I'm only a month or so away from going through with a front brake rotor/caliper upgrade to a 13.5" or so diameter front rotor, but prior to altering my overall front/rear brake bias and opening up another modifications can o' worms, I'd like to maximize the effectiveness and fade resistance of the current set up.
So far I've had decent results with ATE Super Blue fluid and Ferodo DS3000 pads, but unf. the set that I bought were used with only about 40% pad left on them. Prior to Calabogie I plan on bleeding and refilling with ATE's gold version of Super Blue, finally swapping over the braided lines from my old GVR4, making sure the slotted rotors on it are in spec., perhaps getting them resurfaced, removing the front splash shields, and putting together some basic brake cooling ducts from the well-placed foglight openings.
This will hopefully all maximize the cooling capacity of the stock brake rotor diameter,so all that's left to do is to choose a brake pad. On my list right now are Ferodos, Carbotechs XPs (not sure what # compound I'd pick), Porterfield R4Es, or maybe Hawk Blues. I'm willing to give up some overall bite and friction for resistance to fade and consistent operation in a fairly wide range of temperatures. I'm not worried about noise and brake dust, and can live with a pad that doesn't stop terribly well when it's cold. This car warms up brake pads in a hurry.
Any BTDT experience from folks who have tracked heavy cars with small brakes is appreciated. WRXs sort of fall into that category (~3000lbs. and 11.5" front rotors, I think?), as I sure do some other cars that folks bring to COMSCC events. At Calabogie last year I came off at about 15-20 minutes into a :30 session with front brakes smoking, pad material burning away, and went through a set of about 75-80% material-left Hawk HPS pads over the course of the weekend. I was silly to run that pad, for sure, but it's what I had at the time.
What pad should I be prepared with this time? Thanks in advance,
