Fun times with glazed rotors (sarcasm)

Well, this is the second time glazing my rotors at the track this year.  First time I was stuck behind people going slow so had to brake early and thought it might be my fault.  Apparently not my fault. 

Thanks in advance for any help, advice, or unhelpful jokes at my expense. 

Little history:  started tracking last year and used ebc yellows.  Those sucked and crumbled and are too expensive. They did not glaze though.  Called raybestos and spoke with them.  They say their street performance pads ($140 a set) are good up to 1280F and that's what I should use since I run 340tw michelin PSS.  I have been running those pads on brembo blank pvt rotors.  I have four piston front and two piston rear brembos. No dust shields. No cooling ducts.  I am very quick in track and am mid pack of intermediate even on my high TW tires. I cheat by getting lots of older racers in my car to instruct me in my runs.  You get really fast real quick with this method. 

Data:  I come off track after a cool down lap and my Temps on the front rotors are around 550F and rear is around 350/400F.  

Issue:  my fricken rotors are glazed (see pic, sorry about rust but it rained overnight).  The pads are oddly NOT glazed.  They look fine.  I know what a glazed pad looks like.  They cream like a banshee coming to a stop.  I've been using a handheld rotary sander to clean the rotors.  They stop squeaking then but will glaze up next track day. 

Solutions?  Open to any and all advice.  Possible solutions below 

New pads:  cool yeah, new pads but they will cost more anything more aggressive than these are going to squeal like banshees stopping so that does not solve my issue

Two pice slotted rotors:  ooo fancy.  Also pricey at $550 a set.  Would keep it cooler for sure

Regular slotted rotors:  do slots actually prevent pad and rotor glazing? I do not know.  Please let me know. 

Brake cooling ducts:  yes yes, I will probabky do this over the winter while I sit around and get fat while I hibernate 

I am not sure what the problem is you are actually experiencing.

Does the car not stop well?

Are you bedding the pads and rotors as the pad manufacturer suggests?

Glazing is pad transfer, pad transfer happens with heat, some is necessary.  It sounds like you need more aggressive pads and need to tolerate some noise as the necessary compromise, or add cooling.

Slotted rotors don't really add cooling, they may actually make the brakes run hotter as there is less friction surface available.  Airflow is what cools the brakes, you want more of that.

You need real track brake pads.  Beyond novice group street pads (and I don't care what the manufacturer says) aren't good enough.  There is no such thing as a street/track pad. 

docwyte said:

You need real track brake pads.  Beyond novice group street pads (and I don't care what the manufacturer says) aren't good enough.  There is no such thing as a street/track pad. 

^^This.  You need to swap in the track pads for track days and back to streets for street duty.  Or live with noisy, dusty track pads.

Like others said, more aggressive pads or less aggressive braking. Cooling might help but it's at best more of a bandaid than a full solution. Even if you can make the street pads survive, they're likely going to be working right on the edge of their performance window and as a result will wear super quickly such that proper pads (and swapping them in for track use) will be cheaper long term. And the extra performance of real track pads is super nice as well. I'm still working on acclimating to how much more stopping power is available compared to what I would call the closest thing to a "dual purpose" pad.

In reply to dps214 :

Do you have a suggestion on what pads to run? What was the "close" dual purpose pad? At this point I am taking the rotor off after every event to clean it so I may as well start swapping

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

The problem is they screech like a banshee now.  Also, they are basically unpredictable. The friction changes wildly between being hot and cold.  One second they over power the tires with a tiny press of the pedal and later they need the pedal pressed way in to do anything.  And around we go

In reply to docwyte :

Do you have any recommendations?  I'd like something that isn't going to instantly kick in my abs

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I will make cooling ducts over the winter.  Too many activities going on this summer and fall to do it now

GLOC brakes. I run R6 (their AutoX compound) on the street and I swap to R12 compound in the front and R10 compound in the rear (these were what they recommended for track use for my vehicle) at the track. 

