Actually, I am surprised it did as well as it did considering the g's it was seeing. However, not my way of "mounting" it either, plus I am not sure I would trust the data.

 

I do love a spirited drive in the country!

Thanks for sharing that.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Friday we were back at Laguna Seca for our first track day of the year. It was a great day, the weather was perfect, no dampness at all, sunny and mid 60s. We took the JCW, now named "Algy" and I was in the C advanced group and Cathy was in the B intermediate group. At our last day at Laguna in October, our first in the JCW, I was a little disappointed not to go as fast as I had last February in Shawn. This time I managed to go slightly faster than my previous best 1:53.1 vs 1:53.8. More interestingly I managed to go consistently faster, last year the fast lap was one golden lap, and the bulk were a second or two slower. This time I managed 8 in the 1:53 range and another 7 1:54's. I still wish I could repeat that one golden lap. It probably helped that I got lots of clear track, I managed to go long stretches without seeing any one. It also helped that the B & C groups didn't seem to be sold out. The A group seemed a lot bugger, but was only about 25 cars.

There was a little drama regarding the brakes. I'd put the Yellowstuff pads back in, hoping they'd last another couple of track days. For the first session I started out pretty fast the second lap was a 1:55, and then got incrementally faster, until I think I had a little brake fade going into turn 2 (the hairpin). I thought I'd better back off a bit. Then at turn 6 the car didn't turn, so I drove off. I wasn't going that fast (the data says 28mph) and got it under control pretty quickly. The problem then is there's a gravel trap out there and I got stuck. So I sat there stuck with smoking brakes and waited for the tow truck. This was near the end of the session and the chequered flag was out, the sesssion wasn't black flagged. (They'll do recovery on a hot track, under yellow.) I got pulled out, and drove to the paddock to hot swap with Cathy, and the next session started only 2 mins late.

At the time, I wasn't quite sure what went wrong, I said it was either I braked too late, or suffered brake fade. But looking at the video and the data, I think something else was going on. I did brake later, but was actually slower at turn in. But as I was turning in, and should have been off the brake, the data shows I'm still braking at 0.7g. With all that braking going on, the front wheels could only manage 0.48g of turning effort, where on a typical lap, it'll be turning at over 1g. That would explain why I couldn't make the corner. But the question is now what caused the extra braking, I'm pretty sure it wasn't me. It could have been a stuck caliper, I've never heard of overheating causing a stuck caliper before. I'd guess its one on one of the outside wheel, if it'd been the inside front I'd expect that to cause a spin, not understeer.

For the second session I thought I should be a little more careful, but I went out just as fast and suffered some more brake fade, though it didn't cause any drama this time. For the third session I though I'd back off the brakes a bit. I started my braking earlier and tried to brake more gently. Much to my surprise, I went faster. I did my fastest lap during the session, two laps in the 1:53 range. I'm not quite sure how I managed to go faster while losing time braking, maybe I can concentrate more on the turn in, if I'm not frantically braking. For the fourth session, I thought I could run a few laps being easy on the brakes, then try a fast one, then cool the brakes etc. It might have worked, the lap I went for it was one of my fast ones.

The incident at turn 6 got me thinking. I'd never felt comfortable with it, my approach and turn in never seemed right. I noticed that turn 6 was blind. You couldn't see the apex as you were approaching, what you could see are the brake markers. I'd tend to fixate on the brake markers, I should be looking ahead. I made an effort after that to look at the apex and beyond as I was approaching a turn. Not just at turn 6.

I'm expecting to be the slowest car in the C group, but I did pass a few cars. They were gridding cars in about 5 lanes, again faster on the right, slower on the left. I'd tended to grid second from the left. In the first session I passed a Ferrari 599. In the third session I gridded in the wrong lane ending up in front of a Corvette and a McLaren, so I thought I'd take it easy for a lap and let the faster cars by. As well as the Corvette and the McLaren I let by a Porsche Cayman and a couple of BMW M3s. The next car in line was the 599, so I thought it was time to take off, much to my surprise I overtook both M3s and the Cayman. After that, I had my second "interesting" incident. Exiting turn 9, the car started to spin, I caught it and it started to spin in the other direction. After a few wobbles, I regained control. Looking at the video, it looks like I hadn't unwound much when my wheels hit the exit berm, then the rear wheels skidded, starting things off.

