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well after much raving and hype from different peeps who will remain unamed ;D about how good bendix ultimates were for a track day, I forked out around $120 for a front set (2 pots GTB calipers) and put them to the test.

I would describe their performance at best as average..........

On the first outoing (4-6 laps) they were ok but i started to notice fade. On the second outing (6-8 laps) they stabilised but faded towards the end and when I came into the pits they were smoking like a mofo. At the end of the third outoing (5-6 laps) they were cooking like a biarrrrtch and sizzling away nicely.

On my fourth outing into the 1st lap the front end started shuddering under braking...........not heavy braking just light braking. Under heavy braking the front end shuddered violently..................warped discs so that was the end of my day.

Driving back to welly that evening the brakes felt dead and unresponsive. The next day I got the discs skimmed and sandpapered the heavy glazing off the pads.

Track day is damn hard on brakes so lesson learnt for me is invest in a good braking setup which is why I'll prolly switch to 4 pots, good discs and spend a bit more $$ on race proven pads

Hope that little learning curve helps someone else out there ;D

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Haha yeah I warped my rotors too, not so bad as you as mine still work fine under normal road conditions however.

I am also running ultimates, and I think your brake fade may be more that you're running 2 pots, as I had 4 pots and didn't get any noticeable brake fade, plus my car weighs more than yours I assume. The bigger discs for the 4 pot setup would seem to very much improve cooling, plus the size and design of the four pot calipers would seem to dissipate heat better over the 2 pot calipers.

You were hauling ass though ;D

Edit: And I'm not running the motul, just the higher end Castrol DOT5.1 or w/e

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 MercuryFree said:

Haha yeah I warped my rotors too, not so bad as you as mine still work fine under normal road conditions however.

I am also running ultimates, and I think your brake fade may be more that you're running 2 pots, as I had 4 pots and didn't get any noticeable brake fade, plus my car weighs more than yours I assume. The bigger discs for the 4 pot setup would seem to very much improve cooling, plus the size and design of the four pot calipers would seem to dissipate heat better over the 2 pot calipers.

You were hauling ass though ;D

Edit: And I'm not running the motul, just the higher end Castrol DOT5.1 or w/e

yeah bro I tend to agree with you about the 4 pots............def a good investment alongside some good rotors. Yeah the old leggy was lovin it out there started hitting sum good lines on my 2nd and 3rd outings

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 funkytown said:

yer i would be guessing your 2 pots (even tho the are the larger GTB ones) play a part in that Joe..

I used the Znoelli pads, which were a bit cheaper on 4 pots and never got what you described.

Did the rears glaze heavily as well?

mmmm never did check the rears but never got any rear probs either

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Good points mate I would definitely agree with your outcome on Bendix, had a similar setup on my old wrx with good ol 2 pots.

I personally went with the Ts2000's after that and found them much better for track/road use, but then again when you start going up to the next level it's awhole different world. I chucked in some Project Mu racing pads which are close to 1k a set, peoples eyes pop out when they find out the prices but honestly the pads were amazing and I'd have no issue forking out the same.

So much in fact they were outperforming my tyres so it forced me to step up to semi-slicks which again I still haven't actually found out how hard the pads can really go, I just need to get some bigger balls when I finally head out next.

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Guest boostin

Good pads won't be effective on old discs though. It sounds like yours were already pretty toasted if they warped that easily. Its the disc's job to get rid of the heat generated. If they don't, then the pads overheat like you've found, and end up warping the discs.

By personal experience my Legacy has never had brake fade, and that's on stock discs and Bendix Standard pads. Granted that's not on a track, but my old Primera used to brake fade all the time under similar conditions, and its a lighter car with a lot less power.

Unfortunately now that the pads have been overheated, they're pretty much useless. I wouldn't write this off as the pad's fault though.

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Were the pads initially bedded in ?

Forget the little piece of paper that sez Ultimates don't need bedding in, that's BS.

My first and only spin was with Ultimates.

Nice curl of smoke snaking over the front guards when the world stopped spinning.

;D

You guys must have been cranking it to warp the rotors.

Did you do a cool down lap and baby the car after you came in ?

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 boostin said:

Good pads won't be effective on old discs though. It sounds like yours were already pretty toasted if they warped that easily. Its the disc's job to get rid of the heat generated. If they don't, then the pads overheat like you've found, and end up warping the discs.

