These were on my 88 CRX Si and were run for approx 80 minutes (20 x 4). They were new at the beginning of the day, except for a proper bedding the week before. I would call the track "medium" as far as being hard on brakes. With the exception of a mild amount of chunking (which you can't really see in the pic) there is a good amount of pad left. However, both of the inside (piston side, 1st and 3rd pad in the pic) pads are bent and the wear is accordingly very uneven. I have a picture of the pad surface, but it looks pretty clean except for the chunking around the edges. My question is...are the plates bent because of heat or pressure? I want to know if I should be concerned about my calipers/pistons, or if this is something I could see form heat alone. This is the first time this has happened on this car, and I did have what appears to be an MC failure the following weekend. Any ideas?



Also, would you run them again?

 

A couple of things to check. Make sure that there is plenty of clearance on the backing plate "ears" that slide in the caliper. You are getting them pretty hot, and the ears grow when hot, and can bind. This could result in your bending the plate.

Call Larry at Carbotech, the new CRX pads have a thicker backing plate on them. I have been using them with no bending, but I also filed the ears on my backing plates to make sure there is no chance of binding.

edit: and there is no way I would run those again.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">are the plates bent because of heat or pressure?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes.

What are you doing for ducting?

 

Thanks for the responses, and thank you to everyone who IM'd me with info.

First off, regarding the "ears," I have never gone so far as to file them down. They fit pretty snug into the clips, but it seems like the clips are pretty easily overpowered by the piston and couldn't bind the plate. Maybe I'm wrong, since I can't see what everything is doing when it's in use. I suppose it couldn't hurt to loosen up the edges. It also sounds like I would benefit from a much thicker plate at the expense of less pad material. I guess there's no point in having all that pad left if the plate is toast.

Does bending the plates say anything about my technique?

As for the ducting, there wasn't any. That's the last session I'll run without ducting, so maybe this problem will go away with the addition of ducting (as long as heat is the issue and not just pressure).

 

Remove (some) of the heat (with ducting) and the plates won't bend under the same pressure.

 

Those pads still have paint on them... me thinks that they did not get too hot. My XP's were missing paint after my first session.

As for you question about using them again... I would not.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My XP's were missing paint after my first session</TD></TR></TABLE>

The new silver paint we've started using takes the heat much better. Trust me, those things got very hot.

 

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Trust me, those things got very hot.
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Man, you wouldn't know it from the way they were performing. I had zero fade all day long. The CRX is much lighter than my ITR was, so I figured it had more to do with less momentum. I had plenty of fade on the same track under the same conditions in the ITR with lesser pads and no ducting. Maybe the lack of fade let me push them too far.