Mustang GT Non performance pack 4 piston brakes - Track use

[Commbubba19]

guessing you’ve never seen the Brembo dust shields? That's them in the picture. LOL.

Makes sense. Otherwise it wouldn’t work.

doesn’t change anything else I said though.

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[mustang5o]

It depends on how fast you want to go. Back in 1995 my cobra mustang had four piston calipers and were considered to be the best available on a production car. Times change and tech. is improved. I am a firm believer in learning your cars limits before you mod anything. The best mod is you and that is called seat time. However, to start with just change the pads to a track type pad and upgrade the rotors to high carbon slotted rotors. Bleed the brake fluid with some dot 4 fluid. I use the color change method. I flush out the brake system using Blue ATE dot 4 and when the color is nice and blue I know i have done a good flush. Then the next time out I use Motul dot 4, when the color is nice and gold in color I know its been flushed. You get the pitcher. .

Do they still make the Blue? I thought they stopped making it. Google here I come...

The standard GT brakes are pretty good. In fact the standard GT brakes on the 15+ cars are quite an improvement over my '14 Brembo brakes.

You should have no problem tracking those brakes, but I would get pads meant for the track and swap the brake fluid out every few times. Just my opinion.

I would bet money on a proper S197 Brembo setup coming out on top in a comparison. Better pad options and cooling availability.

Read this: https://www.vorshlag.com/forums/for...0-brakes-uses-limitaitons-and-upgrade-options

"I ran these stock 14" brakes with the brand new factory pads and the teenie tiny 235mm wide base GT mud and snow rated tires and they lasted 8 laps on a "brake easy" track, in our first track test # 1. EIGHT LAPS. After the 7th laps in that first test session they were no longer capable of stopping the car at even my mild .85 g stops. I almost went off track, so I came in. The (Motul RBF600) fluid we had in there never boiled, I never had a "soft pedal", the damn car just wouldn't stop anymore."

If you are going to track it for casual fun, maybe you'll be OK with pads and fluid with your reverse hat rotors. Otherwise, investigate the options listed for PP take offs. If you upgrade the calipers I believe you also need to upgrade the master cylinder. I think Vorshlag covers that as well (I wasn't about to read the whole thing...again).

 

[CORNYOTE]

I bought a full set of PP brembo take offs with less than 8k miles for $500. That’s about the going price and that’s a freaking steal for what you get. Lots of drag guys looking to ditch the brembos because they won’t clear a 17” front runner off a drag pack.

I did not upgrade my master cylinder and they work perfect. Plenty of people doing the same. I don’t think Vorshlag got them bled all the way honestly.

 

[Grintch]

Right. Vorslag tested with stock GT brakes, the PP brakes, and a 2 pc rotor big brake upgrade. Result - when driven hard by a experianced track driver, the stock GT brakes give up after a handful of laps. The PP brakes hold up way better but pad wear is a bit high, and maybe they get a little soft at the end of a long, demanding session. The race brakes provide more stopping power and better pad life (maybe not a fair comparison given they also had cooling ducts).

If you have never been on track before the stock GT brakes are probably OK. But as your confidence and experiance improves, you will want to updrade them if you want to keep getting faster. They tested upgraded pads and they weren't a big help.

I think PP brakes + cooling and/or more track oriented pads is enough for most people. Pure stock works well up to MPSS class tires.

If you are really fast and are running Slicks or semi-slick Hoosiers, high end/GT350 brakes might be worth the extra money.

 

[aerok]

It depends on how fast you want to go. Back in 1995 my cobra mustang had four piston calipers and were considered to be the best available on a production car. Times change and tech. is improved. I am a firm believer in learning your cars limits before you mod anything. The best mod is you and that is called seat time. However, to start with just change the pads to a track type pad and upgrade the rotors to high carbon slotted rotors. Bleed the brake fluid with some dot 4 fluid. I use the color change method. I flush out the brake system using Blue ATE dot 4 and when the color is nice and blue I know i have done a good flush. Then the next time out I use Motul dot 4, when the color is nice and gold in color I know its been flushed. You get the pitcher. .

Motul DOT4.0 Is in the car now, pads still in the process of investigation.. at this point I am thinking Hawk DTC60 or DTC70. Any other suggests? Other brands?

 

[aerok]

Right. Vorslag tested with stock GT brakes, the PP brakes, and a 2 pc rotor big brake upgrade. Result - when driven hard by a experianced track driver, the stock GT brakes give up after a handful of laps. The PP brakes hold up way better but pad wear is a bit high, and maybe they get a little soft at the end of a long, demanding session. The race brakes provide more stopping power and better pad life (maybe not a fair comparison given they also had cooling ducts).

