Quote:
Originally Posted by twoturboz
yes, the drilled rotors are the supreme factor in the brake changes. they stock brakes are very strong in the beginning but heat is the reason for the "soft" feeling later on in track use.
So the drilled breaks are better in cooling down. Also, you could create a custom brake cooling duct with some elbow grease. downside is sometimes the rotors aren't drilled all the way though (not sure on m3), so when they wear down you can't flip them over.
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Very much doubt that the holes have a significant cooling effect - that's not the direction of the airflow. The holes help in other areas - immediate elimination of water film in the rain and pad glazing prevention. Oh and looks.
The reasons for the soft feel after hard track use are others:
- completely inadequate brake pad material
- marginally insufficient heat transfer capacity (this could be a combination of insufficient cooling flow and/or system sizing)
Someone mentioned Endless pads - any aftermarket pads you put on will work well on some tracks and not so well on others (due to the second reason above). Nurburgring is not as hard on brakes as some of the other, shorter tracks (not sure if this is an issue with US-designed tracks or if it's true in Europe as well). So throwing $800 or $1000 or however much they cost on a set of pads that may or may not give you satisfaction is a risk.
What it actually takes is for the manufacturer to design the brakes and size them appropriately for track use given the mass & speed of the car. Porsche does this in many of their models. Then it truly becomes a case of swapping for track pads and not having the slightest worry.