firefisher

After all the PCCB and steel brake threads post on here I still find it amazing how confusing it is to choice between them. I heard horror stories about both ceramic rotors and pads burning up to the point where the yellow calipers turned brown, cars that can't stop / slow down on the first turn because not properly heated up and over heating if not cooled down when track session finished. It seams the weight loss benefit is not worth the trouble having PCCB. Should I avoid all cars with them? I plan on tracking about a dozen times a year and do a little street driving too. Both reasons for me to purchase a car.
I was under the assumption that if you heat them up early, take a cool down lap when finished and replace the pads at 50%, do your bleeding and fluid changes, the rotors will last for 10 years.
I second having a separate thread just for brakes. PCCB, steel and how to do conversions for a swap. I think that would make things easy for all for us.

Carrera GT

Sounds like you're running factory drilled rotors. That's pretty horrible durability.

I've seen the slotted Brembo's work well and prove durable.

I also want to find a rear caliper replacement designed to "hot swap" pads ... you know, they way Brembo's on Porsche were designed about 20 years ago ... : |

For now, I can run factory stock (street) pads on the PCCBs and they seem to be lasting, but the green track/race/competition pad is far too aggressive. And based on the advice from Preuninger, running the green track pad is going to kill the ceramics sooner rather than later. So I want to shelve the whole lot and put on something that will last a little better than the six or eight days you're getting.

I'm sure Porsche has solved the PCCB problems with the 4.0 RS.

Larry Cable

I think there is a great deal of rumor née legend about PCCB; you either love them, hate them, or don't care ...

While there are such stories, my personal experience with PCCB has been flawless, no lack of braking when cold, no overheating (although if you leave TC engaged on track you can generate a lot of heat and resulting pad wear on the rears)

I think a lot of the concern regarding PCCB is related to the gen one rotors and the real issue of replacement cost come the day they finally wear out.

Bottom line I think if you plan to track a lot there may be a case for steel replacements but this is really only to avoid the eventual replacement costs...

Larry Cable

Yeah what were they thinking? The brembos on the 993s were the height of simplicity!

firefisher

Well said: rockon:

TRAKCAR

FWIW, I've seen a local PCCB 2010GT3 that is tracked hard and completely destroyed the rotors.

I'm still OEM front and must have slotted next time around. Rears seem to last very long OEM, so probably won't pay to change those out, but would be nice to be ablt to change pads out without caliper removal.

Carrera GT

Yes, yes, and yes. But fluids and bleeding, well, haven't been an issue, though at least once a year won't hurt.

There's the rub -- the PCCBs won't last under normal track driving. They're light and they're effective, but Porsche chose a laminated design that just doesn't prove to be durable.
At present, the most current and useful threads are from savyboy and mikymu.
You can also look over the vendor and OEM information for Brembo, which I think is the only proven, durable bolt-on replacement -- in semi-affordable slotted steel floating rotors --and the different pad are not a big deal. There's also Stoptech, RSS (Girodisc) , AP Racing, maybe Alcon and others with various ceramics near to being available. The ZR1 ceramics might be an semi-affordable "over the top" solution (if someone can adapt the rotors/hats/calipers as needed.)
Given my current car could well be my only track car for quite some time to come (if Porsche goes as far off the reservation as some say is likely, the 3.8 RS and 4.0 RS could be "it" for many years) then I'm tempted to go with the MovIt technology -- the impediment there is a high cost of entry, but the claim is then very long life of pads (more than one full race season) and almost infinite rotor durability (in part because the rotor doesn't deteriorate or lose thickness and in part because it is a single material, not a friction layer bonded to a rotor core.)
So, lots of variables, permutations and combinations.

masmole

I see the slotted brembo rotors are ~$2600 for just fronts from vivid. Suncoast lists the oem front rotor replacements at $950. The slotted brembos are nearly 3x the cost! There is no doubt the slotted brembos will be more durable but are they 3x more durable? Then again, buying several more oem replacement fronts versus paying more up front for the slotted brembos does mean you're left to more frequent wrenching when you do have to keep replacing them. I think I may stick with oem crossdrilled for now until an easy and cheaper slotted alternative comes along that doesn't require special pads, perhaps girodisc?

