OEM / stock pads on track - your experiences

[MJanowich]

I've been reading a lot of brake pad threads on Camaro6 and a lot of track guys there use the the OEM Ferodo pads for track days and say they work fine.

I was surprised to find that the pad material for all 5th and 6th gen Camaro SS, 1LE and ZL1 are the same, the Ferodo HP1000-1.

For those of you who track on the stock/OEM pads, what have your experiences been?

[h018871]

They don't "bite" like a track pad, but do well without fade. They probably take more pedal pressure, but I don't know because that's all I've run.

[MJanowich]

Originally Posted by h018871

They don't "bite" like a track pad, but do well without fade. They probably take more pedal pressure, but I don't know because that's all I've run.

I've been looking through your build thread and if you're doing well on track with your car, which is probably much faster than mine, I think I'll do just fine with the stock pads.

[h018871]

Thx, I'm sure you could be quicker with race type pads. They allow you to carry speed deeper into corners. But I'm cheap and lazy, don't want to swap rotors/pads back and forth for track days and the race pads wear rotors quicker = more $$
At my skill level and lap time desire, I'm good with the OEM. Brake ducts and deflectors help a lot for longevity.

[MJanowich]

Originally Posted by h018871

Thx, I'm sure you could be quicker with race type pads. They allow you to carry speed deeper into corners. But I'm cheap and lazy, don't want to swap rotors/pads back and forth for track days and the race pads wear rotors quicker = more $$
At my skill level and lap time desire, I'm good with the OEM. Brake ducts and deflectors help a lot for longevity.

Yea, I already have brake ducts/Quantum duct kit and have used Hawk HP+ and Hawk Street/Race pads. I'm tired of dealing with swapping between street pads and track pads and also dealing with rotor issues involved with it. The Street/Race pads left a lot of smeared gunk all over my rotors, which caused them to vibrate heavily when braking around 40 mph. Then dealing with figuring out how to clean the gunk off, why it was there (was it from mixing pad materials?) and if the rotors were hot spotted or warped, I'm just tired of it all. I was able to break very hard on the track pads but I don't think it was worth the hassle of ruining my rotors or dealing with the noise when street driving with them.

[Norm Peterson]

Sounds like you overheated the pads - Hawk pad compounds all seem to drop off rather sharply after they reach their peak-mu temperature.

I've heated Carbotech pads to the point where the friction material actually cracked without getting any of the smearing or vibration that you've noticed. And rotor wear in street driving up at least through XP10 (R10 in G-loc) is nowhere near as bad as with HP+ (it's about the same as the 'plain' HPS).




Norm

[Pete G]

Originally Posted by Norm Peterson

Sounds like you overheated the pads - Hawk pad compounds all seem to drop off rather sharply after they reach their peak-mu temperature.

I've heated Carbotech pads to the point where the friction material actually cracked without getting any of the smearing or vibration that you've noticed. And rotor wear in street driving up at least through XP10 (R10 in G-loc) is nowhere near as bad as with HP+ (it's about the same as the 'plain' HPS).




Norm

Sorry about a stupid question : If the cracking in the pads as shown in the pic was to happen in the middle of a track day and you were not aware of it, how dangerous is that (providing there is still plenty of friction material) ?