Just finished first track day at Sebring

[chester]

Car details
2020 model year
18 x 9.5 ET45 VR Forged D03-R wheels
275/35-18 PS4S tires - 31 psi cold
RBF600 fluid
Everything else is stock

Event
NASA two day event
4 runs per day, 25 minutes each
Instructor in car for all 8 sessions
Temp hit about 87 degrees each day

Report
Overall, the car was great. I didn't have any tire, brake, or overheating issues. The car was very predictable which was great as I was building confidence and speed every session. My lap times were improving about 3 seconds per session. To put my review in context, I eventually got to a 2:52 lap time, and the fastest lap I've seen with a stock CTR is 2:32.

I was prepared for the great handling, but the braking power surprised me. This thing stops quick. I only started to really hammer the brakes on the last session which was 30 minutes long. I was on the brakes hard enough for the rear to dance around, and even then, the braking system held up great for the entire session. I'm thinking about trying a track pad in the front next time. My thinking is that this would bias the braking more towards the front, and the rear would be more stable under hard braking. Is this the right line of thinking?

For gas, I probably could have run the entire first day on a single tank. We left the track for lunch, so filling up was easy to do. As speeds increased the second day, there was no way I could avoid a fill up. In fact, getting three sessions probably wasn't possible. This small tank definitely requires filling up after two sessions.

I really liked the NASA structure. Having the same instructor with you for the entire weekend was great. After two sessions of driving, I had a pretty good idea where the line was. Then I rode along with my instructor for his session. That allowed me to focus on the lines without the distraction of driving. Mentally comparing what I would do versus what he was doing really helped. Mostly though, riding in his track only GT500 was an amazing experience.

LogR - ughh. I didn't try reverting to older versions of Android or LogR like the other thread mentions. However, I did find a way to get LogR to reliably work. It wasn't 100%, but it was pretty reliable. Basically, you have to wait a few minutes between each of the four steps of starting your car, plugging in your phone, starting Android Auto, and launching LogR. That got LogR to launch and report temps and pressures, but I never got the lap timer to work on auto mode. No matter how many times I defined the start/stop location, LogR wouldn't register the laps. I eventually switched to manual mode, and that worked. Does anyone have any tips for getting the auto mode to work?

Sponsored

 

[chester]

Picture time:

I'm the red CTR, and @Buster340 is the black one. We bought our cars 6 weeks ago, bought the same wheels and tires, and hit Sebring together. There was one other CTR there. We never got a chance to talk with him, but we did get a picture at the hotel.

 

[AlphaDigital]

glad to hear you had a good time!

I too am interested in the brake bias question. Im running a GLOC R10 up front, and considering a square setup, as I have B Force pads in the rear.

So.. Square vs. Staggered pads, which setup is better? hmmm...

 

[chester]

glad to hear you had a good time!

I too am interested in the brake bias question. Im running a GLOC R10 up front, and considering a square setup, as I have B Force pads in the rear.

So.. Square vs. Staggered pads, which setup is better? hmmm...

Since we didn't get any answers, I did some reading. This thread has some good information and is worth the read. Regarding brake bias, here's the short version that I took from that thread:

1. Track tires are stickier than stock
2. You can brake harder with stickier tires
3. That produces more weight transfer than you get with street use, and the car's braking system was designed for street use
4. With increased weight transfer, you don't need as much braking force at the rear
5. Track usage should have front pads that are more aggressive than the rear pads

Taking the Paragon brake pad lineup as an example, the following combinations were discussed:
R5 - front
P3 - rear
OR
R7 - front
R5 - rear

 

[AlphaDigital]

Since we didn't get any answers, I did some reading. This thread has some good information and is worth the read. Regarding brake bias, here's the short version that I took from that thread:

1. Track tires are stickier than stock
2. You can brake harder with stickier tires
3. That produces more weight transfer than you get with street use, and the car's braking system was designed for street use
4. With increased weight transfer, you don't need as much braking force at the rear
5. Track usage should have front pads that are more aggressive than the rear pads

Taking the Paragon brake pad lineup as an example, the following combinations were discussed:
R5 - front
P3 - rear
OR
R7 - front
R5 - rear

I take issue with #4. With stickier tires and higher speed, you get much more front load with the car. My thought process is, since you get such high amounts of weight transfer, you work the front pads a lot more which is true of any type of driving anyways. This means you are more likely to overwork the front pads, trigger abs etc. Because of this, I would imagine you would want something aggressive in the back to help balance this out.