There were two MINIs at the track, a Cooper-S with mods in my group and a girl in a Cooper-S with pink stripes in Cathy's group. I didn't see much of the MINI in my group, but in the 4th session I saw him go out ahead of me. After several laps I saw him at the other end of the straight, so I set off after him trying to catch him. It took 3 laps but I finally got pointed by just as the chequered flag was thrown at start/finish. Those were 3 of my fastest laps of the day. I talked to him afterwards, he said that was fun. His excuse was that I had more power than he had.

Meanwhile, Cathy was having fun. She caught a lot of traffic, in several sessions knots of traffic formed and didn't seem to want to resolve themselves. Once she went through the pits to get some space. When she did find clear track she put in some pretty good laps in the low 2:00 range. Her best lap was a 2:01.2. A couple of years ago, I was happy with laps at that pace. For the last session, she was a little late getting on track and then saw no other cars for a couple of laps, she was wondering if she was supposed to be there, but as no one was waving any flags at her she probably was.

The coaches had also setup a couple of driving exercises in one corner of the paddock. There was a threshold braking exercise, followed by a figure 8 to demonstrate cornering at the limit. The A group was run through the exercises before they got on track first time. The ran the B group through the exercises after their second session, so Cathy had a couple of goes at that.

I have video, my best lap: http://btwyx.com/Movies/LagunaFeb13Besti.mov
Cathy's best lap: http://btwyx.com/Movies/LagunaFeb13CBesti.mov
My interesting incidents: http://btwyx.com/Movies/LagunaFeb13BOops.mov

 

Was Friday one.. "Hooked on driving" group? going to the HOD march 1 @ Laguna.

 

"I started my braking earlier and tried to brake more gently. Much to my surprise, I went faster. I did my fastest lap during the session, two laps in the 1:53 range. I'm not quite sure how I managed to go faster while losing time braking, maybe I can concentrate more on the turn in, if I'm not frantically braking."

What an interesting observation - and thanks for another good story.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

You may have been upsetting the chassis of the car less by being smoother on the brakes. I have heard (but have not been able to implement yet!!) that concentrating on the brake release point, and letting the rest of the braking fall where it needs to in order to get the release smooth and at the right place, can help bring lap times down.

Tell your wife that 2:01 is a pretty darned good time at Seca!

 

very cool. content blocked from watching the movies at work but will check at home later.

edit: nice vids

 

Great writeup, as usual.

I had a track "walk" around Watkins Glen last year with the son of the guy who designed and built that track; needless to say, he knows the track. One of the most interesting observations that he made was when he told everyone to brake earlier and lighter for turn 6. Turn 6 is 90+ deg left-hander going down hill and he said that everyone thinks that the fastest way through it is brake late and hard. Wrong, he said, they almost always over brake going into the corner by doing that. Braking earlier and lighter allows you to better judge the corner and to not over brake. I also found that I was better able to trail brake into the corner. Both of which were a faster way through...Less is more

 

Sunday was "Stormin' Norman's MINI Thunder" a MINI (and Mini) only trackday up at Thunderhill. This being a MINI thing it was also part social event. On Saturday evening there was a dinner and casino night in the the Thunderhill clubhouse. (Where I made unwise bets and won big, it wasn't real money. Starting with "$500", I had about $7000 at one point.) On Sunday there were lots of other MINIs who arrived as spectators. They were offering lifts to the spectators, either with the coaches (who in general were not driving MINIs) or with the drivers in the advanced group (like me).

