[flash]

yup - long tracks can be a different story though, as more time is spent on the straights, which can result in the other technique being faster



it's also a LOT easier and generally safer to teach the "go fast brake hard" method - there is no way to really teach "feel" - you either have it or you don't - it's like heel-toe - some people can do it - some never will



again, you have to do what feels comfortable - confidence in your driving is the single most effective tool in getting you around a track fast - second guess yourself or the car, or act tentatively and bad things happen

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[AJG]

Sounds like Flash has been receiving pointers from the great Jackie Stuart or Stirling Moss even! Some say when he's driving along Flash hum's "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" to himself! Which might explain his constant disatisfaction with his car....no wings!



Andy

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[Lear35A]

Good grief. Of course "smooth is fast". But brakes are negative horsepower. If you don't use all available horsepower, whether negative from braking or positive from the engine, you can be faster. Saying you can be fast around a track without braking HARD makes as much sense as saying part throttle acceleration makes you "smoother" and therefore "faster". Ever watched the fast cars at night at 24 hours at Daytona or Le Mans? The rotors are not glowing red from the driver going easy on the brakes.



No, you don't stomp on the brakes but you'd better be pushing on them as hard as you can, or you are losing tenths every corner. As you improve and if your car is set up properly you can carry some of the braking into the turn (not in the wet!), in some turns you can get the car to turn in some by properly releasing brake pressure.



Porsche put big brakes on our cars to be used. Downside...on the track if you use your brakes you'll be replacing pads and rotors much more frequently. Speed costs money. How much do you want to spend?

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[Rap]

Sounds like Flash is talking about controlling weight transfer thru the turns so as not to scrub off speed.

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[Cloud9...68]

Good points by everybody here. My big objection is to the brake-only-in-a-straight-line, brake-and-throttle-as-light-switches methodology I was taught at the first DE's I attended from the PCA. All I can say is that in my very much novice state of track driving, I got a lot faster by braking less abruptly going into the turn,keeping light pressure on the brake entering the turn (trail braking), and then getting back onto the throttle as soon as possible. I'm sure I have room to improve by braking later, and more assertively, and I'm hoping my suspension mods will allow me to do this. I already have huge calipers from an '88 944 Turbo S, and ~12-1/2" diameter rotors, so it will be a long time before I make any further upgrades to my brakes.

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[flash]

porche put big brakes on the car because they weigh so much - our cars are ridiculously heavy - i regularly stomped the crap out of 911s in a car with half the horsepower and half the brakes, because i did not have to drive like they did



how did i do that? by not using the brakes and instead balancing the car and powering through everything - i went at least 2 full seasons on 1 set of brakes - however, i also chose only short tracks, knowing that i would not be competitive on long tracks



this is also why a lotus super 7 will regularly kick the crap out of just about everything out there



do the math - it's all about average speed - if you can maintain that average speed, you will win, even if you get passed on the straights, assuming you can pass in the corners, which is easy to do when you master "surfing" - you can either go fast and brake hard, or you can maintain a more consistent speed - rabbit and hare - i did it for years with great success



you'll scare the crap out the pca guys though, because most of those guys are pussies and afraid to scuff their car - i always assumed i had to repaint the car every season at best, so aggressive passing in the corners was a regular occurrence, and a little bump or rub here and there was normal



but again, a very different car - the 968 is a fat slug - you may not be able to win, but largely because the 911 guys won't let you set the car up to compete with them - for example, they make you race against cars that are lighter in effective power to weight (direct bolt engine to trans) with no compensation - another good example of this is why they prohibit a cab from reducing weight, even though they are 240lbs heavier than a hardtop, with no power or braking advantage - arbitrary rules like that are just plain stupid

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[AJG]

Because the brakes are so progressive, when I'm slowing down from a high speed to take a tight turn I sometimes feel there is not enough bite. But the problem lies with me, as I don't give that extra hard shove it needs to increase retardation. Must try to change that on the way home from work today! And another thing.....some say he drives everywhere backwards as he prefers too see where he's came from, all I know is his name is Flash!



