Brakes overheating?

[Shin_Kudo]

I've been getting consistently faster and faster on the touge recently, and I just hit a new problem. After my run, my brakes were so hot that they were smoking! They also exhibited a good deal of fade until they cooled. What can I do to avaid having this happen in the future?

Mostly, I'm talking about mods that would channel more air to the brakes. Are there any such things?

Would getting some rims help with this? I'm running on steelies, which don't allow a good deal of air to get to the brakes, and I'd imagine that that's part of the problem. The Gram Light 57Cs i'll be getting should allow much more airflow to the brakes.

Also, I'm considering a brake kit, the one that's in the group buys section. It seems to me that drilled and slotted rotors would probably help a lot with the heat problems. Will they make a real impact?

[Dousan_PG]

um....upgrade
lines pads rotors fluid

that'll do the trick!

[skatanic28]

if you want more heat capability bigger rotors are a must. drilling and slotting really dont do too much for heat.
air cooling is a pretty good idea, you could make some ducting from the front fascia. im not sure but i think this would be a DIY job.

[thx247]

If you are running stock rotors and pads it doesn't take a whole lot of effort to over heat them. Driving down hill could easily do that inside of 2 minutes.

Depending on how aggressive you plan on driving there are a couple of things you can do:

1. Change the pads to a street/light track pad

2. Change the pads to race pads. This will require rotor resurfacing or new rotors. Race pads will cost you $100+

3. Upgrade the brakes to silvia brakes or Z32 or Q45


Personally I think option 1 is pointless, you can't get a good street AND track pad for stock 240sx brake system.You either have a crap "light track pad" that doesn't work very well on the street or the track, or you have option 2....

Option 2 is better- you can get a race pad that will work on the street with noise and slightly poor cold performance. A race pad won't be compatible with your rotors so you need to get new rotors or resurface the old ones. I would just buy new ones, they are only $25 more than having rotors resurfaced around here. Brake performance will be adequate for a stock powered 240sx, but I think any KAT or SR powered car would ultimately chew through rotors and pads too quickly for option 2 to be worthwhile.

Option 3

Silvia brake upgrade - Same sized rotor as Z32, slightly thinner (2mm), caliper bolts right on. No need to upgrade brake master cylinder. And usually you can find the whole system for less than $60 bucks. I don't know why more people don't go with this option.
-Stock brake pads - You will notice a slight amount of increased brake torque, and an unmeasurable increase in heat capacity that imo, will not be adequate for tracking the car.
- Race pads - Huge increase in brake torque, even when cold. When the pads are hot and grippy there is more braking power than you need. You can run this setup on a stock 240sx for over an hour of track without any signs of fade. In a somewhat stock SR car we have no issues running this setup at the track, with the brake temps we are seeing on the SR car I think we could easily run 250-275hp and still not have a problem. (Note, the SR car has a suspension going for it as well, so keep that in mind) The only problem I see with this setup is when going down hill the rear of the car gets light when you get on the brakes. It actually hinders going down hills quickly.

Z32 - No experience with this setup. I am hoping that this setup with race pads will fix the downhill problems I currently have by balancing out the brakes. On the track I expect very similar braking performance to the silvia setup, with a slight decrease in operating temps and better brake balance. This option is expensive compared to the silvia setup and could put you upwards of 500 dollars.

Q45 - no experience with these, but I imagine they perform exactly similar to the silvia brakes. Might actually be harder to find than silvia brakes too.


These impressions are based on cars using street tires. I think when I switch to R compounds option 1 won't be worthwhile since the rotors are going to get eaten up quickly on the track, option 2 will work but the weight transfer forward will seriously screw up the balance of the car on the track, and I don't even want to think about driving down hill with stickier tires. The Z32 brakes will probably fix most of my problems I will run into using R compound tires, but I'll probably need a bias adjuster to make the best use of the brakes on the track.

If I ever get around to putting a stiffer suspension on the car alot of my weight transfer problems will probably sort themselves out.

Brake ducts, upgraded brake lines and better brake fluid also impact brake performance but in different ways than rotors, calipers and pads.