I was in the advanced group, and Cathy was in the intermediate group. My group seemed to be quite small, the other groups seemed a lot bigger. Someone said there were 45 cars in the other groups, which is a lot to have on track at once. This showed up on track, I got lots of clear track and had a great day. Cathy caught a lot of traffic, long trains of MINIs formed and didn't resolve themselves quickly. Cathy drove through the pits to make space a couple of times

Our previous best laps were from last October, I'd done a 2:24.1 (or better in the session I didn't get video), and Cathy managed a 2:39.7. I reckon the JCW should be able to do about 2:20. In the first session I managed a 2:27 which seemed like a good start for the first session. In the second session I took a passenger (Amanda) and then promptly did a 2:22 for my first hot lap, my best so far. In the third session I ran solo and managed a 2:20.1, so I was happy with my performance and stopped worrying about times. That lap could have been even better, but I had a bobble in turn 2 and then got held up by a Countryman and lost about 0.3s.

I was a bit surprised to see a Countryman there. Its never screamed sporty to me, and I'd worry about its handling. (Especially when the SCCA doesn't allow them in Autocross because of potential stability issues). I didn't want to get stuck behind one. In the first couple of sessions I'd pointed several MINIs by who seemed to be in a hurry, when I was taking an easy warm up lap. But when it came to a Countryman wanting by, I decided it was time to stop dawdling. In general, the JCW being about the fastest MINI made (barring modifications and the GP special editions). So we were in the unusual situation of having the fastest car on the track, where we're usually the slowest at most track days. I was caught at one point by an R53, I talked to him later to work out if it was modded or he was just driving the wheels off (it was modded, 500lb of weight out the back and engine tweaks).

For the forth session, I took another passenger (Rick). I didn't get many whole laps in as the session was black flagged, a MINI had conked out at turn 8. In the last session I ran solo again and got several good laps, but didn't quite manage a faster lap with a 2:20.2. Overall, I got my fast lap, but wasn't as consistently fast as I'd been at Laguna.

When Cathy managed to get clear track in the last two sessions she started to turn some reasonable laps. She ended up with a 2:31.5, knocking 8 seconds off her best. Only 11 seconds behind me, about the same gap we were at Laguna. Her lap looks very leisurely, she's still having trouble getting gear shifts right, so was often not in the most advantageous gear.

We had download sessions after our first two sessions, which is a change from usual. The advanced group I'm used to usually doesn't. The group leader was a racer who usually races spec Miatas, which have much less power than most MINIs, but much more grip. He talked us through a couple of corners which cause problems. The corners he talked us through were turns 3 and 9, which were the ones I had my epiphanies about at the last Thunderhill track day. He was also encouraging us to use all the track, including the exit berms. Using the berms is the fastest way around the track, but I'd been keeping off them recently. That's gets a bit too exciting and is eating into your safety margin.

Meanwhile out on track, I was thinking about turns 3 and 9. I was still having trouble with the entry to 3. I could never seem to get it so it felt right. I tried various entry points for it. It always seemed that I was entering it very slowly, but half way around the turn it'd start to feel a bit fast, so maybe it was not too bad. At turn 9, which I'd worked out is an early entry I wasn't getting very close to the exit berm, so I was leaving some speed that I could have taken. I think my problem is that 9 is also blind, so you can't see the exit when you're committed to the entry, so I was being a bit cautious. I did seem to be doing something right as I was almost hitting the limiter by the time I was getting to 10. I was up to 105 on entering 10.

The group leader also talked about turn 8. As I've mentioned before, that's one of the keys to a fast lap. It can be taken very fast. In Tristan I'd worked up to taking it without lifting, reviewing the video from that session, I was entering the corner at 85, so I planned to see if I could at least match that speed. The group leader said he could take it at over 100 in his Miata, I didn't think a MINI with street tires could manage it that fast. I did manage a few laps at 85, but couldn't persuade myself to go any faster. The laps at 85 needed quite a bit of the generous exit area.

At lunch they did a group photo of all the MINI and Minis, there were a lot of them (see picture below). I don't think I've ever seen so many MINIs in one place before. After that we went on a parade lap, the line of MINIs stretched almost all the way around the track. As the lead MINIs were coming around turn 1, there were still some MINIs coming around turn 3. While were parading around I was mentioning some of my theories about the corners to Cathy. She could see the early entry to turn 9 could make sense and tried that herself in later sessions.

