Brake cooling intakes - blocked?

[Curtis]

Interesting thread!

I suppose it makes sense to have little or no additional brake cooling on a car that's primarily used to potter around town or cruise the motorways. What would be the point in massively overcooling brakes that never get hot anyway? Even standard brakes operate more efficiently when they get some form of heat into them.

Once you get into tracking or racing the story changes altogether. Finding the correct amount of cooling is like finding the correct suspension set up. Different pads are designed to operate at their best efficiency within certain temperature ranges. The amount of cooling you add or subtract combined with the amount of heavy braking you do will determine how close their temperature will stay within the optimum levels and therefore how efficiently you brakes will operate.

Racing pads will only operate at their best once they reach their optimum temperature, that's why you see drivers braking heavily during the warm up lap of a race or driving reservedly at the beginning of a race until they get some heat into their tyres and brakes. Road car pads generally have to operate efficiently at temperatures below zero up to moderate levels. If you go above those levels they will move out of their optimum operating range and become less efficient or useless. At this stage it might be worth adding additional cooling if you were for example tracking the car using standard brakes. If you found you were having to go to such extremes you might want to consider upgrading the braking system first. The simplest way is to buy a spare set of racing pads for track day use with a higher operating temperature and racing brake fluid. I use Ferodo's in my AP's for day to day use and Pagid RS29's for track days.

If however you pull out of drive on a cold winter morning to buy a loaf of bread at the corner shop, that extra cooling seems to become a bit pointless.

At the end of the day it all depends what you primarily use the car for. By all means open up the cooling for track use but make sure you can reverse the procedure for normal driving.

[Blacklines]

Thanks Curtis.

Do you remove the blanking plates when you fit the RS29's?

[Curtis]

Not yet but I have cooked the brakes a couple of times so I might consider it in the future. The Alpina front is slighly different and its not quite so easy to do that mod, I have considered removing the driving lamps to fit some ducting. We'll see!

[inTgr8r]

Strange... but on my car there are no duct blocking pieces.

[Blacklines]

I have spoken to a few more people about this and it may well depend on the market/pad compound.

UK cars all reach market initially with the blanking plates.

[GP20]

Strange... but on my car there are no duct blocking pieces.

When was your build date? MIne was built in March, '06, and doesn't have the blocking pieces either.

[inTgr8r]

Strange... but on my car there are no duct blocking pieces.

When was your build date? MIne was built in March, '06, and doesn't have the blocking pieces either.

April 06

[Cheburator]

LOL sp3ctre - no probs.

I don't pretend to know any more than you. Was just interested to gauge the depth of knowledge.

Has anyone suffered overheating brakes? Has anyone removed the blanking plates? What happens to these plates when the brakes are upgraded?

I cooked my brakes and then removed the blanking plates which led to a massive improvement. Must add that I use CarboPad race pads

P.S. The brake ducts are of sh1te design because they do a poor job of directing cold air directly to the disc / pad...

[Gauss]

Hey I just realized what these could be for. When your car is parked sideways to the sunset, the light from the sun will light the wheel well and if you do not have that little metal panel on the duct you will be able to see through right into the wheel well and it will look kind of bad.

[Caddyshk]

Hey I just realized what these could be for. When your car is parked sideways to the sunset, the light from the sun will light the wheel well and if you do not have that little metal panel on the duct you will be able to see through right into the wheel well and it will look kind of bad.

Makes as much sense as the other theories...