 

[chester]

To maximize braking, you want your front/rear braking forces to roughly match your front/rear weight distribution during braking. Since more weight transfer occurs at the track, you would want to adjust your braking forces accordingly. That's why you want a stronger pad up front.

Having a stronger pad at the rear would cause the rear to lockup. With greatly reduced weight on the rear tires, there's just not enough opposing force at the contact patch to overcome the larger braking force. The braking force wins and tires lock up.

 

[AlphaDigital]

To maximize braking, you want your front/rear braking forces to roughly match your front/rear weight distribution during braking. Since more weight transfer occurs at the track, you would want to adjust your braking forces accordingly. That's why you want a stronger pad up front.

Having a stronger pad at the rear would cause the rear to lockup. With greatly reduced weight on the rear tires, there's just not enough opposing force at the contact patch to overcome the larger braking force. The braking force wins and tires lock up.

You and I are on the same page, the question is how strong of a pad do you need in the rear.

Too weak of a pad in the back and your fronts do more work than necessary, youre going to diminish front pads prematurely, and potentially overheat/glaze the pad

Too strong of a pad in the rear and you run into locking the rears up more than necessary, but ABS would technically mitigate that. The other problem that arises when you use too aggressive of a pad in the rear is you may not put enough heat into them to get them into an effective range.

Again, I think you, me, and everyone else understands that front pads do the brunt of the work, obviously, its not isolated to just the track alone. The question is, how much of a stagger if any do you want in order to keep the rears working efficiently to help the fronts.

 

[MadMage]

LogR - ughh. I didn't try reverting to older versions of Android or LogR like the other thread mentions. However, I did find a way to get LogR to reliably work. It wasn't 100%, but it was pretty reliable. Basically, you have to wait a few minutes between each of the four steps of starting your car, plugging in your phone, starting Android Auto, and launching LogR. That got LogR to launch and report temps and pressures, but I never got the lap timer to work on auto mode. No matter how many times I defined the start/stop location, LogR wouldn't register the laps. I eventually switched to manual mode, and that worked. Does anyone have any tips for getting the auto mode to work?

I suggest write a review and contact support at [email protected]

The more of us tat give them detailed feedback, the more likely they are to actually make the app stable and usable. I sent the same info by email to them a couple weeks ago. And will update them again after my next session in a couple weeks.

 

[Dave B]

I take issue with #4. With stickier tires and higher speed, you get much more front load with the car. My thought process is, since you get such high amounts of weight transfer, you work the front pads a lot more which is true of any type of driving anyways. This means you are more likely to overwork the front pads, trigger abs etc. Because of this, I would imagine you would want something aggressive in the back to help balance this out.

It isn't that you don't need braking force at the rear, it is that with less weight on the rear wheels, there is less braking force available, no matter how much you want it. There is no way to avoid the fact that with greater tire grip, more braking is going to be done at the front and more heat will be generated.

I am a big fan of brake pad stagger unless you are running OEM tires where I am sure the OEM engineers got it right. OTOH, at the rear with better than OEM tires, you still need a pad that can handle heat as the rears will also get hot at the track and will likely be out of range of the OEM pad. What you do want is less initial bite than the front pad or else you will be triggering ABS all the time which is certainly not ideal.

As far as the OEM fronts, I am amazed at how well they function when hot but they wear very quickly and clearly are not really designed for track use.

 

[Sam3]

Today I heard two opinions about running different compounds at the front/rear. A rep from Art of Attack told me unless my car has big wing and a lot of downforce at the rear, I don't need a rear pad as aggressive as the front. That many folks who drive Type Rs use stock pads at the rear.

Then a rep from Endless explained to me that it's better to run the same compound at the front and rear. That Endless developed them to go together. I wanted to run CC-Rg at the front and MX72 (less aggressive) at the rear. He discouraged me from doing this and suggested that for the Type R, I should run both CC-Rg for the track in a square setup.

I don't think the issues with an aggressive compound on the rear is wheel lock-up. The ABS should prevent that. Otherwise the rear wheels will lock up under hard braking no matter how tame the rear compound is.

For my driving style (until it improves) and keeping traction control on in +R mode, I need a more durable compound for the rear. God wiling, I'll see how the square setup works soon at the track.