Not neccesarily, I'd agree it does depend on the quality of the discs but old ones none the less have never proved issues with myself on the track so far.

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 newsuba said:

Were the pads initially bedded in ?

Forget the little piece of paper that sez Ultimates don't need bedding in, that's BS.

My first and only spin was with Ultimates.

Nice curl of smoke snaking over the front guards when the world stopped spinning.

;D

You guys must have been cranking it to warp the rotors.

Did you do a cool down lap and baby the car after you came in ?

pads were bedded in through normal driving as per instructions from rep at BNT.

Yep I did a cool down lap at end of each outing and also continued to rock the car back and forth in the pits so the pads didn't seize.

My rotors were in pretty good nick having only been skimmed twice before since new.

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 boostin said:

Good pads won't be effective on old discs though. It sounds like yours were already pretty toasted if they warped that easily. Its the disc's job to get rid of the heat generated. If they don't, then the pads overheat like you've found, and end up warping the discs.

By personal experience my Legacy has never had brake fade, and that's on stock discs and Bendix Standard pads. Granted that's not on a track, but my old Primera used to brake fade all the time under similar conditions, and its a lighter car with a lot less power.

Unfortunately now that the pads have been overheated, they're pretty much useless. I wouldn't write this off as the pad's fault though.

I'm hoping my pads aren't useless ;D ..........cause I've sanded the glazing off and stuck em back in there with freshly skimmed rotors

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 wildturkey said:

My rotors were in pretty good nick having only been skimmed twice before since new.

Bingo, we have a winner.

Skimming removes quite a bit of material leaving the rotor much more susceptible to warping.

Might be OK for normal driving but a good track thrash is guaranteed to cause warping, cracking or localised explosions.

:D

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 newsuba']

[quote name='wildturkey said:

My rotors were in pretty good nick having only been skimmed twice before since new.

/quote]

Bingo, we have a winner.

Skimming removes quite a bit of material leaving the rotor much more susceptible to warping.

Might be OK for normal driving but a good track thrash is guaranteed to cause warping, cracking or localised explosions.

:D

didnt realise skimming took that much off.....but looking to the future.........I see a much better brake setup lol ;D ;D ;D

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Guest boostin

Overheating breaks down the adhesive that binds the pad material together, so they will start to crumble. You'll start to see the trailing edge of the pad breaking away.

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Guest SPANKU

my bendex blue ran out last year's megameet but my rotor didnt warped there was no sign of any heat spots on the rotors also. brakes runs out all the time on the track depending on your braking point either you braking in early or late

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 newsuba']

[quote name='wildturkey said:

My rotors were in pretty good nick having only been skimmed twice before since new.

/quote]

Bingo, we have a winner.

Skimming removes quite a bit of material leaving the rotor much more susceptible to warping.

Might be OK for normal driving but a good track thrash is guaranteed to cause warping, cracking or localised explosions.

:D

I agree with this. Sounds entirely like it was the rotors fault. What else have you used on the track too?

I use a similar setup but always have new rotors before I go out on the track. I've got the 277mm ones. The pads last about 350km of track usage which is pretty decent but that is just with road tyres. My only issue with brakes has been the rotors getting rather hot at the end of Ruapuna's front straight (~200kph down to 80 ish) but have never cracked or warped one. Always use the cheap ones from BNT too ;)

They're a good trackday pad but won't handle extended time on the track (keep it to ~5 laps each time and they're fine) and I doubt they'll handle the heat if you have semi-slicks or better.

add-in: I've normally made my (road) tyres go off and loose grip completely before running into issues with the Ultimates and RBF600. Some extra ducting to the rotors would help the rotors out quite a bit.

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I was running Bendix Ultimates of the BRAND NEW variety on Manfeild with you, Wildturkey ;D They about had to remove me by force. Was doing a good 5x hot laps with a cool down lap (or half lap sometimes) and not once did they overheat. Was going about as fast as you guys around the corners, but only getting up between 140 and 150 down the front straight due to lack of win in the engine bay. The brakes got an absolute murdering.

I've got brand new rotors though...unsure what Highbrook used as fluid, but not once did the brakes fade; they just got a tiny bit squishy after a few laps but worked about 90% as well as previous laps.

