Bedford Autodrome - Too hard on standard Mini Cooper S Brakes!!!

[MAFFA]

Okay so 3 weeks prior to my trackday on 22nd November on the full GT curcuit at Bedford Autodrome I had made sure of the following:

• New front discs (drilled & grooved)
• New front pads (Hawk Ceramic)
• New rear pads (EBC OEM)

This gave me ample time to bed them all in & get a few heat cycles through them prior to the track day.

On the day I did my first 3 laps at 9am. I limited myself initially to 3 laps at a time because the track is over 4 miles long and I didn't want to cook the brakes. I did this maybe 6 times before lunch at 1pm. After lunch I decided to take a longer run at it & did 5 laps. During the 4th quarter of the lap my brake pedal just seemed to let go & my foot almost hit the floor.

Take a look at the pictures!!!

Basically when I had got the car to a nearby garage we discovered that the inside pad on both front wheels had gone to the metal. The one on the o/s however had fused with the piston in the caliper when it had almost made it all the way through the backplate of the pad. The pad had then bowed with the heat & pressure

We did manage to bodge it by snapping the pad off around the outside of the piston and mounting a new pad without the alignment prongs on the back.

I do however now need a new caliper, but probably best to replace them both Thankfully refurbished ones are only £100 a pair but i'm seriously considering an upgrade. Probably on a budget though so i'll probably be on the lookout for a secondhand 4 pot JCW setup, Hi Spec setup or something similar.

MAFFA

[Bhozar]

Ouch. Something similar happened to me on a much shorter track. I ripped the pad material from the back plates but didnt overcook them as badly as you have.

I have heard the Hi Spec calipers are rubbish. If on a budget the JCW calipers with some decent carbotech pads from thinkmini will help do the job.

[MAFFA]

Hey ho! At least I was lapping 4 seconds a lap faster than my mate in his E46 M3

[Bhozar]

Quote: Originally Posted by MAFFA (original)

Hey ho! At least I was lapping 4 seconds a lap faster than my mate in his E46 M3

Nice work! Well done mate! I bet you'll remind him of that every time it comes up in the pub

[Bhozar]

Oh, forgot to suggest something else. Get some Motul RBF 600 brake fluid so you cant boil it and make some brake ducts. You could do it with some NACA ducts under the car and some flexi ducting aimed at the disks. Should be fairly cheap options.

[Tobes]

Should the JCW brakes on the new factory works hold up better?

How much are new pads for these?

[Richard Crofts]

Either R53 JCW brakes with carbotechs or R56 JCW 4 pot upgrade on carbotechs will be just the job mate. I have been in a stock disc carbtech padded car round bedford all day long and nothing even remotely like that happened. The car was running RBF600 just like Bhozar and me do, so that could help a bit with keeping temps building. However the other thing with race pads to remember is don't trail brake. Basically breaking like on the road ****s them up!

Drive hard at the corner, get your line then at the last minute stamp the break hard to scrub speed then let off and turn in then accelerate. The brakes last a lot longer if you do this in terms of building up heat. Lucky dave found this out driving bert round bedfor on the stock MCS brakes with carbotechs....I think they may have had GTT slotted discs on though, but these are stock size.

R53 JCW brakes are about £300-400 i think, set of carbotechs around £120-140 a pair?

R56 JCW 4 pots are approx £600-800 fitted i think.

Speak to ThinkMini about R56 or R53 set-ups and Carbotechs (seems your hawk pads are not as good as the catrbotechs mate...a race pad should not cook like that, if anouther one doesn't)

[Richard Crofts]

Alex also has a point on the ducts too...its a mod I'm doing very soon using challenge ducts on my aero kit.

[Tobes]

anybody track a new factory works?

How did pads hold up?

[Richard Crofts]

Problem is though Tobes that the R56 factory works and the R53 Mini weight totally different amounts, they have different rear dbrakes, different bias on the brakes etc etc... all this means that wear rates , heat and fade etc are all different on an R56 running R56 JCW brakes on a track to R53 running R56 JCW brakes on a track...its like comparing apples and pears.

However one thing i will tell you, the standrd pads in the JCW R56 brakes will still cook on a track even with bigger discs and 4 pots... The R53 JCW pad compound is not great and I expect the R56 JCW compound is not a great deal better.

Even if they use the same compound as found in the Brembo brake kit (brembo make the R56 calipers etc) then I think they will suffer, as they are still usually a streetable pad, not a race pad)... Your best bet it to buy a kit and then replace the R56 pads with Carbotech version bonded to the JCW backing plate ASAP if you want to track the car.

[Tobes]

Richard

Thanks for advice

Trouble is planning to track car saturday so not enough time to swap pads

can the carbotech version be letf on everyday for road and track?

[Richard Crofts]

I know that Alex uses XP8s on his porshe breaked car on the road day to day. Also ThinkMini bert car uses XP8s day to day as well as on the track. I believ James from fomsport also runs XP6 or 8s on the road (doesn't track his car yet). i believ bigred of 1320 fame is runningon carbotechs all the time too... so yes the right grade of carbotech can be used on the road too...XP8s all round should be ok as long as you remember thats whats in them and keep it gentle till they warm up first thing in the morning.

Be interesting to see how the R56 JCW pad lasts, i have a feeling it will suffer fade quick, but longevity will probably be ok as long as you baby them a bit.

[MAFFA]

I think I want to track my car again a fair few times but in order to do Bedford i'm going to have to re-think my brakes. Tracks like Goodwood, Brands & Thruxton are nearer to me & don't have anything like the high speed braking required at Bedford. These will probably be my next port of call...especially Goodwood as I can walk there .

I'm on a real tight budget so i'll just keep my eyes peeled for something to crop up second hand before I do another track day.....or save between now & the summer

MAFFA

[Tobes]

what speed do you get up to on back straight at bedord

What should the factory works get up to?

[Richard Crofts]

I think Bert was hitting 120s, running rich on the AF

I believe Bigshow was hiting 130s

I think Lee the 350 GTT turbo S hits 140s