I think we need brake cooling.......

In reply to AngryCorvair :

It's a 2009 Civic Si four door. I can't remember what the alphabet soup of chassis codes is either. There are actually a LOT of options for these cars which is part of the issue. 

We're looking for reliability first, this is what we've been missing. When they work they work great, but we tend to cook them down unpredictably. Consumable cost is next. Pads seem to be about the same ballpark for good ones, but the Wilwood disks are $250 each (without the hats) and blank Acura RL disks are $40 each. Field serviceability is also an issue as we keep having to take the car apart in parking lots. 

Doing a bunch of looking today. The RL calipers/disks are attractive from a cost/usefulness standpoint. If we can't make them work they there is an adapter to fit them on the Accord. What I'm not sure about is pad area/volume. It's hard for me to find references to total pad area for much of anything. I might just have to buy some cheap sets of pads to compare. 

Just go to the parts store.  Brinf a counter jocky a sammich, and he will let you compare every part on the shelf for as long as you want. 

Used to do it all the time for guys when i worked at 3 different stores.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to AngryCorvair :

It's a 2009 Civic Si four door. I can't remember what the alphabet soup of chassis codes is either. There are actually a LOT of options for these cars which is part of the issue. 

We're looking for reliability first, this is what we've been missing. When they work they work great, but we tend to cook them down unpredictably. Consumable cost is next. Pads seem to be about the same ballpark for good ones, but the Wilwood disks are $250 each (without the hats) and blank Acura RL disks are $40 each. Field serviceability is also an issue as we keep having to take the car apart in parking lots. 

Doing a bunch of looking today. The RL calipers/disks are attractive from a cost/usefulness standpoint. If we can't make them work they there is an adapter to fit them on the Accord. What I'm not sure about is pad area/volume. It's hard for me to find references to total pad area for much of anything. I might just have to buy some cheap sets of pads to compare. 

What wilwood discs are you finding that are $250 each?  Ouch!  Dont they make the ones with hats for this application?  If so, replacement rotors are like $30 even from wilwood.  Plus, you dont need to buy the hat from wilwood, there are tons of companies that make inexpensive brake hats.

I really think that a couple of cheap ducts and some DTC-60 pads will let this thing live forever without changing hardware

I use Hawk pads on competition vehicles with factory calipers because I've always found their tech folks to be knowledgeable and helpful.  I'd give them a call first.

Brake cooling is always a good thing and isn't that hard to do.  While fancy spindle mounted ducts that accept the cooling hose and attach to the spindle are the best solution a hose zip tied to the lower control arm or sway bar that directs air into the center of the rotor is quite effective.  You'll probably have to remove the backing plate for that to work.

I would try the DTC-60 pads, remove the dust shields, add some ducting and make sure you have some good, high temp fluid and you should be fine.  I run the DTC-60s on my IT Integra (stock calipers and rotors) with ducts and have plenty of brake.  Perhaps also try some good OEM or Centric rotors- these seem to have better casting geometry than some of the other rotor brands.

In reply to devina :

We've had good luck with the Centric blanks as well. The odd thing is that it's really just this car. My accord is Carbotech XP-10's over Centric rotors and it's great. Wear is great. I'm happy with it.

And really, the current setup on the Civic works great right up until it doesn't, which is unpleasant. This whole thing wasn't actually brought on by the pictures, but by the soft pedaling and short sessions that the driver had to do at COTA. We ran the car together at MSR Cresson on fresh brakes and were very happy and we were happy for most of One Lap this year, until we weren't. So it's not that the current setup doesn't work, it's just that we can't predict when things are going to all pear shaped and we're finding that increasingly unacceptable for One Lap. 

RL Pad Dimensions:

https://www.lpiracing.com/Porterfield-R4-S-Carbon-Kevlar-Perf-Street-Pad-AP-1091-R4-S-2p196123.htm

The same site is pretty good for having dimensions for other pads as well.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

My understanding of the math is that slowing a given car weighing X from 120-70 requires that you turn that much momentum into heat.

And the key thing here when comparing to similar weight cars is power.  Power (and drag, gearing, etc.) dictates how fast you can return to 120 and repeat this... so a small car may still require much larger brakes than a larger but less powerful car.

