ok , so I had an autocross event today , which was rather Fast . and hard on the brakes 2 times in 40 seconds the car was forced to brake from second redline , to 20 mph

And the runs were back to back , so not much cooldown time .

now according to people I was stopped on my third run because my brakes were on fire . checked everything no leaks , no fire . and continued onto my final run for the session , where apparently it happened again according to the people who saw it it wasnt just sparks it was flames.


Now that kind of freaked me out that never happened before .

I Just Started using some race pads . Hawk Blacks .

Braking felt fine . all over no brake fade .

Should I be making some ducts for my brakes???


i'm not running the fender liners because my car is to low and rubs against them .

I think the liners had some kind of a brake duct

 

There has to be something flammable on the rotors.

Brake is flammable so you may be leaking a little.

 

i had a mercedes that did this, it was the caliper leaking. it only leaked when you applied the brakes, and so each pump of the pedal = 1 plume of smoke (fire), brakes felt and functioned ok, although i didn't drive it like that more than to get it home

 

Are you sure it was "fire" and not just "sparks"? Hawk pads are known to throw sparks, especially when new (another reason I'm not a fan of them).

 

No I only got this through word of mouth , But multiple people saw it , BUt I will be inspecting the brakes and see if maybe its leaking some fluid

 

don't put brake ducts on... your race pads probably aren't even up to temp as it is, ducts will only make them worse.

 

If you just put on the pads, it was probably just sparks from bed in. If you bed them in at night on the street it freaks people out

 

I've had them on for a couple of weeks of street driving But thats like about 20 miles a week if that . And they were on the Car when I drove to Sebring which is about 100 miles up , BUT no hard braking of any sort to be had I did do a slight brake in when I first got them Just 40 to 10 a few times That was the first real test of the brakes

and ironicly I did notice that after the "FIRE" they stopped squeaking

but regardless tomorrow I'm going to give them a once over , I mean nothing lost from looking them over just to make sure everything is ok , and i'm gonna try braking really hard to see if any fluid squirts out .


Another thing LMAO I forgot to mention is my wheels are plastidipped.. I wonder if that stuff is flammable after its dry LMAO!!

 

Folks at autocross should know the diff between sparks and fire LOL

I'm guessing you are leaking a little fluid. If so your backing plates will have the whitish weird color etc.....

 

Plasti dip in liquid form has a flashpoint about 35 degrees higher than gasoline so yes its flamable.

Gasoline Flashpoint -45F
Plasti dip -10F

http://www.plastidip.com/docs/Plasti...0oz%20MSDS.pdf

 

NO way is the paint on your wheels getting up over 500 or 600F and catching on fire. If so you better slow the F#CK down before you kill someone

Your pads on the other hand don't even work well until about 4 or 500f so 1st you don't want ducts for autocross and 2nd if you are leaking fluid it can catch on fire.

PS After thing about this I suppose it is possible for really hot plasti dipped wheels to be ignited from sparks coming off of the pads but really find this scenario hard to believe.

 

Next time you are at an autox, if someone mentions it again just have them use their phone to video you on the course and take a look at what they are seeing. My bet it was just sparks.

 

Don't know what hawk blacks are like, but, actually, fire isn't uncommon....seen it many times, most memorably, on a big Jag going into a hairpin and multiple times in the pits on a hot stop- and no, it's not brake fluid.

 

I know my Performance friction carbon pads smoked and threw flames a couple times when I was bedding them in. Ten successive 60-0 slams and they were HOT. Was pretty awesome to see actually. Was fun at night. Haven't had an issue since though. Scared the crap out of my friend.

 

I'm going to angle my camera at my brakes for a run to see if it does anything

I inspected my brakes today no leaks at all

that I could see One thing though could maybe the brake pad grease have gotten hot and maybe lit??"


well who knows LOL we'll see I have another event this weekend so i'm gonna angle the cammera at the brakes lets see if something interesting happens , and worst case scenario I get a cool angle LOL

 

 

that was the track , and commentary about the brakes being on fire at the end LOL

it was very short , But very quick back to back runs

 

No more Fires I guess it was just break in magic

 

It all makes sense you were running on a cloudy day (they saw sparks) and driving with the PCA club

Great job on the slaloms you were staying well ahead. Those things are a PIA.

 

Thanks I've gotten pretty good at slaloms ,

but still falls so short of doing a track day seat time is so little by comparison LMAO .

 

Yep.

You should have said you were running with PCA in the first post to qualify the claims of "fire".