Brakes continued to cause us some problems. The rear pads were getting a bit worn, so I'd changed them myself. This was the first time I'd tried the rear pads, they're a lot bigger pain to change than the front pads. I didn't quite get it right, so when on Wednesday I worked out the right rear was dragging I had to take him to the shop to get it sorted out. Hopefully, next time I'll manage it correctly.

I changed out the front pads as usual. This was the third track day on the set of Yellowstuff pads. I was hoping I could get them to last three days. i was keeping an eye on them, and by lunch time (after 3 sessions for me) they were looking a little thin. I didn't think they would last the day, I decided I needed to do something about them. As they were wearing unevenly, more at the top than the bottom, I thought I could just switch them around (so they went back the other way up). That seemed to work and there still seemed to be some pad left at the end of the day. But on closer examination, I found that they were not in good shape. Two of the pads were missing big chunks and on a third the pad material is coming away from the backing. Somewhat worrying, I'm going to be talking to the manufacturer about that.

Also during the afternoon, there was a PA announcement for if anyone had any pads for a JCW. I had my backup set of half used pads I offered, but they ddin't think there was enough pad material left on them to be useful. The pads have 6mm left, when the minimum by spec is 3mm and they only have 9mm to start with. (So only half used.) Though after this experience I'm wondering if need to not run them down to the minimum thickness.

I have video, my best lap: http://btwyx.com/Movies/MINIThunder13Besti.mov
Cathy's best lap: http://btwyx.com/Movies/MINIThunder13CBesti.mov

We have a few pictures, the group shot, we're half way back on the left:



and a panorama from down where we were:



Here's me with a passenger passing a Mini



and me at the head of a pack, including the group leader (in the Miata)



Cathy being followed by the Pink Stig.

 

As always, nice write-up, pictures and movies. Love the group shot, especially with the Minis in the front. I notice a little wiggle to the car in one of the corners. You were right on the edge and you caught it nicely. Who says you can't get the back to rotate on a MINI

You mentioned the brakes again. I know that you seem to have had success with the Yellow stuff pads, however, both you and Cathy are driving faster it appears and maybe you have progressed beyond them. I would highly suggest investing is a set of race pads for the front of the car as long as you are changing them out anyway. I seem to remember that you didn't want to go to Carbotechs, but companies like Hawk also make pads you can use. Hawk makes a good race pad (not the HP Plus as that is the same level as the Yellows) and a nice street pad (HPS), both of which will be compatible with each other . There are others that you could look into like Performance Friction that a lot of people use on their BMWs.

Again, Nice going.

 

Up until I took the pads out, I was quite happy with them. They seemed to have lasted 3 days, which was the target.

I looked at Hawk, all they offer is HPS for the JCW fronts.

I looked at Performance Friction, they don't admit to any at all. (Though their catalog may be borked.)

That'd leave Carbotech, which seems to be the only alternative. Next question would be which sort, XP10, XP12, XP16, XP20. I've no idea. If I did that, I'd have to go completely over to Carbotech for street and track. It looks like I'd need new rotors as well. Also the pads seem to be well over twice the price of the Yellowstuff, so they'd have to be lasting 6 days at least to make it worth while, or I could just stick with Yellowstuff for 2.5-3 days at a time.

 

I looked at the Hawk web page and it indicates that you can buy any of their pad materials on any of the backing plates that they sell...
http://www.hawkperformance.com/docs/catalog-current.pdf

They show your JCW pads. It is just not clear how you order them.

I would definitely not take the HPS out on the track. I did that for my first track day ever, and they didn't last 2 session before they got glazed over. Last year I came across a MINI driver at WGI who was trying them and he had the same problem. I sold him a set of Carbotechs that he loved.

