Increase brake performance

1. Change the fluid anyway.
2. What kind of pads melted?
3. You might consider changing the rotors, to eliminate corroded cooling surfaces.
4. I'm guessing it takes a whole lot of heat to melt pads (even without knowing what material they're made of, I'm still guessing that). I'd check the calipers and flex hoses for even the slightest signs of damage.

Definitely, go with a better pad material. I have had discs glow red, but never have I melted a pad.

Do you have four wheel disc brakes on this car? If not, and if you want to continue racing in sports car type competitions, I might consider retrofitting them. I am not a big believer in crossdrilled and slotted discs for most purposes, but might put some serious study into them for racing.

I have boiled brake fluid before. It is not a pleasant experience, so I would suggest you not only upgrade your brake fluid, but that you also look into ducting a better flow of cool air to the rotor area, if your race class allows you to do it. Such a modification has to be done carefully. You will become rather unpopular if you start dropping pieces of dryer duct on the track.

Is overtaking a car - that probably has a higher top speed and almost certainly has vastly superior brakes - at the end of a long straight before a 180 deg turn a good idea?

Not IF you actually know how the car behaves. Sounds like the OP needs to learn how to drive his car and find out the limits it has. Or he could just try the same thing again and wipe out both cars...

Steve is right on track. You can always try to improve your ride, but until you KNOW your ride and drive with intelligence, you will still come up lacking.

I would have guessed that part of this is hoping or at least assuming that the other guy might also "know his ride". That would make it reasonably intelligent to assume that overtaking a Porsche at the end of a long straight with a hairpin coming up in a "stock" (= standard unmodified) Z28 Camaro is a dumb move. But please try to convince me otherwise.

ok, all of you hotshots that actually drive on a road course on a regular basis, hands up. The rest of you... shut up. :)

Thanks for the input, but all you guys apparently missed the first sentence in my OP. This was the first time I drove my Camaro hard on a track, and the first time I've experienced that much brake fade.

Now, I had been behind the 911 for a couple of laps, gaining on him on the straights. Figuring if I could get on the inside of him before the turn, he would let my by. Unfortunately, that's when my brakes decided to quit and I just managed to dive to the left on him before going off. Had the brakes worked, I would probably have passed him, and for the record, I did pass a BMW E92 coupe, a C6, a E92 335i sedan, and a few other cars so I wasn't exactly going slow. My "wide" driving style was also commented on, among others a NSX driver who was behind me several laps.

With that said, all I want is brakes which hold up to track driving and that I can trust.

Ulf

We are now all three on the same page...Anyone who knew his ride would not try that with a Camaro. You are taking a knife to a gunfight.

What % of racetrack/street time does the car see? If it's full race, don't bother with any kind of street pad. If it's mostly street, you won't be happy with race pads - you won't be able to get them up to temp on the street.

On my dirt track Camaro, I run Taxi/HD style brake pads. For a cheap upgrade, consider swapping in a 98-02 LS1 style braking setup, it's apparently better than your 97's. (I've done hotlaps in my 01 TA with the stock brakes and haven't had them meltdown yet, but they're only good enough... not "GOOD ENOUGH")

My $.02 is to head over to a place like ls1tech or a place more F-body specific to discuss brake pad formulations for a racetrack...

Ray

What I want to know is where they let you run like this? From your post, it did not appear that you were running with serious preparation of your car, but maybe I assumed too much.

Does running Beltway 8 in Houston qualify?? Competitors there regularly run in excess of 90MPH. ;>)

I roadrace an AS camaro (SCCA), and have both '94 and '98 street Z28s at one of the worst tracks, brake-wise, in the U.S.: Blackhawk Farms Raceway.

It sounds like what you experienced was brake fade (ie. solid pedal, pressing down hard, but vastly reduced braking force). If you had a soft pedal, or it dropped to the floor, you were experiencing fluid boiling (exactly the same symptoms as air in the line).

Fade is caused by overheated brake pads. The material that the friction material together becomes so hot that it begins to boil. The gasses come out at the surface of the pad, and get between the pad/rotor contact area, greatly reducing the friction between the two.

In the old days, you would be told to use cross-drilled rotors. This gives the gasses emerging from the pad surface somewhere to go. These days, pads are available that work at much higher temperatures, so cross-drilled or slotted rotors are mostly for "show". Performace Friction Z pads will probably be a good track/street setup. Porterfield, and Hawk Brake are two other manufacturers who make race and street/race pads that will work on your car.

If you are really serious about this addictive sport, I would look at the

website. There is probably a "how to" to upgrade your single piston, cast iron caliper setup to the 12" dual-pistion aluminum PBR calipers (this is what I use on the race car...and is essentially what was the seceret "1LE" option package on third-generation F-bodies (camaros/firebirds).

Getting some 3-4" aluminum, flexible dryer ductwork and cobbling up cooling air to your rotors is another cheap way to keep the brake temps down.

Next time out, though....try to work on that "red mist" in your eyes and pay more attention to how your brake pedal feels... and remember, if you can't afford to push it off a cliff, don't take it to the track...

--Ken

Yes, that's exactly what happened.

How much difference do steel braided brake lines make compared to the stock rubber lines? Do they really give you more feel?

You mean

:-) I think upgrading the brakes is a bit over the top for me, reducing brake fade is enough for now.

Yup, but next time I won't experience brake fade (hopefully..).

Ulf

If everything else is perfect, yes you will feel a very solid pedal. I forgot to mention in my last email the importance of brake bleeding. If you are getting the brakes hot enough to experience fade, bleeding often with good fluid will help with pedal feel, and lower the chances of fluid boiling. If you bleed often enough, you can use a fluid like Ford Heavy Duty, which a very high boiling point (but like most standard fluids is pretty hygrosocpic, and as such needs to be bled often).

As your laptimes go down, you may re-visit this problem again!

--Ken