So yesterday I was at PIR. It was maybe on of the hottest days Portland will get this year at 100 degrees!

I was having a good day even though I was getting pretty bad brake fade towards the end of each session. By the start of the next session the brakes would be back.

Well during the cool down lap of the 3rd session I lost all braking power I limped into the pits with my left front smoking. Left front caliper seal was gone and the piston was jammed into the rotor. My day was over and I needed to be flatbedded home.

As you can see in the pics the pads were toast which I'm assuming caused the seal to fail. They had good life when I checked them the night before and I flushed the system with Motul RBF 600. The pads were Hawk HPS f/r, yes I know these arent track pads.

Edit - I did want to mention the RMW tune I had done last week felt really good at the track. No issues with the engine all day, and the car felt like it pulled harder out of turns.

 

Thanks for the PM to this post, I'll reply to your PM next.

 

Doh statement of the day...

Brakes got hot dude..

Here is an example of why when you add more power you also need to up the other systems. Hot day, looking at the track map looks to be 2 really heavy braking areas near each other, Turn 10-11-12 complex and then for Turn 1.

How many miles on the car?

How many track days?

Did you notice if since the tune you have had to change the brake points? In theory you should be accelerating harder between corners now.

Didn't happen to do any data acquisition or lap timing that you can compare with pre-tune data?

I can see it now, some yahoo is gonna think RMW tunes ruin brakes.

There I said it first.

BTW a BBK is in the cards...

Just a note, was on the track yesterday too, different track, 100 degrees out as well here in TX. TSW BDM BBK. Not a hint of fade.

 

I still consider myself a newbie at the track. I think if I knew how to better assess what my car was telling me on track, I could have at least pulled in and called it a day before the s%!t really hit the fan.

I have about 48k miles on the car. As far as I know the rotors are original. The pads had about 15k miles on them including 6 track days including yesterdays.

Great point about complimentary mods when upgrading. My first track day I had a pulley and intake. Now I have header/exhaust/tune, TSW springs/rear sway, and better tires. Also as my experience has gone up I've been able to brake harder later as well as cary more speed into the turns. I have only been to PIR. As you pointed out turn 1 into the chicane is very heavy braking as well as coming into the 10-12 complex. Turn 7 requires some heavy braking as well because the turn is much slower than the maps would lead you to believe.

I only mentioned the RMW tune since with the hot weather and track abuse I did not experience any type of pinging or engine troubles.

 

And I thought my brakes got chewed up after a track day.

 

FUBAR!

 

Wow, dude. Nice warpage!

I'm thinking there might have been something wrong with your setup before hitting the track. I've got HPSs and have done trackdays and had nothing resembling that kind of wear.

As an aside (and realizing it was a front caliper failure) did you have your emerg. brake set when the car was sitting in the paddock?