hard driving.
Theo, I would strongly encourage you to keep researching the brake topic. Some of the things you mentioned above are a bit off track. For instance:
1) The main difference between street and track pads is not rate of wear although track pads will certainly last longer on the track than street pads. It is operating temperature range (track pads being higher) and friction coefficient. Track pads operate at a higher temperature range. They require a higher minimum temp and can tolerate much higher temps. They are made of a different mix of compounds. Good track pads can be gotten from Pagid, Ferrodo and PFC plus a few others. Many people say that the Ferrodo DS2500 is a good compromise pad that can do street driving as well as milder track days. But most people use dedicated track pads because they perform much better.
2) Driving on track with little pad material is not recommended because in addition to providing braking material, the pads provide insulation to prevent heat transfer between the rotors and pistons/calipers. Furthermore, if you go through all the pad material the metal from the pad backing will damage the
rotor
and you will need new rotors in addition to the new pads. As pads become thinner, the wear rate gets higher because of the heat.
I would encourage you to do research via YouTube and other online resources since braking is not a topic that can be easily explained in a few forum postings.
Yeah, those aggressive pads can wear quick on the street. Be careful mate.
