Brake failure at track! Optimal brake setup?

Hi all, So I just went to my second track day, all parameters same except, I pushed the car harder, had a passenger 100kg, braked later and at the last corner of lap 4 (Slovakiaring, 5.9km), I noticed extensive brake fade in the pedal (e.g. pressed 60% no reaction) but it braked sufficiently. So then I decided to have a cooldown lap. Luckily instead of reaching 130mph on the straight, I kept it at 70mph and at the first corner brakes were 95% gone. This was quite the "OH S***!" moment, luckily the speed was low so I managed to get safely off the track. So as I just started tracking the 996, I did not do much in terms of mods. (old pads/rotors and I do not know when/if the fluid has been changed, I know, stupid of me, but in terms of braking I was always leaving 20-30% on the table as a reserve due to this). So I did some research as for the next steps of the braking system, I would like your opinion ; - EBC stainless steel brake lines - Brembo OEM rotors (replace old) - EBC yellow stuff - ATE type 200 brake fluid (2year interval) Any thought / comments on the proposed setup? Car would be used in mixed street use with 4-5 track days per year. Thanks!

🤦‍♂️ Lines are not needed unless yours are damaged / worn There’s plenty of info on brake parts selection for track work, I don’t know what you used to develop your list but I would suggest you do more research. The 2 year fluid change interval does not matter if you’re running on track. Fluid should be refreshed every couple events. The fact you threw the car on track without servicing the fluid first is troubling - you and everyone else on the track with you are lucky the outcome wasn’t worse.

Yea u should have really done much more to the brake system before u started. All of my event require a flush within 6 months. I run Endless but most use Castrol srf. I flush the entire sytem at the begining of the season and every 4-6 track days i push about 6 oz out if the calipers as a refresh. I use pagid yellows. If u dont like brake noise just swap them in for track days. Rotor brand doesnt matter much but go fot slots not drilled holes tend to crack out at the edges under high heat. If your flex hoses r 20yrs old replace with either rubber or stainless. Wont matter which as they r pretty much aging out. Not to sound like an old man but u need to take track days much more seriously, for both u and your fellow track mates.

Vect, I agree with Jason. A few things to think about if you are serious about tracking your car. 1. Change your brake fluid after every track event to eliminate moisture, bubbles and chance of failure. Yes it's expensive, but how else are you going to stop without brakes? Watched many friends learn this lesson. As such, I learned it. 2. Only use racing fluid with the highest boiling points. Yes it's expensive but I refer you back to #1 above. 3. Do not drag the brake as you approach the braking zone. You are either on the gas or on the brake. 4. Properly bed in your pads to your rotors. I learned my lesson at Road America. I will never let it happen again. 5. Assuming your braking system is properly functioning, you have more than enough stopping power with the OEM system for a novice. However, you can find better rotors and pads that will hold up better and stop sooner than OEM rotors and pads. Check out what Jason (Zbomb) is running. PCA Club racers have to run the Oem brake system but can run more aggressive pads and rotors. Check out what USCarerra is running. 6. When you truly get fast, and want more stopping power for DE, you can upgrade to a big brake kit. Plenty of options. I started tracking my car 02 996 in 2004 using the oem brakes. In 2007 I upgraded to the Brembo GT Big Brake kit with 355 front and 345 rear. Would have been a worthless upgrade in my first few years of DE. I run Brembo slotted rotors and pagid yellow pads on the track and street. 7. Get your self a set of the GT3 brake air ducts for 25 bucks to replace the Carerra version. It will send more air to the brakes for cooling. 8. You gotta rebuild your calipers every so often. If not, you will have uneven braking or rubbing that will cause heating and balance problems. The faster you become, the more critical it is that your calipers are functioning properly. If you also drive your car on the street, especially in the winter, all kinds of salt, dirt, sand, etc certainly don't help your calipers, pistons and seals. My wild guess is that your braking problems are a byproduct of #1-3 above. But #8 could possibly be a factor. Brakes and tires are everything.