If you have never been on track before the stock GT brakes are probably OK. But as your confidence and experiance improves, you will want to updrade them if you want to keep getting faster. They tested upgraded pads and they weren't a big help.

I think PP brakes + cooling and/or more track oriented pads is enough for most people. Pure stock works well up to MPSS class tires.

If you are really fast and are running Slicks or semi-slick Hoosiers, high end/GT350 brakes might be worth the extra money.

I have been in track days before, is just is my first proper project (paid by me) and not borrowed cars. The stock brakes are perfect to my level I think. The pads and rotors are my complain. I have putted Motul Dot4.0 for next track day and have decided to keep OE rotors until they fail. Pads wise I am considering Hawk's DTC 60 or 70. Do you have another suggestion? I am using for next track day Pirelli's Trofeo R

 

[aerok]

Do they still make the Blue? I thought they stopped making it. Google here I come...



I would bet money on a proper S197 Brembo setup coming out on top in a comparison. Better pad options and cooling availability.

Read this: https://www.vorshlag.com/forums/for...0-brakes-uses-limitaitons-and-upgrade-options

"I ran these stock 14" brakes with the brand new factory pads and the teenie tiny 235mm wide base GT mud and snow rated tires and they lasted 8 laps on a "brake easy" track, in our first track test # 1. EIGHT LAPS. After the 7th laps in that first test session they were no longer capable of stopping the car at even my mild .85 g stops. I almost went off track, so I came in. The (Motul RBF600) fluid we had in there never boiled, I never had a "soft pedal", the damn car just wouldn't stop anymore."

If you are going to track it for casual fun, maybe you'll be OK with pads and fluid with your reverse hat rotors. Otherwise, investigate the options listed for PP take offs. If you upgrade the calipers I believe you also need to upgrade the master cylinder. I think Vorshlag covers that as well (I wasn't about to read the whole thing...again).

Yes ive seen the video and read the information. Something in Vorshlag's review mentions is that the issue is not the caliper itself, but the rotor. I would like to understand if keeping caliper and changing rotor would be sufficient at least at my current skill level. My next step is to change pads. Do you have any suggestion. At top I have Hawk's DTC60 or 70

 

[JohnD]

If your car is largely stock DTC60 or 70 are far beyond what you should be looking at. My car is highly modified and runs lap times that are class winning numbers in Time Attack and I run DTC50/DTC30. I get about .5 mm of wear for a track day on the fronts, rears are barely measureable. You need brake cooling though, I would suggest that you work on that right off the bat. I have the FTBR kit and it made a huge difference.

 

[aerok]

If your car is largely stock DTC60 or 70 are far beyond what you should be looking at. My car is highly modified and runs lap times that are class winning numbers in Time Attack and I run DTC50/DTC30. I get about .5 mm of wear for a track day on the fronts, rears are barely measureable. You need brake cooling though, I would suggest that you work on that right off the bat. I have the FTBR kit and it made a huge difference.

I did not find DTC 50 at Hawk's page. For my car only available HB802G.661 which is DTC60 (or 70) and DTC30 I believe only for rears. That's why I am saying DTC60, and read in other articles that this is based only on th weight of the car so heating brakes is common and 60/70 are better for temperatures reached. You are mentioning DTC50, where did you find those? Mine is 4 pots front calipers

 

[JohnD]

I did not find DTC 50 at Hawk's page. For my car only available HB802G.661 which is DTC60 (or 70) and DTC30 I believe only for rears. That's why I am saying DTC60, and read in other articles that this is based only on th weight of the car so heating brakes is common and 60/70 are better for temperatures reached. You are mentioning DTC50, where did you find those? Mine is 4 pots front calipers

I bought them from a Hawk dealer in Toronto, they sell to a very large racer group and they recommended the 50s over the 60s for my car. The 50 and 60 are very close together in the amount of heat they can sustain, the curves were available on Hawk's website. But the 60 is a lot more aggressive pad and for a completely stock car it is too much pad, the rest of the brake system is not going to like the massive heat it can generate. I could probably use the 60s as I have cooling ducts but they have some characteristics that are not as driver friendly as the 50s IMHO. It does look like they only make the DTC-50 for the Brembo 6 pot brakes though so it's a moot discussion.

The weight of the car is only one consideration, the driver style is just as important as some people are terribly hard on brakes and others not so much. Bedding in race pads according to the manufacturer's directions is also critical to getting decent life out of them.

