After a track day of hard use, my brake pedal pulses

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Tammer in Philly
Posts: 10719
Joined: Feb 12, 2006 12:00 PM
Location: CHI, IL

After a track day of hard use, my brake pedal pulses

Post by Tammer in Philly »

PROBLEM: After going to the track, my brake pedal pulses like the rotors are warped.

CAUSE: NOT warped rotors! You are experiencing uneven deposits of pad material on the rotors which occurred while the pads were very hot on track. It is likely that you were using street pads and experiencing some brake fade.

HOW DO I KNOW? Go out and do several HARD stops from about 40-0 or 60-30 mph; this should help scrub off the pad material coating the rotors. If it doesn't work, switch to an aggressive pad (Hawk Blues work very well for this) and repeat. If it still doesn't work, maybe you actually do have warped rotors, but this is much more rare than people think.

SOLUTION: You've already fixed it! Next time you go to the track, get a set of track pads (Porterfield R4 work well) and bed them properly. I recommend a dedicated set of rotors for track use so you don't have to re-bed your pads at the start and end of each track event.

Keep the shiny side up and the pointy end forward,
tammer
Last edited by Tammer in Philly on Mar 12, 2006 8:24 PM, edited 1 time in total.
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