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Thanks all for the recommendation, a tremendous help! And yes, well noted to take care of this prior to going to track. Was lucky, wont happen again. would anybody have the part number for the brake ducts? There are some versions CUP / 996 / 997? Supposedly 997 fit and are the cheapest? which (non expensive) rotors would you recommend, I got the the drilled are not the best. And the brake fluid? Will the ATE typ 200 be sufficient? Thanks!

Im runiing zimmermans in the front and sebros in the back for rotors. Not the cheapest but deff buget compared to porsche pricing. U have gt3 wheel carriers so my part numbers whould not be helpfull. Sorry dont know about that brand fluid. A little research should tell u if it has a tendency to allow fade. Also to be clear the brake duct is clipped over the lower control arm. Its the 997 of 996 turbo one i think. The 996 gt3 and gt2 duct r way too much $ for basically the same thing. Stock on these parts r low so u may not find them for a few months. The other gt3 ducts clip onto the coolant pipes by the fender liners, these r expensive and do nothing unless u change the entire liner. Just trying to educate.

Ate Super Blue is a popular one due to its high boiling point. That's what I have used. Europe's environmental laws are stricter, so you may need to use something else. You do not want street fluid because it doesn't have a high enough boiling point. The term "boiled the brakes" is a real term.

GT3 Brake Duct Spoilers https://www.suncoastparts.com/produc...Category_Code=

gt3 ducts as shown above. Motul RBF600 fluid PFC 08 or Pagid Yellow pads. EBC yellows are not brilliant. Sebro slotted rotors. This setup should take you well into the advanced run groups

I�ve found that the problem with a cool down lap on these stock cars is that there isn�t enough airflow to the brakes to cool them down sufficiently at slower speeds. It�s the high speed on the straights that does it, but of course, you can�t do that on a cool down lap. So with a stock braking system, your best bet is to try to brake less and carry more speed into the corners to get your lap times down. And try to do more than 1 cool down lap.

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That�s a pretty dramatic falloff, so first make sure your brake system is sound. This is good advice above, though no need to swap rotors now if yours are fine. If anything, the Sebros hold more heat than oem cross drilled but are preferred because they don�t crack as easily. You definitely need bona fide race pads, forget the ebc�s. I�ve used both of the ones above, and definitely prefer the Pfc over the pagids. Pagids are good to 1/2, but go away quickly afterwards whereas Pfc do not. This means swapping pads for track days since they all squeal like crazy on the street. The new ferodo 3.12 pads may be the unicorns we�ve been seeking that don�t squeal on the street, but are quite expensive. In short, pads and good fluid (skip the ate) will deliver the biggest benefits. If your car already has brake ducts, the GT3 ones may not help much; they did nothing on my 996tt over the regular ones. The cup car ducts did help, but are 10x the cost.

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Gentlemen! Many thanks for all of the valuable input! So as per the recommendation, I will do the following; -GT3 brake ducts (from 997, 9EUR for both awesome! :-) ) -Motul RBF600 fluid (which is thankfully available in Europe) -stainless steel lines -Pagid yellow pads all around (EBC only if Pagids will be difficult to get in Europe) Last question, I have is with regards to the rotors as mine are far from perfect. So I was planning to use OEM brembo rotors which sadly drilled but are very cheap (250EUR for 4), will this be horrible? The reason I am asking is that I have spent an hour looking for slotted rotors from Zimmermann or Sebros and found drilled as well. Could someone please share a link where I can find the product nombers for slotted rotors? Thanks a bunch!

If you can get the oem that cheap then go for it I�d say. People go with slotted Sebros because they don�t crack as fast. This is just one data point, but they didn�t work for me. They got too hot and melted a brand new set of pagid yellows to the rotor, ruining new pads and rotors in one day. Who knows, maybe I had them on backwards.

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may have just been a bad one. My friends and I have been through probably a dozen sets of sebros with no issues.

Vect, Saw your video on YouTube. Exhaust sounds good. Two quick questions. 1. As you were losing braking power, was your brake pedal spongy and going to the floor, or was it tight and you just didn't get any grip from your pads no matter how hard you pressed? 2. Out of curiosity, why were you in neutral thru the turns?