The R6 has great cold torque and amazing hot torque, though they are dusty screamers once they start getting warm. The R12/R10 stops on a dime on track. I have the Verus brake cooling kit on my car and it's keeping the R6 at a happier, quieter temperature. Good thing about GLOC brakes are that they are compound cross compatible so you won't need to rebed. Just swap the pads at the track and go. 

You'll just have to live with the noise, I'm afraid. Most performance pads will be noisy. 

In reply to hunter47 :

These were some of my top contenders for brake pad sets. Glad to hear they are working well for you.  What tires do you run? 

What's the condition of your brake fluid, and how often are you swapping that out? Wanted to eliminate that as a potential cause of the inconsistent brake feel and performance you mentioned above.  Based on what you said already, I don't think it's the cause of what you're describing, but could be a contributing factor.

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

I have castrol SRF in there. It was flushed in spring and the fluid in each caliper is bled out a bit after each track day.  I boiled fluid one time.  Never again.  It was terrifying 

In reply to Bmsluite :

Falken RT660 though I think my car is too heavy for them to wear well. 

I don't know if glazing is still a thing with brake pads?  What you're describing sounds like over-heated pads.  

I would call Carbotech and see what they recommend.   Assume the 350Z in your profile?  If so I'm betting XP12 in the front and XP10 in the rear.  I dive to the event on them, bed them in responsibly (which is probably on-track unless you have a wide open flat road where you can safely do some 85-5mph stops.)  Drive home on them and leave them in until they scrub off their transfer layer from operating at cool temperatures, then I throw my stock pads back in and re-bed.  

Good fluid  (I like Motul RBF 600) and real pads and you'll never have to think about the brakes again for HPDE.

In reply to Tyler H :

BTW, the Carbotech XP12 and XP10 compounds are almost identical to the GLOC R12 and R10 compounds. IIRC they used to be business partners? 

KNS Brakes also offers pre-bedding as an option for $20/corner. I think that's well worth. 

Tyler H said:

Drive home on them and leave them in until they scrub off their transfer layer from operating at cool temperatures, then I throw my stock pads back in and re-bed.  

Alternately, buy another set of rotors and swap those along with the pads so that you have one set pre-bedded with each compound.  Takes less time than doing the rebed procedure, and if they're stock rotors then it's probably not all that expensive.

I've been very happy with PFC 08's on two different cars ('02 Boxster 2.7 and '10 Cayman S). They work great on track, with no fade or other scary issues. FYI I run in advanced groups. On the street feel like normal street pads, with the exception of the occasional school bus-grade squealing and lots of dusting. The only negative is that they are really expensive, but they last a long time.

I have carbotech xp10's all around and they've been wonderful on track and street for a 3000lb car with 400hp. They squeal a little bit but nothing obnoxious or banshee like and once you get some heat into them on the street, they're quiet. They do dust like crazy and are expensive FYI.. 

I don't daily my car enough to care about noise and dust, but if you daily yours, sounds like your best bet is 2 sets of pads. Centric 301's for the street and xp12/10s for the track!

In reply to RacerBoy75 :

I wish.  I used to run PFC but they do not make them for Japanese cars

In reply to Lsxus :

It's just a weekend car. I have heard form too many people that the carbotech causes brake shudder after a time. I want no part of that.  I think I will try project Mu hc+

In reply to Tyler H :

I called raybestos today.  Apparently the pads won't fade until 1250F but they will glaze if sustained at 800F or above for any length of time.  Seems like misleading advertising to me.  Pretty much done with raybestos at this point.  I will run them on my daily drivers as they work well for that but no more for performance

In reply to Bmsluite :

What is misleading about that?  That means they have a reasonable window of running in the deposition range before they get too hot to simply stop working.  1250F is just at the edge of visibly glowing red in daylight, for reference.   Many street pad compounds give up the ghost well before that, and true track pads can go significantly higher.

I never bothered with a paint stick but I could reliably get steet pads to fade to uselessness within a mile of driving on a certain road near me.  Fun mile   but I never saw the rotors glowing even at night.

I run PFC08/11.  I've also run Hawk DTC60/70 with success.