Have you looked to see if you can find rotors with the cooling vanes on the correct side? Without that and some brake ducts you're going to find problems once you get some speed. The DTC60/70 will put so much heat into your rotors that your consumables cost is going to be pretty high and your track time is going to suffer accordingly. If you're serious enough to require DTC60/70 you really should consider upping the brakes to the 6 pot Brembos, they are available from Rock Auto and likely a lot of other places for a pretty reasonable price. They are a very stout piece, I have over 30 track days on my 6 pots and they haven't needed anything yet. Brakes isn't an area to cut corners.

 

[PoppinJ]

I reached out to HAWK a while back as once my supply of powerstop track days are exhausted Im going to a more race oriented pad as I have outgrown the powerstops. I run a 305 squared Nitto NT01 as a track setup. This was the response I got regarding HAWK pads.

"Thanks for reaching out. Happy to help here. The S550 chassis is an awesome car, but you’re right – the rear is hard to modulate and therefore is easy to over-brake. I’d personally recommend you go DTC-60 in the front and DTC-30 in the rear. You want more than a 50 in the front, you’ve got a fast car that’s going to be carrying a lot of momentum into the braking zones, but you don’t have the performance to the point where you need to be making driveability sacrifices and going into a 70 or 80. That said, you need to have a rear pad that can function adequately in the heat ranges you’ll be demanding of it, but have a smooth enough engagement so that it doesn’t upset the rear end of the car.



Front: DTC-60


Rear: DTC-30"

Comparing their products here https://www.hawkperformance.com/compounds/motorsports it looks like the DCT60 should be more street friendly than the 50. Lower operating temp range (although higher optimum temp range) lower dust and noise levels. My car is something like 80-90 percent track usage now but I really like not having to change over pads and rotors in the two weeks between events if I need to take it out on the road. In the winter months or off season times where Im not tracking the car for at least 2 months I'll change the rotors and pads to something more street friendly.

 

[JohnD]

I just run the Hawks on the street rather than changing pads all the time and so far they are fine. Dealer told me that as long as its warm weather they will be fine, but in cold weather (like below 40F) they will eat the rotors badly.
But in truth the car rarely goes on the street other than to go to a track day.

 

[o-man]

I've run the base brakes on track. Have used the Powerstop Track Day pads and just recently G-Loc R12. I don't know what Vorshlag was doing, but I experienced very little fade with G-locs. Still learning RWD as I ran FWD cars for 20 years on track and autocross. I do think some brake cooling is in order since the G-locs lasted two track weekends

 

[bnightstar]

^^^^^THIS

The stock, 4 piston calipers on the non-PP cars are quite good. The overall brake limitations of your set-up are pad/rotors.

Go with the above recommendations of "1 old racer". At your beginner level this is all you need. You are going to hit your limitations much sooner than you reach your car's limitations.

Not true they are borderline dangerous because they are not cooling proparly:

The brakes were atrocious. If I tried to stop with more than .85g it would overheat the pads in two stops (2 corners). After a total of 8 hot laps I lost brakes completely, even babying the pads with 8/10ths stops. Pedal got HARD and would no longer stop (we did have Motul RBF600 fluid in the car - I won't use stock brake fluid on track!)

I read a very extended truck test on Base Model 2018 GT here:

https://www.trackjunkies.org/topic/6341-vorshlag-2018-mustang-gt-s550-development-thread/

And one of the things that stood out the most was this:

We learned that the 14" S550 brakes are pretty much hopeless for us. Even with fresh R16 pads front and rear, good fluid, and careful modulation, I could not brake hard for more than ONE LAP before the brakes were done. Again, it wasn't boiling fluid, it would just overheat the front rotors and the car would no longer stop.

This is because the rotors cooling is on the front of the rotors so no way for them to feed air into the rotors cooling which is why this 14" rotors warp etc. I strongly suggest upgrading to the brembo brakes.

 

[bnightstar]

What I want to try next time, before I break the bank with something that I probably don't need at the moment, like a big brake kit upgrade. Is to buy good brake pads and maybe stainless steel brake lines for both front and back, am sure someone has done this brake setup for track use before, and would like to know how was it? which issues arise? recommended actions?

Am planning on taking my car to track around 10 times a year switching pads to OE for street use and for track any suggestions?

In summary would like to know a mid budget friendly set up for my brakes. Rotors, Track Pads, Brakes lines?

In addition the pads that am looking at are Hawk HB802G.661 Front and HB774G.650 Rear

Just go buy the Brembo's upgrade kit as your rotors will not survive 10 truck days anyway. And get better pads probably G-Loc 10 or something at that regard. The OEM pads are fine but they are expensive.

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