Brake pad advice

[Mario149]

Collective wisdom please!

I've started to doing track evenings on a reasonably regular basis now, and it would seem that I'm eating through brake pads on my 996 C4S. I had new front pads and discs (OEM) from my indy when i bought the car, and the pads have lasted for 5,000 miles of road use and about 100 miles of track use before the wear light illuminated. I think the discs are okay, but cannot really tell tbh.

Anyway, so my questions are:

a) is this wear rate normal? bearing in mind that even on the track i prob only brake at 80-90% of what i could in order to save the brakes a little

b) are there any recommendations for non-standard pads from anyone? i'm not fussed if they stop me any quicker as the brakes on the C4S are monstrous anyway, but i would like them to last longer and save me some money!

c) what are the issues with say changing my front pads to some more specialised ones, while retaining the standard rear pads until they're due for a normal change (i don't want to bin perfectly good rear pads unless i absolutely have to....). presumably, if the front ones don't really grip more, but are just more hard wearing, there's not really a problem?

any help would be v much appreciated!

M

 

[Mario149]

addendum:

regarding disc wear, does anyone know (or know where i can find out) exactly what the minimum disc thickness is (for front and rears) on a C4S with standard discs before i have to replace them? i'd like to be able to measure it rather than just have to go on what a service guy tells me.

 

[danofesher]

Could it be that your independant didn't put Porsche pads in? - 5k miles is much too low in my opinion.

My guess is that the discs can wear down by 2mm - that's certainly the case with my car. Somewhere on the forum is a technical note about disc wear, both in terms of thickness and the fact that any cracks should not exceed 5mm in length(that technical note may only be visible to Club Members - if so maybe you should join?).

EDIT - here's a link to the info about disc wear (thanks to Richard Hamilton):

http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=295773&mpage=1&key=disc%2C5mm&#295773

 

[Mario149]

ORIGINAL: danofesher

Could it be that your independant didn't put Porsche pads in? - 5k miles is much too low in my opinion.

My guess is that the discs can wear down by 2mm - that's certainly the case with my car.  Somewhere on the forum is a technical note about disc wear, both in terms of thickness and the fact that any cracks should not exceed 5mm in length(that technical note may only be visible to Club Members - if so maybe you should join?).

EDIT - here's a link to the info about disc wear (thanks to Richard Hamilton):

http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=295773&mpage=1&key=disc%2C5mm&#295773

thanks for that info, v useful to know. I'll have a look when i get home, but i'm pretty sure they're okay at the moment

Is there any confirmation on the thickness of the discs question? I'm sure i can locate a micrometer to have a measure of them.

 

[Richard_Hamilton]

The info is in the Member's Only Technical section of the forum, but especially for you: https://www.porscheclubgb.com/legacy/clientftp/Register/996/tec_996_brake_wear_limits.pdf

 

[Mario149]

ORIGINAL: Richard Hamilton

The info is in the Member's Only Technical section of the forum, but especially for you: https://www.porscheclubgb.com/legacy/clientftp/Register/996/tec_996_brake_wear_limits.pdf

thank you kindly sir!

 

[dij999]

b) are there any recommendations for non-standard pads from anyone? i'm not fussed if they stop me any quicker as the brakes on the C4S are monstrous anyway, but i would like them to last longer and save me some money!

I would have thought that track day tyre wear and replacement cost would swamp that of brake pad replacement - that's my (limited) experience.

 

[Mario149]

ORIGINAL: dij999

b) are there any recommendations for non-standard pads from anyone? i'm not fussed if they stop me any quicker as the brakes on the C4S are monstrous anyway, but i would like them to last longer and save me some money!

I would have thought that track day tyre wear and replacement cost would swamp that of brake pad replacement  - that's my (limited) experience.

i find that compared to what i thought, track days are quite easy on my tyres. maybe it's the 4WD? AIUI, when the rears start to lose traction (i.e. skid/slide, which is when you really wear the tyres), it shuffles torque to the front wheels. plus, i don't powerslide like a hooligan or anything, or deliberately spin up the tyres. well, most of the time