Austarion

As I am still perservering with standard brakes at the moment, does any one know any good brake pads for track use?

I am currently running standard bendix pads, but the only last 2-3 track days and sometimes start to glow (the pads only, not the disk).

I am having trouble tracking down decent pads, so any help would be appreciated.

Hi,
the first thing you HAVE to do with the standard brakes is remove the backing plates front and rear. This will stop the discs overheating. You are wasting you time with the "normal" Bendix pads (although Metal Kings hang in there for a while). Talk to Specialised Clutch and Brake (St Marys, Sydney). Phone(02)96238070. They do high quality Mintex M44 club/race compound and others. They have the patterns for the Starion pads so they can make them to suit (yes they make them!).
Also Racebrakes (02)96091101 have full competition pads in stock for the Starion. You will find with the backing plates removed, the right pads and brake fluid the standard brakes will live on the track no problem (probably better than most cars). We used to race at Winton for 300km on the one set of pads. .

cheers,
Mark.

Excellent, are they avail for all 4 corners? and how do they pull up? any fade?

Yes of course front and rear. I haven't tried the M44 myself yet. But if setup properly for lap dashes and club stuff they WON'T fade. Des racing in GroupE used to do 20 lap races at Calder where you brake at the end of the main straight from 220KPH for a second gear corner.
Remember the competition brake fluid (very important) and make sure you flush it right through the whole system by bleeding all the brakes. For serious racing we used to bleed the brakes a lot (before every race). More to keep the fluid fresh really.

cheers,
Mark.

That sounds good, was wondering about this myself.
Looks like they are the goods, at the moment i have Bendix Metal Kings with DOT3 fluid i still have the brake back plates on so i will remove those too

I have QFM pads in at the moment. I'll dig up part numbers later (rated to 450C)
What fluid is recommended? I hear not Dot 5 or 4 or whatever. Silicon?

Don't forget to bed the new pads in properly either, this can make a lot of difference on the track

Thanks for the help. Was planning to remove backing plates and run air ducts to the front disk to aid cooling.

I will get better brake pads as well, but was having trouble finding any, but will sort some out now.

From all that I have been told -

the only difference between dot 4 and 5 is the freezing point. They both have the same boiling point.

If you choose to run silicone you have a number of issues -

1 is you will have to change EVERY seal and gasket in the braking system before changing over to silicone
2 the fluid properties of silicone are not conducive to sustained heavy application and may "go off" causing a low pedal and ultimately total brake failure. There is a technical explanation for all that but thats the laymans version.

I have been chasing this topic for a little while and all information I have obtained says that for circuit work run dot 4, do not use silicone and change the fluid before every meeting, religiously.

Hope that helps.

Cheers
Greg

If you don't want to spend a fortune on really expensive brake fluid try Castrol Response, we used it for the Dutton Rally last year and it did fine. If you want to spend more try Castrol SRF (I think it's about $120 for 600ml)

I use Castrol Response as well. Great stuff.. and cheap enough to change often.

Dot 5 is a silicon based fluid where as dot 5.1 is the conventional brake fluid. If you are using dot 5 u have to drain your brake system as silicon and conventional brake fluid doesnt mix. The boiling point for dot3 is 205 degrees with a wet boiling point of 140, dot 5.1 has a boiling point of 260 with a wet boiling point of 180 degrees.

I also have done some research on brake fluids, and CASTROL RESPONSE has the highest dry boiling point of the conventional non-race spec dot 4 fluids.
It performed well at track day outings.
However, MOTUL race spec fluid is now readily available in Sydney, and is a lot better, ie about 550 degrees farenheight. Thats about the same as whats available from AP Racing fluid. The best seems to be NEO SUPERDOT, but I have lost the contact details and so have not had any for some years. If anyone knows who the Sydney agent for NEO is, please post.