Andy

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[Cloud9...68]

I think the really key point here, and Flash has already made it, is the type of track. All of my driving recently has been on the "beginner" track at Driveway Austin, which is so tight and technical, that it simply isn't possible (especially in a car where each horsepower is saddled with the task of hauling around about 13 lbs) to get up to a high enough speed anywhere to need to do a whole lot of braking. There's no way I could get away with the "light on the brakes through the turns" method at the end of a 140 mph straight....

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[Lear35A]

Yep, the higher your average speed the better your lap tine. But if you are not using your given brakes to the max you could have delayed your braking point going into the turn and thus raised your average speed. When I raced, I do not think my brake pad life correlated with my success. (SCCA Regional and National wins in G Prod; PCA Club racing numerous wins at a wide variety of tracks in E Stock in '89 944 turbo)

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[Lear35A]

As an aside to this good discussion I would add that the quality of DE instruction is all over the map. With unpaid volunteers you get that, but thank goodness we have such volunteers. Let me suggest this to those that want to go fast. At a DE event search out the instructors that are good based on race results or some such criteria. Take the initiative and ask him to help you. Don't worry about who was assigned to you. you paid your money; get the best help you can.

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[flash]

i think you're missing my point - you have to discard everything you know about driving - there is no "braking point" in this technique - you only scrub off enough speed to be able to enter the turn at full throttle, but approach is NOT at full throttle - you back off way before the traditional braking point - i am talking about not using the brakes really at all, and power steering through the turns staying on throttle the whole time - you go slower on the straights, but faster through the turns, blasting past the guys who are braking for the turns, cutting them on the inside, and pretty much screwing their line - it's aggressive - it's strategic - it's not popular with many drivers - but, it works - racing is not about being nice - it's also not about lap times - it's about winning, and whatever it takes to do that, including screwing the other drivers - if i can force a guy off the track because you beat him through a corner and messed up his line, or make him mess up, that's a good thing - that is one less guy you have to worry about passing - victory by attrition is still victory - pca guys don't want to hurt their precious little cars, so they don't generally drive that aggressively - i get that - i come from a different perspective - i assume that a race car has a max life of 5 seasons, with body work and paint nearly every race, for one reason or another, and a new engine every season - after that you toss it and build a new car - pca guys frequently have the same car for decades - i tend to look at that as not doing things all the way - but that's why i never liked porsches, and still don't



the 944/968 platform may be too heavy and underpowered for really applying this, and certainly would be limited to shorter tracks, or ones with at least shorter straights, but if you every drove a small british sports car on a track, you would immediately know what i was talking about - you almost never even touch the brakes - it's all done with gears and throttle and steering - heck, in the british arena we actually changed gearing to limit the top end speed, so as to further facilitate this by moving the torque to taller gears that were closer together, so that you could just shift back and forth, stay off the brakes, and just use the clutch and throttle



it's a lot like autocross - you never touch the brakes there if you can help it, and when you do it's because you screwed up - a better analogy though might be ice driving, sand driving, or rallying



again though, this is a technique that is very hard to master, and not everybody can do it - not everybody can surf either - you really need to have a great sense of balance and feel - you need to be able to do things like know instinctively what angle things are at, and how much force is being applied to your body in different directions - the idea is to get the car to "float" through turns, and not be "pushed" or "forced" through them



but, on tracks with long straights, you're going to get creamed, and you'll need to use a lot more brake



but this has now gone WAY off the topic of ROTOR RECOMMENDATION



i like the cross-drilled zimmermans, but i don't use my brakes much, so i don't have cracking issues - the OEM rotors are better suited to somebody who uses the brakes a lot

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[Cloud9...68]

Yes, it's all about the type of car, and the type of track, and adjusting your driving style to get the most out of the combination.