+1 to 4 pot upgrade. You know you wanna make the beast beastly :)

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I agree with this. Sounds entirely like it was the rotors fault. What else have you used on the track too?

I use a similar setup but always have new rotors before I go out on the track. I've got the 277mm ones. The pads last about 350km of track usage which is pretty decent but that is just with road tyres. My only issue with brakes has been the rotors getting rather hot at the end of Ruapuna's front straight (~200kph down to 80 ish) but have never cracked or warped one. Always use the cheap ones from BNT too ;)

They're a good trackday pad but won't handle extended time on the track (keep it to ~5 laps each time and they're fine) and I doubt they'll handle the heat if you have semi-slicks or better.

add-in: I've normally made my (road) tyres go off and loose grip completely before running into issues with the Ultimates and RBF600. Some extra ducting to the rotors would help the rotors out quite a bit.

At Taupo I used these rotors as well but they were pretty new. I will completely revise my brakes setup after this.....................fortunately they didn't shat themselves till later in the day and I had heaps of fun b4 then ;D

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In your case, rotors are looking like the culprit.

I personally found the Ultimates were ok, but not great. When I was going really hard, I really only had 4-5 laps of braking before I felt they were getting too hot to cope and it took a long time for them to cool enough to consider going back out again.

This is on my GTB with the 4 pot fronts but I was in full street trim (so HEAVY) and I was easily hitting 180kph down the front straight before asking them to slow me to 70kph for turn one. Middle straight I was braking from 160ish and back straight 160-170 so I was asking a lot from them. Things went a lot better when I consciously decided to drop my top speed down the straights by 10kph ;)

Then again, my rotors looked pretty strange after my first outing (I haven't looked at them since getting home) so it could be I was having rotor issues to... I'm 99% sure mine didn't warp or crack but they did look strange. I'll post a pic when I find somewhere to host it.

For street use they've been really good though. Next track day I think I should trim some weight and run some hotter pads ;)

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 newsuba']

You guys must have been cranking it to warp the rotors.

Did you do a cool down lap and baby the car after you came in ?

Yeah, but my pads and rotors for my 4 pots (and the calipers for that matter) I got off some guy who had them in his type R track car, so they've likely to have been abused previously, not just this weekend :P

[quote name='SpotMe said:

This is on my GTB with the 4 pot fronts but I was in full street trim (so HEAVY) and I was easily hitting 180kph down the front straight before asking them to slow me to 70kph for turn one. Middle straight I was braking from 160ish and back straight 160-170 so I was asking a lot from them. Things went a lot better when I consciously decided to drop my top speed down the straights by 10kph ;)

Was doing pretty much identical speeds that, slightly slower on the main straight; probably have about 200-300kg less weight to lug around than you though, which I guess is why I didn't really experience any fade

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Joe - I can tell you its not the size of your brakes causing your issues. As Im running factory RS brake callipers/rotors and had no problems hauling up from 200+ on the straights on semi slicks, so stopping reasonably quickly. And my car would be probably the heaviest BC5 too there as I had passengers, a bunch of metal bars in the car and a rather large sump guard I couldn't be bothered taking off.

I ran Hawk 9012s with brand new rotors and installed them and bedded them in on the track. I was happy with the performance but think I needed to rebleed the brakes after bedding pads in to make for a thoroughly happy setup.

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 Munkvy said:

Joe - I can tell you its not the size of your brakes causing your issues. As Im running factory RS brake callipers/rotors and had no problems hauling up from 200+ on the straights on semi slicks, so stopping reasonably quickly. And my car would be probably the heaviest BC5 too there as I had passengers, a bunch of metal bars in the car and a rather large sump guard I couldn't be bothered taking off.

I ran Hawk 9012s with brand new rotors and installed them and bedded them in on the track. I was happy with the performance but think I needed to rebleed the brakes after bedding pads in to make for a thoroughly happy setup.

that's pretty good for factory setup. ;D You'll understand I'm getting lots of 'advice' as to what caused and didn't cause my brake fade and warped discs. Happy to take it all on board but have pretty much made up my mind to invest in a quality setup for peace of mind. You looked like you were having fun out there ;D ;D ;D was good to see other BC5s going for it :D

You were hitting 200+?.........nice work

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