Hey guys, I have two questions that I want to see if I can get some input on.

First i've got four DE days under my belt so far, 3 at the glen and 1 at NJMP lightning. Each and ever time i've ended up cooking my brake fluid before the last session. The most recent event (NJMP lightning) ive had sneed's brake coolers installed as well as high temp brake fluid (motul rbf 600) and for every event i have had stainless steel brake lines. Each event has been somewhat humid so I am aware that will lower my boiling point.

At this point I'm pretty confident its my fault putting too much heat into the brakes somehow. Any ideas on what i can do to improve upon this?

My second question is that I have obviously been bitten by the DE bug. With that comes my need for improving safety. I am looking at putting together a major safety upgrade to my R53 over the winter. This is planning on including a roll bar, fixed back seats (Hans compatible) and 6 point harnesses to go with it. Eventually ill be adding a hans to that list when I have the funds.
My major question is what is everyone running for a rollbar? For the time being this will be my DD so a cage is out of the question and I would be looking for a rollbar that would keep tubing far enough back so i do not have to worry about hitting it with my bare head. Obviously the bar would have to include a harness bar. I know Sneed has a roll bar, autopower makes one, as does safety devices. My main concern is getting a strong bar that wont poke through the unibody in case of a roll over.

Does anyone have any of these bars and would like to share pictures/ advice?


Thanks!

Edit: Also has anyone successfully swapped in racing seats into an 05 or up while maintaining all remaining airbag functionality?

IF you don't have already , you may want to get larger brakes to help this. Also what pads are you running? You might need a different pad. Also not to be funny since you are new to racing you can learn how to brake better. Harder braking later seems to help one hell of a lot and seems to transfer less heat to the calipers. This is IMO what can help you.

Oh yeah At this point i'm operating on the idea that its the braking technique that is causing the issuie. I'm running stock calipers with EBC yellow stuff pads and power slot rotors. Does a BBK help disipate heat any better than the stock brakes would?

I assume you mean BBK Big Brake kit? Yes this will help tremendously. The bigger the rotor the more surface area for better bite and heat dissipation.

Yessir. Its something I've look at getting but ive been hesitant toward thinking it may be a crutch to prevent me from learning proper braking techniques. That and I'd like to put money into safety gear first.

Definitely perfecting your braking technique will help. I would like to believe an important part of the safety gear is the brakes IMO.

That is very true. Thankfully the fade isnt too bad. There was a roll over this past weekend where the driver walked away presumably because of his cage. It convinced me to take some steps to keep myself safer

Possibly as important as the surface area, the larger the diameter of the rotor the better the mechanical advantage and the less work the brakes have to do. Less heat generated to dissipate.

Here are some roll bar options
http://www.sneed4speed.com/mini-coop...y-sneed4speed/
http://www.detroittuned.com/autopowe...race-roll-bar/
Here is a write up on the R56
http://www.brrperformance.com/blog/?page_id=443

Thanks. There's are all ones I posted about. I'm hoping someone has first hand experience with one so see how it fits, how the welds look, Etc.

You know you are boiling the brake fluid because the brake pedal "gets long", correct?

I ask because EBC Yellows are not adequate for front brakes @ the track. They are fine for the rears. If its the brake pads fading you will still have a decent pedal, just reduced braking.

To conserve brakes, brake earlier and lighter. And try rolling into the corner a few mph quicker. You should be transitioning to throttle at turn-in and flat at apex for most corners.

First I'd make sure you get the pads right.

Then I'd go for cooling-- i.e. brake ducts.

Then, if you're still boiling fluid, go with a bbk. I actually run a Brakeman kit, on a 12.19 inch rotor that fits underneath a 15 inch wheel,on a 0.81 width rotor.

I'm not a big fan of earlier and lighter, that actually creates more heat. Have an experienced instructor sit with you to help you with your braking--that helped me more than anything.

Not sure what brakes you're running, but the stock R53 brakes don't hold up well on the track long term, you'll eventually wind up moving to something else.

Brake hard and early.

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This one was a bit counter-intuitive, and goes against how most of us have been trained to drive all our driving lives. Track driving is not like street driving, and this is one of those things that drives that point home. My instructor suggested that when you get to the braking point of your turn, right before your turn-in point, you need to hit the brakes hard and deliberately — with about 80%-90% of full braking force, then gradually let off the brake as you go through the turn.
This does two things: first, it slows you down before you get in your turn, pretty dramatically, and second, by gradually letting off the brake it keeps the front of the car planted, since your car will tend to nose-down while braking. This is essentially trail braking, and it helps your front tires, which are doing the steering, maintain good contact with the track so the turning actually works.
Slamming on the brakes hard as you approach the turn feels strange at first, since in most people's driving experience, that sort of stop equates to panic. Once you get past those feelings, it quite fun.

Read more here http://jalopnik.com/what-a-slow-idio...ium=socialflow

The most likely reason you're still over heating your brakes is you are riding them into the brake zone. This is common in beginners. Correct braking is to drive the car to the mark and then apply brakes fully but not to lock up. As the car slows and you begin to turn in slowly release the brakes and let the car roll.
What you are most likely doing is coasting into the brake zone with little pressure on the brake pedal. This builds heat and will cause the pads to over heat because your brake on time is very long.
What pads are you using? They need to be full track pads not street/track. More than likely they are melting and causing the long pedal. I have never boiled Motul 600 and I have had brake rotor temps over 1400f.