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This is my exact setup with the addition of the gt3 mc.

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Thanks, I have written Sebro in Germany yesterday with a question regarding slotted rotors for the rear as I could only find the fronts slotted. 1. (pedal was soft, with no braking) What really freaked me out was that this all happened in two braking zones. I mean on the last lap, I treated it as a cool down lap, I could tell the brakes are not as effective but rated them at 80%, then in a matter of two braking zones the braking went from 80% to 40%, and then what felt like 5% but was prob. 10-15%. So the degradation was quick. 2. Simple, I had a passenger who's first time it was at the track and my right knee started giving me issues. I did a drive prior also on the channel, where I religiously downshift a few weeks ago. :-) mc = master cilinder? If so does it make a worthwhile difference?

I dont think the mc (yes masyer cyl) is worth your time at this point. The stock mc will put u on the abs easily. When u get into larger calipers and late breaking it can help. I also have the gt3 mc but i swapped in the entire gt3 abs which is much more advanced. I dont find the system to be much different then the c2 system. It matches up well to the rest of my upgradrs. I find that different tracks and track conditions effect the brakes more then the equipement.

Hbdunn and DeJeeper provided some good insight. I certainly have thought about replacing the OEM MC with the GT3 MC when I put on my Brembo GT brake kit in 2007, and every year since, but never seem to need it. The brakes I have on my car are bigger and more powerful than the GT3 but yet, the Oem MC has functioned perfectly, especially at high speed tracks like Road America (4 miles) where you ask your brakes to do things that you typically won't ask them to do at 2 mile long tracks. Such as turn 5 where you are braking downhill from 140 to 50 in a very short distance. Vect, given what you describe what happened with your pedal, consider doing the following: (1) replace your brake fluid with Motul 600 or ATE superblue to get you proven high boil racing fluid. I change it after every event for safety. As a novice, you certainly want to change it no less than after every two events. The faster you become, and the bigger and faster the track, the more it will be important to do it after every event. Be safe not sorry. (2) make sure your calipers are functioning properly, if not, get them rebuilt. They all eventually need it. (3) check your pads to make sure you have enough pad, and make sure you didn't glaze them. Either way, you will want to replace them with Pagid yellows or PFC yellows. Aggressive grip means more aggressive slowing, but it also means more aggressive rotor wear and heat, which means the need for brake fluid with a higher boiling point. See #1 above. BUT MAKE SURE YOU PROPERLY BED THE NEW PADS TO YOUR ROTORS. (4) Check your Oem rotors for wear. The are very good but expensive Brembo rotors. If there is life still left in them, then just change your pads and wear them down. If they are on their last legs, then you got to replace them. DeJeeper, Hbdunn, Zbomb and USCarerra have all run other rotors on OEM size calipers and can give you the best ideas. However, from a rotor standpoint, I prefer slotted over drilled. (6) lastly, as a novice, brake in a straight line. Remember, you are either on the gas or on the brake. DO NOT RIDE THE BRAKE. That build excessive brake heat. (7) NEVER put the car in neutral on the track, especially while going thru a turn. You saw how "squirrely" the car got every time you did it. You need to balance the car thru the braking zone with your brakes and thru and out of the turning zone with your throttle. Trail/threshold braking will come at a later time as you become more experienced. Remember, balancing the car is critical. (8) Lastly, put your hands at 3 and 9 on the wheel and keep them there. Do NOT shuffle them, cross over or move them. It throws off your steering inputs and balance. Practice it around town to develop the muscle memory. It's tough at first, but you will master it. More importantly, you will see how much smoother your inputs become, allowing you to more safely carry more speed. Smoother is better.

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This is exactly what I run on my 996 Turbo - I use PFC08 pads in the front and PFC11 pads in the back to compensate for the extreme front brake bias. This setup stops the 3686 pound Turbo with enough authority to get into the ABS running sticky R-comp tires even after a 30 minute session