I've also been very happy with my Zimmerman cross-drilled rotors, but this may change as I move up to tracks which allow much higher speeds in the straights (i.e. the Circuit of the Americas that's under construction just outside of Austin... drool.... ). I just hope I don't die of old age before I get my crank and head back, though...

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[flash]

lol - this is exactly why i don't have a race car anymore though, and why i am wrestling with figuring out what i want - i don't want to change my style of driving, and i can't drive that way in the 968 on bigger tracks - it's just too big and heavy - i may end up back in an mgb, or i may even go formula (more likely) - basically whatever it is will be under 2000lbs - with all due respect to those who insist on taking a street car to the track, i'm done trying to polish a turd and try to turn the 968, which is a GT by design, into a sportscar or a race car - it's a touring car and that's all it will ever be - it's great at that, but there will always be better cars for the track, and anything else is a compromise i am not willing to make - heck, i could grab a bone stock elise, run it in street stock, and womp the fastest times of fully track prepped 968s, be $20k ahead of the game, and drive it home after the race



as for rotors, i would take temp readings and see how you are doing on them - that will tell you a lot about what you are doing, and what you need - you may well find that all you need to do is move more braking to the rear - cross-drilled rotors stop better that solids, but also suffer from cracking, and depending on how you brake, may not work for you

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[Cloud9...68]

Yes, this has become one sidetracked thread, but it's been an interesting discussion nonetheless. I guess a lot depends on what you started your track experience on. As long as you're competing against similar cars (provided there's no bias in the rules), I'm sure you can have a blast, even if the cars in the class aren't optimal track cars. This is why I was planning to sell the 968 and buy an MR2, and turn it into a pure track car. But I have a soft spot for the 968, and figure I can have a lot of fun gradually improving its capabilities as my experience and skill evolve. Then I could always sell it and move onto something else, but after reading stories like Craig Woodman's, it seems these cars have a tremendous amount of potential, even if they'll never quite become the "ultimate" track car.

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[flash]

you are probably right - i have had the unfortunate experience of driving much faster cars, so no matter what i do to the 968, it will always be less than i can have - it will always be a touring car on steroids, and never as fast or as nimble as other cars



all this talk about rotors though is reminding me that i need to get back onto my 3 piece rotor project - i back-burnered that a while back, and need to get back to it, as my front rotors are going to need replacing fairly soon

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[Cloud9...68]

Out of curiosity, what's your motivation for the 3-piece rotor project? Your 968 isn't a track car; do the 3-piece rotors offer any significant advantages for the street? And I understand that for liability reasons, you have no plans to market a brake upgrade kit. Is this one of those "just because" projects?

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[flash]

purely weight, and "yup"

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[Lear35A]

If you don't use your brakes, why are your rotors worn? <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/laugh.gif" class="smilie" alt="" /> <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/laugh.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />

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[flash]

ok - that's funny - i do use them on the street - i have to in order to let everybody catch up - lol



anyway, after 7 years they are showing some wear - my pads are about 40% gone, and the rotors show about .020" of wear - i am they type to change things when they don't look brand new - my tires never get anywhere near the wear marks on any car - my rotors get changed as soon as they show wear - i have actually been quite lax on the front rotors, wanting to change them for some time now, but keep thinking about the 3 piece project and thereby putting it off

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[judge]

Very interesting discussion and I don't want to hijack the thread but does anyone know anything about these guys



http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Porsche-968-9...4cf8a0d41f.



As I've posted elsewhere one of the biggest headaches here in [rural] Ausrtralia is that the supply of product just isn't there, which is why I envy those of you in the US and Europe with the options you have to choose from. I know this might seem to be just another ebay bandit, but they do offer a complete front/rear, rotor & pad kit which is reasonably priced and will be about A$200 a corner after shipping.



So if anyone has heard anything about them I'd love to hear from you. <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/wink.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />



BTY - GO CADEL!!!

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