The Carbotechs are great pads. I have run the XP10 with no problems. The XP10 is generally recommended for the MINI in front and stock pads in the back. These perform up to 1600 deg F vs the ~900 of the Yellow stuff. A REALLY aggressive MINI driver that I know uses the XP12, but that would be overkill for most drivers. From my experience, there is no problem in mixing a matching pads. I use the stock MINI pads for the street and the Carbos for the track, and I have not had to swap rotors or anything. As for rotors, the Carbos are easier on the rotor than other pads, so you will save there. Not sure what the cost difference is though.

I understand about the cost issue, but in my experience the performance of the Carbotechs is twice that of the Yellow stuff. Ok "twice" is hard to measure as "brake performance" is somewhat subjective, but they are good enough that I won't go back to the Yellow stuff. Also, I am not sure that the wear is comparable between the JCW Brembo brakes and the stock S brakes. My brakes wear the inside pad about twice as fast as the outside so I throw away about 1/3 of my brake pads. So I can't really say how they would do for you.

I know it isn't much to go on when you are relatively happy with the pads that you have, but I put this out there for you to consider.

Say, also, if you put the GP diffuser on your car, let us know if it makes a noticeable difference on the track or if you think it is purely cosmetic. I have to say that it look really sharp, if nothing else.

 

I'm not sure it'll make much downforce difference. It looks like it should make a difference to drag, there's a hole under the back which is just screaming to be filled. Not sure if the drag will make a difference at the track, maybe an mph or two more on the straight. I expect it to show up most in freeway fuel economy.

The next question is black (as it comes), or painted. We need to fix an owie on the bumper, so getting the body shop to paint them shouldn't cost much extra.

 

Nice....pics when done or link to pics on the diffuser thread...

 

I've been emailing with a guy at EBC. Initially he wanted to send me another set of Yellowstuff, to see how they hold up. But after I mentioned how much use they get he suggested Bluestuff (their race pad) instead. I'd wondered about Bluestuff, but they don't make them in the right size. He said he'd make some, this should be interesting.

I was also thinking we could use Yellowstuff, but only try for two days out of them. That would only cost about $15 more a day, which is pretty insignificant compared the to the rest of the budget. I'd end up with a lot of half used pads that way.

I've read the Hawk catalog, I don't see where they say they'll do any pad in any size. They have the potential for a part number, but the catalog seems to say what compound they do come in.

 

It seems strange that there is almost no one making race pads for the JCW brakes.

I would try the blue stuff. It looks like a nice option from what the EBC web page says.

 

Sorry I missed MINI Thunder last weekend but I was out of the country. Weather sure looked great. If you are running stock tires or non stickies CarboTech X12 in front and X10 in the rear will be fine. When I went to Nitto NT01's I was getting right to the edge. If I stand on them trying for fast lap times they will start to transfer material to the rotors as they melt. I run them street and track. I can't go any harder as they are already very loud on the street and about as much as I can take. If I go harder I will need to swap them out before track days. I heard Jan had some MINI racing brakes in the works too.

 

Tuseday we were out at Laguna Seca with the Autoclub from work. Again, the autoclub is a bit nebulous, it mainly means that one guy put his name on the ballot for time at the track and fronted the money. The upshot is a great day with only 3 run groups and not many cars in each group. Only the intermediate group sold out, the other 2 were half empty. So lots of track time on a nearly empty track. I was in the advanced group, and Cathy in the intermediate group.

There was perfect weather, and only a little drama with the brakes to make things interesting. Cathy smashed through her previous best lap time to end up only 3 seconds behind my pace. She's getting good at this.

I was expecting heavy wear on the brakes, Laguna seems to be the hardest of the local tracks on the brakes. Also as we're going to have so much track time, so I got some new Yellowstuff pads for the front and was expecting to wear them out by the end of the day. I thought I'd bedded them in before we got to the track, but on my first hot lap I started smelling hot brakes, and then braking for turn 5, the brake pedal felt wrong, it was hard. Its usually a bit soft with the Yellowstuff pads. So I pulled into the pits. The brakes did smell a bit hot and one side felt a bit hotter than the other, so I went to find a thermometer to measure the brake temperature with. It took me a while to find one. Then I went out for a gentle lap to see what happened. When I got back to the pits the brakes didn't seem unreasonable hot, but by that time the session was over.

