How many Quarts of Brake Fluid?
 

I'm getting ready to take my Camaro out to an open track day at Miller Motorsports in Utah. My buddy from High School is an instructor at the Porsche driving school out there. He said that I should change my brake fluid to Castrol SRF, it's $75 a quart. Does anybody know how many quarts the Brembos require on the SS? is it hard the flush the system? Will it void any warranties?

Well don't expect any brake warranties after you go to a trackday, regardless of which type of fluid you use. You will probably go through a set of pads in one trackday, and maybe even one set of tires.

Seems as though there are important people watching this forum, and you have your VIN posted. Just throwing that out there.

Flushing the system is easy if you have a vacuum pump, they say you can't mix the Castrol with other brake fluid so you must empty the system by sucking it all out, refill and bleed system.

why would you rely on varied forum information on how many whatever fluid goes in a car when your car's manual is the most accurate and trustworthy source for that kind of information? :iono: but if that is not included in the manual, rule of thumb is, you pump til you get a steady trickle. Sounds like you bled brakes before so it you should know that you start with the brake furthest from the MC.

That's a Porsche driver talking lol. They always seem to feel if they aren't paying 10 prices for everything somehow it's not good enough. Try some SuperBlue

http://www.tirerack.com/brakes/ate/a...blue_fluid.jsp

It's only $12 a bottle and you can use it on the street too unlike SRF.

You can bleed the brakes fairly easily one of 2 ways; either get a set of Speed Bleeders to replace the stock bleeders, or if you are going to do performance driving often you might want to invest in a Power Bleeder:

http://www.speedbleeder.com/

http://www.motiveproducts.com/

There's a nice video on Motive's website that shows how to use their Power Bleeder which makes it a lot faster and easier to bleed the brakes.

JMHO...
just use what you already have in there from the factory...after you are thru take a look at the fluid and smell it...if it is black and smells burnt then it will be time to replace...

There are a couple of high performance brake fluids that have two different versions, one blue and the other amber (I think) so you can tell when the old fluid is flushed.

- SK

Your brakes will fail well before this at a track day. Maybe even after less than 1 lap depending on the course. I would have stainless steel lines and race fluid done before going there. Depending on if the humidity where you live is higher vs where the track is, I would possibly wait until I was there to change the fluid.

- SK

Super DOT 610 Racing Brake Fluid
http://www.bakerprecision.com/neobrk.htm

...or Amsoil series 600
https://www.amsoil.com/storefront/bf4.aspx

You don't need the exotic stuff, and as far as fluid amount, call your dealer, the service dept. should have that info. (3-12 oz bottles should do brakes and clutch)

Good brake pads and stainless lines are good recommendations also, spend the extra money you save on hi-temp fluid and buy some Hawk brake pads.

Hawk HP Plus pads
http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30356
http://www.hawkperformance.com/performance/hpplus.php

The car should take about 1 litre or 0.25 gallons or 1.05 quarts of brake fluid for a complete change. I have a call in to the service manager to confirm that. To be safe I ordered 2.5 litres.

- SK

well, the manual also says to baby the car during break in... and we've seen how that has turned out for some of our members.



I would say SuperBlue, along with braided lines.

A set of brake pads and tires in one track day?! C'mon! :)

Not that I'm an expert, but I have been to three HPDE track days: Lime Rock, Loudon, and Watkins Glen. I had 23K on the original brakes and tires when I went to Lime Rock in Nov 2007. Then in Aug 2008 at Loudon, I was still on the original brakes and tires at 32K miles. At 37K miles, I decided to replace the original tires, but only because it was winter and I had to be ready in case of snow - otherwise I could have waited at least 5K more miles.

Finally, I decided to upgrade the brake pads to Hawk HPS before going to Watkins Glen on July 13 2009. The original pads still had about 1/3 material left when I replaced them at 42K miles.

Your mileage may vary, but I never heard of anyone using up a set of brakes or tires at an HPDE track day.

Brake fluid has a shelf life, and it's reduced drastically in an opened container. If you got the high dollar stuff, you might see if someone at the track needs some.... Use it or lose it.

I will use a full litre upon setup and after that, the bottles are purged with dry nitrogen at the factory so it should last at least 3 months which is when I would expect to have to change it again.

- SK