Cooling !!

[Bill Pemberton Woodhouse]

A bunch of us ( Woodhouse, Archer, Mumford,etc. ) run Brakeman pads , as they have very even modulation, and their fluid is, in my opinion , equal to Castrol. The key point we all need to address though is cooling , as it doesn't completely matter what pads, fluid, etc. you are using, the brakes need to be kept cooler. I ran two full days at Road America last year with no fade, but I have Porsche air deflectors ( inexpensive way to get more air to the rotors ) and a brake recirculation kit. Stoptech rotors also run cooler and have the benefit of less weight on the front, but you need to run the correct pads ( example #3 Brakeman, but not #4 ). Many drivers , in stock cars , have complained that the brakes faded with the super hard pads, as they stopped well at first but seemed to generate too much heat.
Get rid of the stock pads, flush your fluid and get a set of Porsche Brake deflectors to start and you might find your problem is gone. After every weekend ( on the track ), you should change your your fluid - best preventive maintenance around.

 

[Henry Cone]

Bill, I will offer additional information on brake cooling though my methods are a little different from yours. I use Sean Roe's titanium brake pistons to reduce heat transfer to the fluid - it is a bit of a pain to rebuild the calipers but I feel that it is worth it. I also use StopTech's stock replacement AeroRotors for additional cooling in the rotor. For brake fulid I use Castrol SRF - expensive but I feel that it is worth it - there is no better brake fluid that I can find.

You are right about the Brakeman #3 pads as being best for our application - I have tried others but these are the best so far. But don't be foolish and run them too long - any pad loses its effectiveness after wearing past about 50% of its thickness. It also starts transferring more heat to the pistons as it wears thinner...

To prevent heat damage to the ball joints (particularly in the front suspension) I have fabricated a set of light weight, low cost ball joint shields. This is an area that some people miss but the heat will cause damage to the ball joint boots and can cause failure of the joints themselves due to the joint drying out.

The Stock and Super Stock Viper Days racers probably have to work harder to avoid heat problems in their brakes then any other group. We can't add larger rotors or bigger calipers and stay in Stock or Super Stock class. We probably run the highest rotor and pad temperatures of anyone on the track as a result. So Bill (one of the fastest Super Stock guys there is!!!) and others have had to work hard to solve the problems. You simply can't run hard if you don't have 1000% confidence in your brakes..

Since making these changes I haven't had any problems losing braking effectiveness due to fade or any other problems. And this includes running on some of the toughest tracks on brakes around..

Bill failed to mention that Woodhouse Dodge is one of the sources of Brakeman pads...

Sorry to carry on so long but this is a topic near and deal to my heart. Don't scrimp on brakes - they are probably the most important safety item on your car...