Cathy's first session wasn't for another 20 min. So I took the opportunity to have a look at the brake which seemed to be a bit hotter. I borrowed a jack from someone and took off the wheel to examine things. There was nothing obviously wrong. I also managed to borrow a better thermometer from driver. So when Cathy's session came round I sent her out and asked her to come into the pits after a couple of laps being easy on the brakes. When she got back to the pits the brake temperature didn't seem unreasonable so I sent her out, saying she should be easy on the brakes and if anything felt funny come back in.

She then went out and turned her fastest ever lap, 2 seconds faster than her previous best. Then a couple more faster than her previous best before the session ended. Obviously, laying off the brakes is good for your lap times. Things seemed reasonable when she came in, so I went out for my session for a couple of laps, pulled into the pits and measured the brake temperature again. Things still seemed reasonable so I went out for the rest of my session, there was only a few more laps. After the session I measured the brake temperature again, they were around 800F and smoking. I reckoned I just hadn't bedded in the pads hard enough, but I'm not sure why the pedal was hard that one time. That didn't happen again.

So I stopped worrying about the brakes, but was still trying to be easy on them. In my third session I went out and turned my fastest lap of the day on my first flying lap. Though the lap timer didn't tell me that at the time as it took a break while a calendar alert popped up. And then on the third flying lap I overshot the braking for turn 2 (the hairpin), on the next lap they waved the naughty stick at me (furled black flag) for that.

I wasn't sure what happened at the time, I'm braking and I just didn't seem to be braking fast enough for the amount of track left before the corner. Looking at the data I see the braking peaked at 1.35g, which is panic level braking. I didn't think the car was capable of braking that hard, comfortable braking is not much more than 1g. After reviewing the video and the data, I'm still not sure why that happened. The theory I came up with was that I was entering turn 2 faster than I was used to. I'd been experimenting with a shift into 5th, previously I'd been coming over turn 1 still in 4th around 109mph and almost hitting redline. The theoretical best shift point is at 5900 revs at about 103mph, which happens while I'm still climbing the hill to turn 1, so I'd been shifting up to 5th. I was thinking this had increased my entry speed to turn 2, and thus I was running out of braking room. However, reviewing the data I see I was few mph slower than previously. So the extra shift didn't seem to help.

I was still working on the theory that I need more braking room, so for the next session I started looking for a different line which would give me the necessary room. Previously I've come around turn 1 right on the left and aimed for the brake markers. I ended up not turning so much for turn 1 and ending up at the right of the track just where there's a berm I'd never noticed before. My previous line would meet the right of the track just after the berm, my new line met the right side of the track at the beginning of the berm, giving me more space to brake. Obviously, there's a reason they put berms on race tracks, its where cars tend to meet the edge of the track.

After my 5th session I came off the track hot to measure the tire temperatures (up to 150F) and I also measured the brake pad wear. I was expecting to find healthy, but slimmer pads. What I did fin was a pad which was worn out. It was down to 3mm, where the manufacturer recommends only wearing it down to 4mm. At the last track day I'd found the pads start to disintegrate when they get down to 3mm. So I did an emergency pad change, I had some half worn pads just for this very circumstance. I only had about 20min before Cathy was due back on track. Not to mention the pads were probably still about 400F, I borrowed the jack again, and someones gloves so I could handle the pads and got Cathy out on track only about 1 minute late. We took it easy on the brakes for the rest of the day, and didn't have any more drama.

Given there was so much track time to be had, the day seemed very relaxed. For my first session I was the only person on grid, so when the session started I was the only person on the track. That's a first, pity about the brake drama. For most of the day I got clear track, I didn't pass anything. A lot of cars passed me, but for the most part they whizzed by so fast I didn't have to let off the gas. Right at the end of the day, there was a Corvette who caught up with me, then didn't get quite close enough to make me think he was close enough to pass. He trailed me for a lap before I thought I should let up and let him by.

