Help with braking problem
Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2016 2:39 pm
Hey gang, I took the Civic to Buttonwillow and ran into very serious braking problems, and I was hoping someone could shed some light. It's a stock Civic Si, with the only changes being a rear bar, 225 RE71R and at the time, Project Mu Club Racer brake pads, that were recommended to me for track work by several people.
After 6 laps around Buttonwillow, the brake pedal felt increasingly bad, until on the cool down lap, I lost all braking except with the handbrake. My front pads and rotors looked like this:
These pads and rotors had approximately 500 street miles and an autocross on them before this happened. I was able to limp the car to Autozone, buy AZ replacement rotors and grind the pads down until they were level and free of grooving. I go back out the next session and it happened again to the new AZ rotors. I thought the pads might have been defective, so I actually had a backup pair of brand new Club Racer pads, which I paired with OEM Honda rotors, and the next session out, same exact result. I swapped on OEM Honda pads with an OE replacement rotor, no scoring/grooving, but had pad fade, so that was annoying. This ended my day since I was out of brakes at this point. I've since swapped on some EBC Yellows and Centric "High Carbon" premium rotors, but I'm done tracking this car since this is both very dangerous and very expensive to go through brakes so fast.
Brake fluid was freshly flushed with Castrol SRF, and calipers were inspected and are leak free, and do not seem to be sticking or dragging the pads at all. For the past 82,xxx miles the car has never had a problem on street, in the canyons or at Autocross with it's braking performance, so very confused what's going on here. As per Google, no one else seems to have issues with braking in regards to my chassis or these brake pads, which I've been assured are a very high quality pad. Any ideas?
After 6 laps around Buttonwillow, the brake pedal felt increasingly bad, until on the cool down lap, I lost all braking except with the handbrake. My front pads and rotors looked like this:
These pads and rotors had approximately 500 street miles and an autocross on them before this happened. I was able to limp the car to Autozone, buy AZ replacement rotors and grind the pads down until they were level and free of grooving. I go back out the next session and it happened again to the new AZ rotors. I thought the pads might have been defective, so I actually had a backup pair of brand new Club Racer pads, which I paired with OEM Honda rotors, and the next session out, same exact result. I swapped on OEM Honda pads with an OE replacement rotor, no scoring/grooving, but had pad fade, so that was annoying. This ended my day since I was out of brakes at this point. I've since swapped on some EBC Yellows and Centric "High Carbon" premium rotors, but I'm done tracking this car since this is both very dangerous and very expensive to go through brakes so fast.
Brake fluid was freshly flushed with Castrol SRF, and calipers were inspected and are leak free, and do not seem to be sticking or dragging the pads at all. For the past 82,xxx miles the car has never had a problem on street, in the canyons or at Autocross with it's braking performance, so very confused what's going on here. As per Google, no one else seems to have issues with braking in regards to my chassis or these brake pads, which I've been assured are a very high quality pad. Any ideas?