Larry Cable

Not intended as a personal attack, but without some quantifiable information this is really just anecdotal (and thus worthless in evaluating PCCB vs steel at least costwise). How many days/laps (tracked hard), what tracks, what pads, were the rotors and pads treated properly (cool down) etc?

both are wear items, so the fundamental question is really are the weight/performance advantages of PCCB really advantages, and are the relative operating costs better, same, worse, acceptable?

Answering the former is tough, but with a little effort we can make a reasonable approximation of the latter with some basic information.

if we are serious as a community about gaining a better understanding of these questions then we need to get a little more scientific about this and less anecdotal.

We need individuals with particular pad/rotor combinations to at least accrue lap usage stats, how many, where etc along with costs of materials etc we would also need to document exceptional failures (cracking etc)

Carrera GT

I've seen the same thing with the seemingly bulletproof 380mm PCCBs on the 3.8 GT3 reach some sort of point of failure, after which, they fail very quickly. I want to stay short of that point of no return.
Unfortunately, there's tens years of mis-information and dis-information (early 996 GT2 rotors were notorious) and the whole "battle line" didn't exist between Porsche and its customers until Porsche drew the line. They started by saying "brakes for life" and "have at 'em" (with ads conspicuously removed from circulation) then blamed the driver, then modified the next generation of materials, dimensions, design and car design (cooling) and here were are, one step further along, but still not a finished product that works as advertised.

It's great to have the braking performance of the PCCBs, but not when they threaten you with failure and high replacement cost at the end of the day.

Larry Cable

To my point, some simple tracking of usage would tell us if the brembos are 3x longer lasting etc...approximation is usually more accurate than opinion.

Larry Cable

would be good if we knew what the MTTF was

NJ-GT

I have tracked the 996 GT3, 997 GT3 RS and Fiat on CCB. I have plenty of info from both Euro SuperCup race teams and U.S. based F-Challenge teams on their PCCB and CCB costs and longevity.

Bottom line, use those PCCB rotors as office furniture and switch to steel.

Some tracks are easier than others for brakes, Sebring is a killer one, I'm still in shock on how much brakes that track eats, Sebring should be sponsored by Brembo and Pagid, they should have a kiosko at the track.

PCCB current generation at Sebring with a decent driver at the wheel and r-comp tires, no more than 18 track days for the rotors and new pads every 3 days, if you use the stock pads and stock brake fluid expect new pads every day. That's around $1,200 per track day. At tracks without the brakes hunger of Sebring, very likely twice the number of track days are possible from the PCCB rotors.

Cost no object, stay with PCCB replace pads when they reach 50% of life.

Carrera GT

I haven't seen the 2010 generation of PCCCBs crack or overheat. If anything the rears appear to be good, it's now the fronts that seem to fail first. Of course there's the issue of PSM/SC/TC. I run SC/TC on and, last week in cold weather, lapping Laguna in 1:37.2's timed -- pretty quick in a heavy street car, so the brakes were working for a living -- but I could take a cool-down lap and park it and the rotors were all cool enough to touch as soon as I parked.

The annoying thing for me on the day last week was being up against a similar car and faster driver, running Brembo slotted steel rotors and having the same braking points. It was subjective, but on the fast braking zones, we agreed that he could close the gap. And when I was chasing, I couldn't close the gap. Grumble, grumble. Same car(ish) same weight (very close to both about 3200lb) and same tires (Hooters R6.)

Last I checked, one front PCCB rotor will buy a full set of Brembo's on all corners and pads.

TRAKCAR

Agreed and I will try to get details.

I was mostly posting to make a point that they can be destroyed quickly.

They might have been abused, sure. Not knowing anything, except that the car is maintained by Orbit and Orbit has been to the track with the driver. I have not heard anything about doing anything unusual and PBIR is a brake killer. PBIR Sebring are 2 tracks where you can hammer brakes hard enough to have the pedal go to the bottom eventually.