Trailbraking is great, but it doesn't work on every turn, and it takes time to get good at it.

From a lap time standpoint, you're much better off braking earlier (but hard, like suggested above), getting to your turn in speed, and making the turn in at your best turn in speed than you are overbraking and coming in too slow, or even worse, braking too late. This is also relatively easy on the brakes. Then you can keep moving your brake point closer and closer to the turn in, and then maybe add trailbraking.

On fast turns, I usually don't trailbrake at all--but that's just me, others do it just fine, if my turn in speed is 75 mph, I'd rather just hit that. On slower turns, like in the 40's or 50's, I trailbrake, it really helps get the car around the corner.

On the other hand I know some people who don't trailbrake much at all and they're fast as hell.

As suggested above, brake early and hard, then get off the brakes.

Bleed (and replace) your fluid often.

Suggest you defer installing bigger brakes until you decide what class you want to run. TT or w2w?

Keith

Yes its the pedal travel that was my tip-off. The car still had decent bite through out the day.

I'm running EBC yellows front and rear with the sneed cooler kit on the front brakes.

I've certainly been itching for a big break kit so ill keep that in mind.

Thanks for the advice, I had a feeling its something like that causing my issue.

I'm running EBC yellow stuff for pads so not a dedicated track pad. Is there anyway to tell specifically that its the pads causing the issue and not the fluid?

It has a long pedal which has previously been rectified by a full brake flush.

I am getting a build up in the slots on my rotors afterwards if that is any help? Thanks

Thanks for the tips. I've been flushing the fluid between every event because of my boiling issue so im sure the fluid is nice and fresh.
I'm planning on keeping the car for mainly DE's but I may change my mind as i progress

I don't use EBC's, so I don't know which pad is which, but if those are street pads, that's the place to start. You can run street pads on the rears, but not on the fronts. Most people will run a more aggressive, higher temp pad on the fronts, and a less aggressive pad on the rear, lot's of people run stock on the rear and do fine. So maybe the next EBC pad up from the yellows would work on the fronts, and keep the yellows on the rear, but someone more familiar with EBC's would be of more help if that's the pad you want to run.

For an example, people will run carbotech 10's or 12's up front, and carbotech 8's in the rear.

I've never boiled Motul 600, IMHO that's the best reasonably priced fluid, and that's the only fluid I use now. I have had issues with ATE, I've given up on it.

Yellow stuff is the most aggressive ebc pad. They call it a street/track pad. It feels like it's the fluid however ill have to bleed it and see if t goes away.

Its sounds like your pads are over temp too. The pad becomes to hot and smears on the rotor. You can see this on the rotor, it looks like comets going around the rotor and you can feel to brake pad material stuck on the rotor.
I do think that most of your problem is how you are using the brakes but running a track pad will help. We use and sell Carbotechs and with our brake cooler kit you need XP10 front and XP8 rears. Here's a link to our store http://www.sneed4speed.com/products/...carbotech.html
From what I can find about the EBC yellow, they are an HD street pad compound for use on EMV and heavy trucks. These pads are not designed to take the continues heat of a real road course. They are designed for short high temp burst with long cooling periods like driving down a mtn on the highway or an EMV running a call through city streets.

Ahh this makes sense. Ill have to pick up some carbotechs for next season. Do you guys sell "pre-bed" pads there? Also any rotor recommendation since ill be pairing them with new rotors

My 2 cents:


I used to run carbotech's, a very good rotor friendly pad. You are definitely going to want to start with new rotors with them, unless you can give your old rotors a good sanding to get rid of the EBC pad compound (you're going to have to get away from the EBCs from what it looks like--there is no such thing as a pad that is both "street and track", it's one or the other, or a significant compromise--but if that's what you're looking for, PF pads are probably the best for both duties).

Personally in the long run you're going to be better off with a dedicated street pad, and dedicated track pad, preferably from the same family. For the street, put Bobcats (also made by carbotech) on the front. When you go to the track, put on the carbotech XP 10's--just do a proper bedding in and you're good to go (the XP 10's are a similar but more aggressive compound to the Bobcats, so you can bed them in straight away without sanding the old material off the rotors). IMHO the "pre-bedding" isn't worth it; just bed them in properly--you still have to get the XP10 pad material on the rotor, so there is really not much of point to the pre-bedded pads--I did try them and really found no difference in pad/rotor wear compared to "unprebedded" pads. Except that my wallet was lighter.

When you're done on the track, switch back to Bobcats. The track pads are not gentle on the rotors, plus they're not great at low temps, you don't want to run those continuously on the street (I cheat sometimes and put my track pads on the night before a track day, just remember that they won't stop as well cold if you do that).

Put the XP8's on the rears, and leave them there. The rears don't do as much, and the XP8's won't kill the rear rotors when daily driving, at least mine never did.