MagicCivic

recently i was lucky enough to experience a track day hosted by a local auto shop here. the experience was amazing and i learned a lot of things (what to do and what not to do). i never went off track but i did manage to get the car sideways once or twice (apparently youre not supposed to brake hard entering a turn- not the cars fault...wayyy driver error). all in all i had a great time but i noticed i need to upgrade my brakes (i did a search on this and got more confused than anything). while out on the track i felt two types of fade one right after the next. first being pad fade (the pedal got harder but the car wouldnt slow down) then i boiled the fluid getting pedal fade about a lap later. yes i know i should have pulled in and let the brakes cool down but there was a another car out there that had a good line and i was learing more following him than watching from the side of the track. i know its time to do some brake work but i have a few questions and im getting lost so any help would be appreciated. hers what i got so far:

97 civic ex - some mods

cross drilled rotors- theyre on there now and ive been reading that these are not the rotors to be using in almost any situation so theyre going. besides theyre blue in some areas. ive been planning on using brembo slotted rotors but everyone here seems to like blanks. is it because they have more thermal capacity than slotted? or is it because you can get replacements for free?

pads- right now im using kvr sport pads (theyre toast now). what im looking for is a pad that does well on the track (ill have a different set for the street with different rotors). so far ive been considering hawk blues or even hawk hp+ but some people have been saying good things about the panther xp. what about porterfield R4? all of those pads have a high coefficient of frction but i cant find anything as to temperature range the pads are good for....should i even be concerned with temp ranges?

lines- i think theyre still good but the only way to find out is to replace them.

calipers- i know one of my calipers is flexing at the slide pins (you can see it flex and it ends up pulling the top part of the pad). should i replace both calipers with stock units or switch to better calipers such as the fastbrakes kit or the kvr 'python' caliper? does anyone have experience with the python caliper?

fluid- i was told to flush it before the event so i did with motul rbf 600. i ended up bleeding it out after the event also trying to get my pedal to firm back up. is there any fluid that doesnt boil as easily?

ive heard someone say to get rid of the dust shields to help cooling...is this true?

the condition the brakes are in now is that they cant even lock up the tires under hard braking. the tires themselves are still very good (they didnt chunck) for a street tire. the next track event is in 3 weeks and im dying to get back out there but i dont want to fade the brakes again. any thoughts, suggestions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

MaddMatt

I recommend you remove these for track use before they crack on you and you have a serious problem. Just get some good-ole regular Brembos. Nothing fancy, works great.

click here

They're probably fine. Might be money better spent elsewhere right now.

Try just replacing the slide pins. They're cheap. I've fixed many brake problems by replacing bent/damaged slide pins.

What are you waiting for? Do it now!!

Umm...call me tomorrow??? (see sig for number)


[Modified by MaddMatt, 6:19 PM 3/12/2003]