Ultimately all the kinetic energy you are trying to dissipate with brakes comes from horsepower (or potential energy if you are just pushing your car down the hill).

This looks like the pad for the SI, from the same site...

https://www.lpiracing.com/Porterfield-R-4-Carbon-Kevlar-Racing-Brake-Pad-AP-829-R-4-762p198232.htm

who knows if the jpegs are scaled correctly to each other, though?

In reply to Fitz :

Huge help, thanks for that. 

In reply to sleepyhead :

I've got the RL, TL and Si pictures up. It's not quite apples to apples as it looks like they measure backing plates, but it's pretty instructive. 

Seth how often are you guys bleeding and what fluid are you using? We typically restore a soft pedal with fresh fluid. Short length of sessions would point to a brake deficiency whether pad compound or size issue I'm not smart enough to answer.

Typically we bleed every event but have gotten lazy lately and only bleed when the pedal gets soft enough that we aren't comfortable braking as early as we otherwise would. (we've also noted that the thinner the pad gets the more frequently we need to bleed to bring back feel)

Pretty sure we had Motul 600 in the car for One Lap. As to how often we bleed...... probably not as often as we should? I make sure they have a fresh bleed before I do track work in it but Brian does it less than that. Having said that, we've never had a fluid problem. I ran off at Sebring with a nice firm pedal and almost zero brakes as the pads liquified. 

T.J. said:

Was I the only one that read the thread title as a Zepplin song?

" I think we need brake cooling....... " and baby I'm not foolin'!

I'm gonna send you back to schoolin'

Way down inside, honey you need it

I'm gonna give you my ducts

I'm gonna give you my ducts

Want a whole lotta ducts

Want a whole lotta ducts

Want a whole lotta ducts....

Shake for me, girl

I wanna be your brake duct man......

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to devina :

We've had good luck with the Centric blanks as well. The odd thing is that it's really just this car. My accord is Carbotech XP-10's over Centric rotors and it's great. Wear is great. I'm happy with it.

And really, the current setup on the Civic works great right up until it doesn't, which is unpleasant. This whole thing wasn't actually brought on by the pictures, but by the soft pedaling and short sessions that the driver had to do at COTA. We ran the car together at MSR Cresson on fresh brakes and were very happy and we were happy for most of One Lap this year, until we weren't. 

I'm reminded again, just how much the front end of this car has been "malled up", decreasing air to the front brakes that was probably there from the factory.  Other thing, this year over last year: inertia of the free 9.5" wheels.  Those things have to be pretty beefy weight-wise over the oem... which could be contributing to the "new to this year" brake wear.

time for some 949 17x9's, and maybe spacers?

edit: another thought... it might be worth it to try cranking in some of the rear aero on the wing he's got... would help make the rears do more work.

Edit #2: Although it might be good to think of a way you could measure pad wear after hpde sessions... as a way to start following when/where/how the pad wear is happening

In reply to sleepyhead :

The wheels are stupid, I forgot about that. And I agree about the front airflow theory which can't be helping, but I could NOT convince the car owner to put plastic back on. We will be adding a splitter within the next couple months and sealing the bumper back up with that and adding brake ducts which will correct all of the rallycross smashed stuff. 

edit: aero is upcoming. We've already got lower speed handling issues that we need to address first. Bit of trouble with turn in that we think might be helped with less front sway bar. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

It's a 2009 Civic Si four door. I can't remember what the alphabet soup of chassis codes is either.

Seth - Brian's civic is an "FA5" chassis...same as mine.

IIRC the HPD stuff is race-spec and $$, and I believe designed for the pre-facelift coupe bumper (which is a little different) as they were the chassis/body style to have when this gen civic made its debut in the racing scene back in 2006.

most of the roadrace guys on Facespace all point to the same parts combo for max bang-for-the-buck setup: TL-S brembo calipers and bigger TL-S rotors combined with a matching TL-S brake master cylinder.  those calipers will allow you to use much larger Evo 7/8/9 pads IIRC and retain the cheap factory rotors that make the setup so great on consumables.  here are the P/N's:

