Brake Cooling - On the verge of Fabrication

[Sendero]

Originally Posted by QWKSNKE

A) you were using your brakes to much

B) How do you know they were to hot. Did you see them glow?


That brake system is designed to perform when hot. If you drive Brian's or my car with the Baer equipped pads, you will see that they do not brake that well until hot and when they hit premium temperature, those mothers really stop.

True and mine don't stop worth a damn until they are hot. But, and a long but, I didn't have many problems with fade until I noticed an extended session of stomping on the pedal. Like our jaunt throught the Dragon and Brians/Josephs/My blast down the Skyway. They do very well for a short period of time before the fade begins. I weigh more than the foxes so that doesn't help either. I am hoping the cooling ducts will combat most of this while keeping me within optimal range.

[Sendero]

Originally Posted by Wicked

I agree, but Nathan would rather buy something for $250 then make it for $30.

All in the name of science!

[TheJeanyus]

Originally Posted by Sendero

I weigh more than the foxes so that doesn't help either.

You think your car is heavy? Strap on a blower, intercooler, and IRS.

[Scothew]

Plus dont the 03's have an iron block?

Nathan, I say go for it with your design. Hell it cant hurt anything Plus if you make it good enough, there may be a chance for resale afterwards leading into some extra cash for the cobra fund

[96GTS]

Originally Posted by Scothew

Plus dont the 03's have an iron block?

Here's the R ducts

[Sendero]

Originally Posted by 96GTS

Here's the R ducts

Hey, thats the Sean Hyland stuff that costs about $400! Back to the drawing board.

[96GTS]

Originally Posted by Sendero

Hey, thats the Sean Hyland stuff that costs about $400! Back to the drawing board.

bdk-cf || Carbon Fiber Brake Duct Kits || US$244.95

[svopaul]

Nathan, please take this as constructive criticism and nothing more as I am trying to understand why/how your rotors developed cracks....

I am wondering about your driving style when it comes to braking...if you brake early you are going to get your brakes hot and overheat them causing excess heat and/or shuddering of the pads. Nobody performs late braking practices as a natural instinct and I suspect you don't either. I had to teach myself late braking as does everyone else and I am sure Craig did the same when he first started his performance driving. It is a natural instinct to brake far before you need to when coming to a corner/curve.....this leads to warpage, cracking, fade, etc from excessive heat. You would be shocked to learn how late you can brake.

This is the only conclusion I can come to with your problem....if you need brake cooling ducts on the street then you must be braking too early. On track they are needed at places like TGPR but not on an autocross course.

Since it's for school by all means do it since you can have fun doing it and get yourself something useful.....

But....

...I think the problem lies elsewhere.

[Craig K.]

Originally Posted by svopaul

Nobody performs late braking practices as a natural instinct and I suspect you don't either. I had to teach myself late braking as does everyone else and I am sure Craig did the same when he first started his performance driving. It is a natural instinct to brake far before you need to when coming to a corner/curve.....this leads to warpage, cracking, fade, etc from excessive heat. You would be shocked to learn how late you can brake.

This is the only conclusion I can come to with your problem....if you need brake cooling ducts on the street then you must be braking too early. On track they are needed at places like TGPR but not on an autocross course.

Like Paul said, when you first start to really drive hard, you'll always brake early, at tracks, as you make laps, you go deeper and deeper, until you loose it, then back off a hair. As you make laps, you'll start to pick out cracks in the pavement, or a tree branch or something to use as you brake markers. Yes you will actually look at cracks in the road at 120 MPH to deciede when to brake.

I also agree with Paul that doing an Auto X you'll most likely will never need brake coolers.

But I think that you should definatly do this as a school project, where else can you earn credit and get something for your car.

P.S. I didn't forget about posting some pic's last night, I just ran out of time.

[Sendero]

Ok, let me clear a couple of things up:

The ONLY time that I have experienced measureable fade was while we were at the Dragon. (Mostly on the skyway) This fade was induced by me purposely because I wanted to know how much they would take. I do not get fade in everyday driving.

The crack turned out ot be a rock ding that just happened to be right next to a crossdrilled hole. I looked like the beginnings of a stress crack, but I never got the wheels off to look at it closely. False alarm, everything is ok.

As far as my driving style... I am brake heavy and I know that. Thats just how I learned to drive in Karts and I'm doing it in the car. I've been working on that bad habit because it will put in into a spin quick, but all my suspension mods are helping the seperation process. But see my first comment on the fade issue.

As for the validity of brake cooling ducts on my car or not, Im doing this as a process of learning. I don't learn by reading books, I learn by turning wrenches and breaking things. Will the car every see a 200mph stop coming down the back stretch of Talladega Speedway, probably not. But will like the added benefit of cooling ducts and the knowledge of how to make them work on my cup car.