Cooked brakes at track, need complete overhaul [PICS]
 

Just got back from my 1st DE at Lime Rock in my '86 944 na. Turns out my brakes were awful and I ended up destroying them during my 2nd run. The pedal would go halfway to the floor before they would engage and then would need twice as much travel as usual to do any significant braking. I was running new ATE blue fluid so I doubt I boiled it. Here are the pics of the damge.

http://i1.tinypic.com/s1naqu.jpg
http://i1.tinypic.com/s1ndjp.jpg
http://i1.tinypic.com/s1nfo1.jpg
http://i1.tinypic.com/s1ng51.jpg

I'm looking for recomendations for a rotor and pad combo. This is a track car that only spends time on the road driving to events. It also gets autocrossed. And runs on street tires for now. (Dunlop A2 Sports). I'm looking for a good set of rotors and pads however cost is a factor for me. Anyone have any adive on what to run?

For rotors you really should be buying factory. Don't go with anything cross-drilled. Do you ever intend to race the car? If not, you can look into the wildwood upgrade that rennbay offers. Otherwise, you should probably just go with stock OEM rotors. The pads recommendations are going to be all over the place. I use hawk blues in front on my turbo with hps+ in the rear. I have more rear bias than stock.

What pads are you using? May want to try a different set of pads. Looks like they smeared a little onto the rotor. Drive it around on the street for a few hundred miles and the deposited pad material will slowly wear off. Probably will have a some vibration/pedal pulsing until it wears smooth again.

But overall, nothing too bad - I certainly would not call them "destroyed". Doesnt look like you have any stress/heat cracking starting.

It's most clear in the first pic, those silver streaks are 1-4 mm deap gashes into the rotor. I definetly need new ones. I'm not sure what kind of pads I was running, whatever the previous owner had bolted on, probably some cheap midas pads.

They don't look that bad, but based on you driving results you should upgrade.

My advice is KFP Magnum Gold. (available from Paragon-Products.com)

Then a set of new sold rotors. Also advisable are some 3" brake ducts. You can make these with aluminum ducting from home depot and a few hose clamps. Take out the fog lights and run them from there.

That should do the trick. If not you can swap to hawk blue pads. They can take alot of abuse, but are VERY hard on rotors if you run them cold and are prone to lock-up if you are not carful on the brakes. The KFP magunum gold is much better track/street pad in that it works fine for both. I raced for while on the KFP's and did well. I did however visit one track were they got over heated. That is when went the the Hawk blues. However my car is 100% track. No street driving at all and mimimal autocross. Autocross use is hard on Hawk blues since they basicly run cold and therefore work the rotors hard.

Like the other poster, I thought the first picture shows pad smears. Did you you run completely out of pad material and let the backing plate grind the rotors, or did the pads actually put grooves into the rotor like that? If you had plenty of pad material, that's weird?!?!?

There was infact pad material left, I lost about half of it but there was no contact between the backing plate and rotor.

If you only flushed the brake fluid once I recommend that you flush it a time or two more driving that car some between each flush. Looking a the pix I might be lead to believe that the PO did little extra work to the car. A flush does not get all the old fluid and crap out. Each successive flush will get more out. Check to see that the pistons and sliders are not sticking. a stuck piston will leave the pad pressing on the rotor and cook the brakes real quick.

A 944NA is good to go with stock brakes in good condition.

Just get solid oem rotors and some good street/track pads like the KFP Magnum Golds or Mintex C-Tech.

Are you sure about that? 4mm is a huge gash. Take out a mic and measure them as they really don't look that bad.

As others have said good pads + good fluid + cooling will doo the trick.

Btw, single piston calipers are just wrong on a Porsche :(.

They may not be sexy, but NA brakes on an NA 944 work QUITE well. (assuming you use the proper pads) ;)

I had never seen the and was a little suprised. Even my old 914 had 2 piston calipers (of course the rotor was about as thick as a slice of cheese...).

Alright so it appears I will going with oem rotors and the KFP golds. I'm looking at paragon products and I'm assuming that the rotors listed on this page is the one I'm getting correct?: http://www.paragon-products.com/pors...iscs_s/256.htm
The 1st one shown is what I thought I would need, however furthur down the page it shows a similar one only it's vented. Yet costs less???

And the pads just list as KFP gold, not magnum. Are those the same?

And finally what is the consensus on stainles steel brake lines?

Stick with OEM lines unless they are unavailable or wickedly expensive. SS lines have no performance benefit and are harder to see cracks/issues before they fail.

take off the splash shields....