I got 32 hot laps, the fastest was a 1:55.9, which is 2-3 second slower than I managed last time out in February. I just didn't seem to be able to go any faster than that, I had 8 laps in the 1:56 range. It may have been the brake drama slowing me up, or there just didn't seem to be much grip out there. Even when I was trying I could make it around some of the corners as fast as I expected. Could be the tires are getting old and we need a new set.

As I mentioned Cathy did manage to break her own record. Her previous best was a 2:01.2, her best of the day was 1:59.0. When she got clear track, she managed low 2 minute times consistently. However she did catch a bit of bad traffic at times. There seemed to be a very slow Audi TT in her group which never pointed anyone by. She trailed him for 3 laps in one session before finally getting by. One of his laps was a 2:19.

Video of my best lap: http://btwyx.com/Movies/LagunaMar13Besti.mov There's no data on this one because of the calendar alert which popped up.
Cathy's best lap: http://btwyx.com/Movies/LagunaMar13CBesti.mov

Here's me on an empty grid waiting for the start of the first session:



and Cathy starting her session:



Me breaking for the Corkscrew:



an unusual view of the corkscrew:



and a traffic jam:

 

Love the last two pictures. That is a really great shot of the corkscrew. Nice angle that catches both the pitch of the track and the ocean in the background. Your post on the diffuser thread is zoomed in on the car a little more which is another nice perspective.

That is a pretty impressive group of cars you are leading in the last pictures. The photographers seem to like shots like that and yours has an interesting mix of car colors.

As for the brakes, it is interesting that only the one pad wore out. It is all most like the caliper was sticking, but with 4 pistons that doesn't seem possible. Any other thoughts about it? At any rate, glad you caught the pad wear before it was a problem.

On the diffuser thread, one person is claiming improved gas mileage and downforce...any thoughts on this from your experience? It does look great, though. Nice mod for the car.

 

I'm not sure if that's the ocean in the background, or just a cloudbank. The ocean is somewhere over that way, about 6 miles. The view is somewhat North, the shoreline would be up, not sideways.

The pad isn't exactly worn out, its very wedged. Its 3.3mm at one end, but 8.3mm (down from 8.8mm) at the other. On average, there's still plenty left. There is some speculation I've heard that the electronic diff lock (EDLC) causes uneven wear. That pad is on the side where I'd get wheel spin in the corkscrew, which is where I'll get most wheel spin. I wasn't noticing much spinning, so either I was getting on top of it, or the electronics were doing a better job (and wearing out the pad in the process).

For the wedging issue, I could definitely do with a strong piston on the bottom.

 

I just discovered that Porterfield brakes will do custom pads and that includes any of Porterfield, Hawk, Raybestos or Performance Friction. I'd be interested in that except I've no idea which of the many compunds would suit. Anyone any suggestions?

In other news, we're going to be at Laguna Seca this week. I had hoped to have some EBC Bluestuff pads, they made some up especially for me. The problem was I didn't actually look at the pads until I went to fit them at the beginning of August. They'd sent some Cooper-S pads, not JCW pads. When I mentioned that, they sent some pads which fit, but they were Yellowstuff. I need to mention this to them, but in the meantime I'll be using the Yellowstuff pads.

 

Hooked on driving this week at Laguna? I'll be there Thursday, but with the Scooby (blue 2008, i'll be number 73), not the MINI.

 

Yup, Thursday with Hooked on Driving. Should be fun.

 

A lot people like the Performance Friction. But I can't say which pad though. I prefer a high friction, high temp pad. It would be nice if they would list real spec like operating temps and coefficient of friction, but they don't so you just have to rely on the descriptions. From the descriptions, I like the sound of the PFC 97 or the PFC 08.

 

Hey, Btwyx--do you have a vanity plate that is something like "trackable" on one of your cars? Plus LS, SP, and TH stickers in the rear window?

If so, I saw you going to lunch a week or two ago. As a passenger in a co-worker's Honda. :D