hornetball

iTrader: (4)

I think you've already ensured that by showing up with a well-maintained Miata instead of a Porsche.

GTIWV

Thats a wicked looking track

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Back from the event in one piece, and so is the car. It performed almost flawlessly, the exception being the brakes. They suck *****. Huge, hairy, cheese covered *****. Overran Turn 1 during my first session (thankfully onto an extension of the straight, not offroad), and decided to go for the momentum line from then on out. Ended up knocking my times down from 2:15-2:17 to the 1:59-2:02 range basically brake-free, then on the last lap I said **** it and gave the brakes a what-for. They still sucked badly, but I knew what little they were good for and was able to knock another few seconds off and came up with a lap that was 1:56.67, which is essentially what my fasted Chumpcar laps were. I really can't express how bad these ******* EBC Greens are, just terrible. Open to suggestions for pad combos, and got as many opinions as there were Miatas at the event. The other Miata guys were on Axxis Ultimate, Hawk HP+, Porterfield R4, and a bunch of other pads I can't remember at the moment. I have brackets for 1.8 fronts, and will be buying those rotors when pads are purchased.

There were a lot of cars there, probably 30-35, and 6 Miatas including mine. Four were FI, two were NA, and I couldn't keep up with any of them for the most part thanks to the craptacular braking situation. Good group of gays guys though. I got a ride in an E36 M3 that was really quick, and got to feel what a good brake setup can do. He was running HP10s all around, and the damn thing stopped immediately every time, from any speed, no fade at all. There was a Heffner twin turbo R8 there, but it blew an IC coupler off (at 6psi lol) so he gave up because he couldn't reach the coupler without taking off the rear bumper. Fail. But it looked nice sitting still.

I shot some video, but the camera took a **** midway through the 4th session so I don't have any of my best runs. And not only that, the quality fairly blows overall, so unless I can work some magic on it I may not post any. I did however use Trackmaster, and that app is pretty damn cool. I question the g-meter readings from some of the laps (said I was pulling over 1.5g's at one point), but the rest of the time they were more in line with reality I guess, with peak readings of 1.15-1.2g's. Does that sound likely?

The Kumho XS were awesome. I can't say enough good things about them. They held on like nothing I've ever driven on, were incredibly consistent after they got warm, gave up grip at the limit in an incredibly controlled manner that was super easy to recover from, and still look great re: wear after the drive home. I can definitely recommend them if you are looking for an "extreme" performance summer tire for occasional track use.

Nothing under the hood leaked, melted, or came loose. I guess the Nord-lock washers are doing their job on the turbo flanges.

tl;dr - Great event; nothing broke; brakes sucked, will do again after upgrade.

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

On those brakes, make sure you flush out your old fluid and get something good in there. Your fade could just have easily been the brake fluid boiling (water contaminated -- they all get that way eventually) as bad pads. I got a nifty single-person air-powered brake fluid bleeder from Harbor Freight that works surprisingly well. About $20.

Anyways, good pads + fresh brake fluid is what you want.

02semiata

You really should be using trackpads and track brake fluid such as ATE Superblue or the motul RBF600. I DD/autox/track on XP8s all around on my car. HP+ will work also I would stay away from HPS or RS4's as they are a high end street pad not really a track pad

hustler

iTrader: (6)

He's trying to track a 200whp Miata on 9" rotors, lol.
He has this:

He should get this:


For now, you're going to really struggle on those tiny-*** brakes and melt-down bearings in the process. I suggest that at the least you get the M-tuned rear "Sport" brake upgrade, a bias valve, and the biggest front brakes you can find until you can afford the TSE kit. You should run Hawk Blue up front because that's the only pad I've run that didn't taper. Get some Alcon temp strips from HRP World (McMaster has less desireable heat ranges for brakes) and rotor paint to see what you're cooking, this information will tell you a lot, like which end of the car has the fade problem. When I had the sport brakes my bearings were seeing 400*f and cooking bearing grease, AMSoil grease will help immensely in the front and rear.

There are people who are "making it work" on OEM sized brakes like Spoolin2bars so talk to him and see what he's doing. Those huge TSE brakes are awesome awesome awesome and although they aren't cheap, they're worth more than the price-tag.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Thanks for the tip on the bleeder. I'll grab one of those. And prior to the event I flushed the entire system with Valvoline DOT 3/4, which someone here posted about. It's rated at 480*, not as high as the ATE or Motul fluid but better than the who-knows-what that was in there.

Thanks for the pad suggestions, too. I want to say one of the Miata guys was on HP+. How do the XP8s feel on street? And are they really noisy when cold? Are you using a manual bias valve?

I'll definitely be making it work on factory brakes for the foreseeable future, as my budget is on the smaller side. I've got the front 1.8 brackets, are the Sport rears larger than the 1.8s? I'm assuming they are. I'll hit up Spoolin as well and see what he's running. Nobody there yesterday in a Miata had anything larger than NB Sport brakes, they all claimed to experience no fade, and they were braking far better than I was. One guy was on R4 all around (not R4S), another had HT10 front/Axxis Ultimate rear, can't remember the other setups. Somebody was selling a set of R4 for front 1.8s for $65 and I almost just grabbed them, but I feel like I need to be a little more pragmatic about this rather than jump on what's cheapest.

