weneversleep

Don’t use race brake pads on the street.

I thought I’d make it work. Just like I thought that I could use street pads (Axxis Ultimates) and make those work on the track.

Horses for courses. Using race pads when driving on the street:

• Make tons of dust that, even though it’s not technically corrosive with my pads (Hawk HT-10), still can be a bear to clean off of my nice Contour II wheels
• Squeal horribly, so that it sounds like you’re an old rusty school bus every time you come to a stop
• Don’t give much stopping power when cold, so you’re constantly trying to keep the brakes warm in town, which leads to…
• Premature wear on brake rotors, because race pads operate in abrasive mode when cold

Of course, I knew all of these things before I started to drive with race pads on the street. But, it’s one thing to know something, and another thing to experience it. Even though the S2000 is my daily driver, I still want to jump in the M3 occasionally and drive to work or somewhere else around town. As it stands now, the M3 just sits in the garage (or, rather, my neighbor’s garage, who is so kind to let me use her empty space).

Which is sad, because it’s a really nice car to drive.

The Driver’s Edge track event at Texas World Speedway this last weekend was great. I officially was checked out to the Red run group, which is the “highest” group before you become an instructor. I felt very comfortable in Red, similar to how I felt when I first got promoted to Yellow. There were some other E36 M3s out there that I could keep up with, if not pass, and they were on race tires. In fact, I was probably one of the few, if only, cars out there still on street tires, and I feel like I held my own pretty well.

I had to get used to the race pads, as I expected. My heel-toeing wasn’t very smooth at first, because of the vastly different initial bite of the pads, but I got smoother as the weekend progressed. (My checkout instructor commented on this–I insisted it was the new pads.) Lots of dust created by the pads, as I expected, and some of the dust left some etching in my wheels. Oh well, that’s the cost of having a track car.

I’m still trying to decide when (not if) I will order race seats (leaning towards the Sparco Evo), 6-point harnesses, and a bar (probably a Kirk Racing 4-point bolt-in bar). I don’t think I’m going to tear apart my M3 to be a full race car, as I thought about before, because it’s too nice to turn into a $5000 piece of junk. But, it’s still my track car, and since I’m in an advanced run group, and the speeds (and aggressiveness) are high, I want to add some more safety equipment.

Overall, the M3 performed wonderfully, as always. Just an incredible track car. Oh, and no more coolant leaking, except for a little bit of spray, which I think was just the cap venting a little bit because the tank was a tad full. Once I wiped that off, I didn’t see any more coolant.

Next event is with Driver’s Edge, at Motorsports Ranch-Cresson, southwest of Fort Worth. I’ve driven this track once before last spring, with the BMWCCA, and I’m looking forward to going back.

Yesterday, I got my Hawk HT-10 race pads installed on the M3. I’d like to say that I did the work myself, but I didn’t. Curt did the work, and I watched and learned. In addition, we bled the brakes, flushed the coolant, and replaced the plastic coolant reservoir tank that had cracked. This is a known failure point in the cooling system on E36 BMWs, because the epoxy connecting the base of the tank to the top cracks. I knew that I was losing coolant, but it wasn’t until we pulled off the underpanel that we saw how much coolant had been leaking. It was everywhere.

Apparently BMW has redesigned the tank, and I shouldn’t have problems.

Why Curt didn’t replace the plastic tank when he overhauled the cooling system when I first bought the car, I don’t know. But, now, I can say that every piece of my cooling system is brand new, and hopefully I won’ t have any more problems with leaking coolant or overheating. Oh, and I changed the ratio of antifreeze/water to 25%/75%, plus added a bottle of Water Wetter.

Anyway, about the brakes. When I redid the suspension a couple of months ago, I put on Axxis Ultimates front and rear, hoping this would be a nice compromise of a street and track pad. I should have listened to everyone on the forums; there’s no such thing. Sure enough, the Axxis pads sucked on the track, overheating quickly, fading, wearing badly, and leaving pad deposits on the rotors. I really need a race pad. After lots of research, I decided on the HT-10. I thought about keeping the Axxis pads on the rear, but they were pretty worn, and I need to get used to the same bias front and rear anyway.

I knew the race pads would make noise, and yes, it sounds like a bus everytime I stop. I knew they wouldn’t have much friction when cold, and no, they don’t. I know they will eat my rotors, but I have an extra set. I knew they would dust, but I wasn’t expecting completely black wheels when I got home from Curt’s. Ah well, welcome to race pads!

I’ll be at the track this weekend to try them out. I made the mistake of bedding the pads on the street, but since I’m going to drive to the track with the pads on, the transfer layer will just be abraded off by the time I get to the track. So, I’ll have to re-bed at the track.

I’ve had this website for years, had the blogging software installed for years, but I never actually blogged. I’ve always been waiting for the “right time to start a blog”, but there’s really no “right time”. So, I’m going to jump in.

Mostly, this blog will be about my cars and driving them on the track, but I may occasionally delve into other personal areas.