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4BW Track Weekend – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (with Video)

Mbar

Seasoned Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2021
Messages
177
Location
Maryland
I’ve just finished a fantastic weekend at Summit Point with PCA. For those of you that don’t know, this is one of the hardest tracks in the country on brakes…think Laguna Sceca hard, since there’s not much time to cool the brakes and you have 140->45 / 115->70 / 100->40 / 115->70 brake zones.
In the past I drove on this track (over 50 days) my E36 M3 track car, Audi RS3 (tunned to 500 HP), and 6Gen Camaro SS with 6 pistons kit, track pads and RE71R tiers. My best lap with the Camaro was 1:22xx (and I left a second on the table).
I drove 7/10th with the Blackwing this weekend on completely stock car besides brake fluid and alignment. Best time was 1:27 / PTM Sport. With brakes, tires, seat time and pushing harder I believe I can match the Camaro time, or get close.

The Good:
This car is a driving witchcraft. You point the wheel and go, so much stuff is happening in the background and make you drive like a hero. Is it good? Yes, because it feels very natural….but I know it’s just too good to be true. I had a blast and kept up with fast cars in my run group. This is the absolute best car to have as double duty daily driving and then just go to the track over the weekend and have some fun….I would not want to be in my stripped track E36 over this weekend without AC…. (low 90’s / 80%+ humidity).
Tires held up nicely. I started the session at 30 PSI and would end up around 35-37. They would start feeling greasy after 15 minutes, but still got me to 20 minutes session without any issue. After 8X20 min sessions, I would say that they have at least 8 more sessions in them. The outer shoulder will get corded, but the rest of the tread looks in a great shape. Tires communicated very well, and I would defiantly say that they are better than a normal Pilot 4S.
The brake pedal felt firm and secure. No issue with the clutch pedal. I took @Mirza Grebovic advice and put Brembo LCF in the car. No limping, no engine hiccups, oil temp did not go above 252F, no fuel starvation (I forgot to refuel and got a low fuel warning towards the end of my session).

The Bad:
The front brake pads lasted 8 X 20 minutes and not much left in them. At least I did not experience crazy pad tapper like I had with other heavy cars. I did confirm after the fact that the 4BW front pad size is 1405 – same as Camaro 1LE / C7 Grandsport (please note - track pads might not support the brake pad sensor). I guess for hard on brakes tracks you need to use track pads. I think for VIR / WGI stock will survive better.
Another point to mention - the engine sound is on the quiet side. Get your car with heads up display, or you will hit the rev limiter since it's hard to hear the revs. This is not an issue on street driving.

The Ugly:
Although the stock pads stayed intact, they had mini crumbles falling out of them. Since the stock rotors are not slotted, I got some bad 1mm deep grooves in my rotors (see pic below). I replaced the pads, but the brake judder is pretty bad right now. I hope it will go away with some hard braking / time, because I don’t want to replace $1200 worth of front rotors right now…

Comments / questions are welcome.

Cheers





IMG_4162.jpeg
 
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Thanks for the writeup! Looks like a great time!

Does your car have PDR?

I can't wait to get out on the track when mine arrives.
 
I did confirm after the fact that the 4BW front pad size is 1405 – same is Camaro 1LE / C7 Grandsport.
So amateur question, does this mean that any brake pad that fits the Camaro/GS would also fit on the 4BW?
 
Great job! Wish I’d thought to come up and meet you in person. That’s my home track.

VIR is worse for brakes than Summit Point and WGI is the worst I’ve seen. I wore through AP 25mm endurance pads in 2 1/2 days at WGI.
 
keep in mind these cars are brake by wire. anything you feel in the pedal is the same you would feel with a video game setup. the brake pedal is not attached to the brakes except for an emergency backup circuit. you will never feel brake fade b/c of this. the system will compensate by clamping harder. this kind of creates a bit of an issue on using non OEM pads. right now there is no temp sensor or anything else the car is just relying on an algorithm to guess what temps are and if fade is about to be an issue then pop up a warning light if so.

you may also want to check out using catrol SRF. The dry boiling point in the same at a bit over 600 degrees, but the wet boiling point is way higher at 518 vs 399 on the brembo. it is almost twice as much in cost, but with the higher wet boiling point you should be able to make it a whole year without having to bleed the brakes. if you buy from FCP euro the fluid also has a lifetime guarantee and they will replace the bottles for free with new if you ship back full bottles of old fluid. this is what i do with my cars. had to buy SRF once and now only have to pay shipping to get new moving forward.
 
keep in mind these cars are brake by wire.

The savagegeese review has a pretty good introduction to the braking system.

10:13 - they start talking about the braking system
13:03 - they talk specifically about the brake-by-wire system
 
Since we're talking about brakes...is there any downside to using the higher temp Brembo or SRF fluid on the street? If not then why didn't the car come with it from the factory?
 
Since we're talking about brakes...is there any downside to using the higher temp Brembo or SRF fluid on the street? If not then why didn't the car come with it from the factory?
Probably $1.03
 
The savagegeese review has a pretty good introduction to the braking system.

10:13 - they start talking about the braking system
13:03 - they talk specifically about the brake-by-wire system
yep. they also talk about it some and go into stuff about the CCB on the 5 video
 
Since we're talking about brakes...is there any downside to using the higher temp Brembo or SRF fluid on the street? If not then why didn't the car come with it from the factory?
Typically they absorb more water more quickly. Most people not tracking would prefer the longer life and lower cost of lower temp rated fluid would be my guess. As long as you are changing out SRF every year it's fine to run. I don't know about the Brembo how long it goes before too much moisture is absorbed.
 
So I was digging around GM's official parts site and the rears for the 4BW are the same as the 2022 Camaro SS. See screenshots below. So I think you can get a full set with the 1LE/Grand Sport fronts and the 22 SS rears from companies. I wasn't able to find matching part numbers for the fronts with any other model, doesn't mean the 1LE/Grand Sport fronts wont work, just that GM has different part numbers.
Screen Shot 2022-07-19 at 5.53.44 PM.png
Screen Shot 2022-07-19 at 5.53.54 PM.png
 
Rotor update:
As noted above, after my track weekend I experienced bad brake judder.
I've tried to re-bed my pads several times....didn't help. I've tried to hone the rotors....didn't help.
At the end I took the rotors to a local shop to get resurfaced (you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a shop that is willing to do it). The rotor was almost too big for the machine. $130 later I got a smooth set of rotors and the judder is gone!!!
The tech said he had to shave a total of 0.3mm. I measured the rotors when I got home - thickness is 33.3mm. New set is 34mm and minimum thickness spec is 32mm. I'll take it!!! I almost ordered a new set.
 
The tech said he had to shave a total of 0.3mm. I measured the rotors when I got home - thickness is 33.3mm. New set is 34mm and minimum thickness spec is 32mm. I'll take it!!! I almost ordered a new set.
So the track day itself wore off 0.4mm. If you avoided the scoring, you would get 5 track days out of a set of rotors before having to replace them.

That's solid data for helping calculate the True Cost To Track these cars. What's a set of rotors cost?
 
So the track day itself wore off 0.4mm. If you avoided the scoring, you would get 5 track days out of a set of rotors before having to replace them.

That's solid data for helping calculate the True Cost To Track these cars. What's a set of rotors cost?

They're mid 500 each
 

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