Bottom line is I'd like something that's reasonably street friendly (not my DD), but holds up well on track, too. I'll rarely see track days due to finances, so aggressive mountain/canyon carving is the majority of the action the car will get. Not worried about swapping pads for track use if in reality that's the best solution given I've got no funds for a BBK.

I'll check out the temp strips and see where I'm getting the hottest...great suggestion.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Just took the car out for an errand this morning. Brake pedal is softish, and when I pump the pedal engine revs increase but it does not firm up. Leak in booster line?

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Sport rears are larger than the fronts, but that's what the bias valve is for. The rotors are cheap and will last much longer than the stock rears, which really take a beating on my car.

You're not going to find a decent dual-duty pad for such a small rotor. I recommend you run Vatozone pads for the street and swap them out for Blues at the track, all the way around. You're going to fight pad taper more than heat when you start pushing the brakes and in my experience Blues did the best job, PFC01 was good, Carbotech was not. (Insert comments about how I didn't bed them properly as the get-out-of-jail-free card for CT pads)

I recently ran the car with theTSE huge kit up front, and 1.8 brakes in the rear. They were okay on the track, but when I'd slow down or park, the rear calipers would heat-soak to 500*f+. When I put the sport brakes on, the hottest the temp strip ever saw was 330*f, the front TSE brakes are 290*f.

You're going to be in the 400-500*f caliper temp range with factory brakes, plan accordingly.

Also remember that with the TSE kit, you will eventually save money. Pads are $60 and replacement rotors are $32, I might be able to run 8+ days on a set of pads, and entire season on a set of rotors. With factory brakes I was going through pads every 2-days and cracking rotors every 4.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Trash fluid, tapered pads, trashed bearings, or leaky caliper seal...I've never heard of any brake booster going bad but it's plausible.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Is there a manual bias valve out there besides what FM sells? For $70 and the right fittings it seems OK price-wise, just curious. Or should I just grab a proportioning valve from the same year car the brakes come from (assuming I do front and rear), as the TSE Wilwood kit is light years ahead of my budget at this point. I figure there are so many variables that a manual one is the way to go.

There was a guy at the track in a 2.8L turbo swapped '73 240Z, and he was using the Blues. Said they were great, so I'll definitely keep those in mind.

Savington

iTrader: (31)

Buy a set of our upcomimg ducted backing plates, a set of Hawk DTC60s, and put the 1.8 brakes on the front at a bare minimum. This is still not enough brakes for a 200whp car, eventually you will start to taper the pads because the stock calipers are piles of ****. You need a BBK eventually, so plan for it.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Which of these are you using?

http://www.harborfreight.com/brake-b...kit-92474.html

http://www.harborfreight.com/brake-f...der-92924.html

They are both $25, so not sure which one.

This is most certainly the route I'll be going at least for now, and I'll save up for a BBK to happen at some point in the future. I'll keep an eye out for the 1.8 rears to pop up. Link to the backing plates? Or are they still not that far along yet? I didn't see them on your site, or find them here in a quick search.


And generally, with the factory setup from any year, the bias tends to be towards the front, correct? So putting grippier pads and/or larger rotors on the back would help balance that out if no manual bias valve is used?

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Buy the $70 bias valve and the Mt-tuned rear kit and you are good to go on rear brakes and the prop valve for any future mods. The bias valve will let you run the big rotors in the rear with less fluid going to them so they don't overpower the fronts. You can run 1.8 rearbrakes if you want but they will still overheat and you'll have to buy the M-Tuned stuff when you man up.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

OK, so the M-tuned kit will allow me to adapt my stock 1.6 rear calipers to use with Sport rear rotors, as in this set of brackets: http://949racing.com/miata-big-rotor-kit.aspx

Any compelling reason to use those brackets instead of the factory hardware, besides availability?

The front set would allow for the Corrado rotors to be used, and based on the info below from M.net they are larger than the Sport fronts, but only by about 0.4". I have not searched here for opinions on that setup but will be doing so.


Another important consideration for this conversion is that anything I upgrade to needs to be able to fit under my stock 15" wheels ('97 STO Enkeis).

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

I got the second one (pneumatic) because I have a compressor. If I were a man like Hustler, I'd get the first one to build up my forearms.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Ok thanks.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

I use a Motive bleeder converted to "reverse bleed" when I flush lines. Aside from that, I just pump the pedal.

jacob300zx

Pads (xp10, blues, dtc60's, etc), 1.8 brakes, and ducting is plenty for Kumho XS's.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

I just read a thread over on M.net from '07 where you were still on HP+ pads, and by the end of the thread had run R4s and were happy with them on the stock rotors/calipers. It also seems that you had roughly the same amount of power then as I do now. How long did you go with that combo, and ultimately, why did you go bigger? More horsepower?