Has anybody used Porterfield R4S for mild track use?

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

amg_rx7 wrote: Look into the Hawk DTC. I run DTC 60 on my Spec Miata. Love 'em. Have driven the car to the track on them w/o issue. Maybe look into the DTC 30s to make it a bit easier on the street if you plan to drive it alot on the street.

I race on Hawk DTC-60/70s and or Performance Friction 01/11s. They are fantastic race pads that are very easy on rotors WHEN AT PROPER TEMPS. You have to swap them out in the paddock if you are driving the car home a long way or doing a lot of street driving in general. They will eat themselves and rotors very quickly when cold and having to depend on their mechanical grip for braking. They need to be hot for the chemical "glue" to do it's job. There is no way you can get them hot enough to work properly on the street. They even struggle to maintain temps on cold track days in the northeast (40s in the AM) such that you have to drag the pedal on the straights to keep them lit. Obviously, you "could" drive them around a bit like to/from a hotel but I wouldn't leave them in for any longer than necessary. It is just wasting money.

Interesting. Here in SF Bay area, it doesn't really get that cold so haven't had the cold related issues you mentioned. They were fine on my Miata driving the 350 mile round trip to/from Thunderhill on highways. Yeah, they got cold when not in use on the highway but that is to be expected with any race compound so no tailgating on the drive to/from the track. Obviously a proper street pad would be better in that situation. Definitely do not plan on daily driving the DTC pads.

Given the amount of braking I had to do on the drive to/from the track, the wear on the rotors was negligible. They would get worn more doing laps.

Depending how mild the use is and the weight of the car, the R4s or something similar might be OK so long as you are comfortable driving around that. Back when I was still doing HPDE in the Intermediate group, I once ran HPS pads on my FD at Horse Thief Mile in Willow Springs when I forgot to re-stock my race pads. Did OK but I didn't push as hard and adjusted my level of agression to the constraint of the pads. On a faster track, that would have been a more annoying as I'm certain I would have faded them on each lap.

codrus wrote: I ran them on the track for several years. They worked great with a naturally aspirated Miata, but once I put the turbo in they rolled over and cried uncle after 2 laps.

That's what I'm concerned about. The MR2 is both a little heavier and a little faster than an N/A Miata...

We ran them for years on our RX7s on the rear. We still run them on the rear with hawk blues on the front. (The hawk blue is the only pad that we have run that lasts 24 hours straight).

I highly recommend them as a rear pad. I did try them on the front once and was shocked at how quickly they overheated.

On the rear, perfect.

Rob R.

In reply to BoxheadTim:

That is certainly something to be concerned about, but the performance of your brake pads depends on a lot more than that. Pad size, rotor size and design, brake cooling, brake bias, your driving style,etc.. The only way you're going to know for sure is to try something and see how it works. When I was using the R4S, I had more problems with brake fluid than I did with pads.

Oh yeah, I didn't answer the question.

We ran RS4E on our Checy Malibu. They worked just fine for about 5 races. This was on the rear of the car. They were matched with Hawk Black or Hawk Blues on the front.

In reply to wvumtnbkr:

What is RS4E? Do you mean R4-S? Or do you mean R4-E?

Damn... I meant R4-E.

The "S" makes it sound racier though.

I am making a lot of fail in my communication skills up in this threadz.

Rob R.

The EBC Yellowstuff are a ceramic pad material that I have found to be very good on the road for high speed stopping. The next ones up, the Red pads are trackable but the yellow would be fine for your rears. They have apparently sorted out their bonding issues that affected some earlier inventory. What was your issue with the EBC?

I run R4 on the track (after I ran out of my Ferodo DS11 stash) but wouldn't recommend them on the street.

Re EBC, apart from not working very well and me ending up with a couple of disks that were warped out of the box, no problems .

Seriously, they don't have a particularly good reputation amongst my friends in the UK and between that and the issues I've had (admittedly a decade or so ago), I just don't want to take a chance.

Also, Porterfield appears to give an SCCA discount if you buy from them directly...