• this all comes off a 2004-2008 TL Base 6spd or 07-08 TLS AT/MT
• (factory part number) 45018SEPA60 TLS Brembo 45019SEPA60 TLS Brembo 90107SEPA50 X 4 (4 19mm bolt) 46100SDBA11 Brake Master Cylinder (make sure change the reservoir off your old BMC)
• Centric Rotors (Blanks) TLS Rotors 125.40062
• ARP Extended Stud
• 7mm Wheels spacer that go in between the hub and rotors

so there's that.  oddly i have a lot of trouble finding any 8th gen Si people that run ducts.  i have no idea why...the civic needs it badly with the front end being very streamlined to only allow air into the cooling circuit and also having a large apron underneath the bumper to keep air out from under the car.  its clearly meant to make the car very aerodynamic and not direct much, if any, air to the rotors.

there is one company i know of that makes a plug-and-play cooling duct for the post-facelift front fascia that replaces the fog lights...PasswordJDM.  Seems more bling than function but they apparently do work, just a shame that they're $$$ for such a simple molded part.  a guy running NASA time trials here in the midatlantic uses them, but he's the only one i've seen doing it:

i think with the TL-S kit would be your best bet along with the ducting.  if you're doing a splitter though, that changes a lot of things with both how and where you want to mount them due to the new airflow and pressure areas.

keep us updated...i'm on a similar path with mine.

Given that the front end is a bit less pretty than stock already maybe some universal ducts could be made to fit in place of what I assume are $$$ carbon passwordJDM parts

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/hre-re206?seid=srese1&cm_mmc=pla-google-_-shopping-_-srese1-_-howe-racing&gclid=CjwKCAjwhqXbBRAREiwAucoo-1jvl7t0eDuHJsmU35Slw5AyoM1Zz42oqm4AmMQD5nVpX2tn1i6EYRoChPUQAvD_BwE

In reply to ScottyB :

Do you have any insight as to why everyone is using the TL stuff instead of the RL? Just off Rock Auto, the RL rotor is 319mm diameter, 28mm thick and weighs 18.5lbs. The TL rotor is 310mm, 24.9mm thick and weighs 17.5lbs. I can see wanting to save that 1lb in rotation mass unless you kind of want it to put heat in. Is it the availibility of pads? It's pretty clear that the TL caliper was used on a lot more cars and there are a billion pads for them. The internet also suggests that perhaps you don't have to change the master for the RL calipers but I need to check that. 

Either way, thanks for the parts numbers, you're making this easy. 

In reply to klodkrawler05 :

I don't know what you're implying at all........

There is a VERY interesting article floating around with some CFD about brake duct placement on the front of NASCAR cars. The highest pressure (per the article) is at the center of the car, not by the fog lights and the differential is more severe the pointier the car is. We're going to mount the splitter, see where the bumper cover falls (we're not shy about cutting this one) and go from there. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to ScottyB :

Do you have any insight as to why everyone is using the TL stuff instead of the RL? Just off Rock Auto, the RL rotor is 319mm diameter, 28mm thick and weighs 18.5lbs. The TL rotor is 310mm, 24.9mm thick and weighs 17.5lbs. I can see wanting to save that 1lb in rotation mass unless you kind of want it to put heat in. Is it the availibility of pads? It's pretty clear that the TL caliper was used on a lot more cars and there are a billion pads for them. The internet also suggests that perhaps you don't have to change the master for the RL calipers but I need to check that. 

Either way, thanks for the parts numbers, you're making this easy. 

you know i'm not positive off the top of my head but i think if you want to use RL rotors you're going to need a new caliper bracket.  the TL stuff, as i understand it, bolts straight to the stock bracket and hubs and lines up.  i know people have used RL stuff before though...its just not the easiest Easy Button for the minimal cost stuff.

even if you don't use Facebook its worth getting on board with the "8/9th Civic Official Road Race/AutoX Group".  they're currently the place to be for racing info on these cars now that the model specific forums are essentially a graveyard.

I just found this on google

brake pad cooling fins

http://www.coolshims.com/coolshims-technology.php

what do you think ??????

In reply to californiamilleghia :

Looks like if you have space in the wheel for those, you also have space for a much bigger rotor - which will probably be more effective. Interesting idea though.

So squirting the brakes with windshield washer fluid isn't the answer, right?

Jaynen said:

Well, you can do a lot of brake cooling via ducts often people use where foglights were. Does anyone make one of these for the honda?

 

 

Home Depot Motors has the brake cooling ducts you seek, young Padawan

What about minivan brakes?