 

[HoboKit]

I never get why Honda people like to run different compound front and rear ?‍

 

[Dave B]

I never get why Honda people like to run different compound front and rear ?‍

Honda people aren't the only ones. I have been tracking and racing C5 Corvettes for years and wouldn't dream of running the same compound front and back. Tried it once with disastrous results. ABS would trigger almost immediately and quickly gave up the ghost giving me no ABS and an incredibly high rear bias and that is on a car that can use a lot more rear brake than a front heavy Honda. The car was totally undrivable.

As you notice, most OEM engineers engineer control front bias into their cars by having much bigger calipers and pads on the front. This takes into account the amount of weight that is transferred to the front and even the 50/50 weight of the Corvette needs a much bigger front brake than rear. The OEM brake systems are designed for tires that come with the car OEM. Before anti lock brakes were common it was a smart idea to have the fronts lock first as if the rears do and the car is turning, it is a recipe for instant oversteer which few people are prepared for. Add in the changes to dynamic weight balance that happen when using higher than OEM grip tires and even more braking has to be done at the front than the rear.

The question becomes one of temperature. OEM pads are designed for low temps and even rear OEM pads will overheat on track. OTOH, they will not require the same bite as the fronts or you will constantly be triggering ABS. (Constantly relying on ABS to save you on every brake application will quickly damage your ABS system). What would be ideal is to check the temps of the rotors and calipers immediately after a track session both front and back. If the rear is as hot as the front, there may be an argument to use the same pad front and back but in my experience the rear is always cooler and will do fine with a lower temp (and less aggresive) pad. Not likely OEM but still staggered. Many brake pad manufacturers make such a wide variety of pads that they suggest a stagger for many situations (witness the common use of Carbotech XP10 front XP8 rear or similar). Seems Endless doesn't suggest that which is interesting given the huge array of pad materials they offer.

 

[HoboKit]

Honda people aren't the only ones. I have been tracking and racing C5 Corvettes for years and wouldn't dream of running the same compound front and back. Tried it once with disastrous results. ABS would trigger almost immediately and quickly gave up the ghost giving me no ABS and an incredibly high rear bias and that is on a car that can use a lot more rear brake than a front heavy Honda. The car was totally undrivable.

As you notice, most OEM engineers engineer control front bias into their cars by having much bigger calipers and pads on the front. This takes into account the amount of weight that is transferred to the front and even the 50/50 weight of the Corvette needs a much bigger front brake than rear. The OEM brake systems are designed for tires that come with the car OEM. Before anti lock brakes were common it was a smart idea to have the fronts lock first as if the rears do and the car is turning, it is a recipe for instant oversteer which few people are prepared for. Add in the changes to dynamic weight balance that happen when using higher than OEM grip tires and even more braking has to be done at the front than the rear.

The question becomes one of temperature. OEM pads are designed for low temps and even rear OEM pads will overheat on track. OTOH, they will not require the same bite as the fronts or you will constantly be triggering ABS. (Constantly relying on ABS to save you on every brake application will quickly damage your ABS system). What would be ideal is to check the temps of the rotors and calipers immediately after a track session both front and back. If the rear is as hot as the front, there may be an argument to use the same pad front and back but in my experience the rear is always cooler and will do fine with a lower temp (and less aggresive) pad. Not likely OEM but still staggered. Many brake pad manufacturers make such a wide variety of pads that they suggest a stagger for many situations (witness the common use of Carbotech XP10 front XP8 rear or similar). Seems Endless doesn't suggest that which is interesting given the huge array of pad materials they offer.

but isn't that what modern car with EBD do?

 

[AlphaDigital]

I think personally, I will run a Gloc R12 up front and R8 in the rear or an R10. Danny at GLOC recommended R16s up front for tracks like Road America though. In that instance, I wonder if the amount of stagger will be too much (R8 rear, R16 front).

I believe in comparison to Carobtech, the R8 is an XP8, but the R16 I think might be an XP20

 

[Sam3]

My impression is that running smaller calipers in the rear is mostly for economic reasons. You don't need as much braking force in the rear due to weight transfer. A caliper at the rear with half the pistons at the front should achieve the same stopping force. It doesn't make sense for car manufacturers to use an equally big caliper in the rear. It's wasted money.

The biggest danger I see is when you use a rear brake pad with less modulation control than the front. When you're trail braking and as you ease your foot on the brake pedal and turn the wheel, if the front eased the bite while the rear is still biting hard, you're in for a bad oversteer and spin. But if the front and rear pads have same modulation control, they should ease up equally. I could be completely wrong. The track experience could be a different story.

Sponsored