I just installed a BBK - the calipers are Porsche Cayanne calipers, and the rotors are the kit from ESC Tuning. The pads are Pagid. The installation didn't take long and they look awesome. The real reason I did it though is because I track the car and it wouldn't stop on the stock brakes - bad fade after the first 20 minute session. By the end of the third session the pedal was on the floor and I had the rebleed the brakes, and even then they were way too soft.

Now the car stops...a lot. No worries about stopping now. But...

The rotors are grooved after one day on the car and at the track - the pad seems excessively aggressive and is just grooving the rotors bad. Has anyone had this experience with Pagid pads or the ESC rotors? The pads I have been told are stock for the kit - but it can't be right - somthing is wrong here.

I did bed them in according to the specs for high performance pads. I tried to get Hawk HPS pads but I was told they are not available for the Cayenne brakes.

Any ideas?

 

Have any pictures to show?

 

Running aggressive pads on the street has been known to groove the rotors. The pads never get up to their optimal operating temperature and groove the rotors. (I have first-hand experience on this one)

It does not really hurt them that much, but I suggest you get some pads for the street and use the Pagids for the track. If you do not want to do the pad swap, get you some good intermediate pads that can do both pretty well.

You can go ahead and try to re-bed them in. I do not recommend turning the rotors, as all you really do is shorten their life.

What bed-in procedure did you use?

 

congrats on the new mod
and no pics?

 

I bedded them on the way to the track. They were never used in a street application. The procedure I used was from the ECS Tuning website regarding high performance brakes. It was: 10 stops from 60-10 mph @ 85% braking followed by 4 more at 80-40 mph @ 85%. I let them cool - highway driving - for 15 minutes, then did 7 hard stops (still 85%) from 100-50 mph.

They are supposed to be street performance pads, so it surprises me that the Pagids would wear the rotor so badly in 7 - 25 minute sessions. Most of the other guys at the track (none were Audis) that had bbk's had pretty smooth rotors.

So now that they are grooved, if I re-bed them, will this minimize the grooves - or if I change pads, won't this just put good pads on a rough rotor? Since it is so new, I would rather have the rotor ground to smooth and start again if I knew I would have better results. I know Pagid makes a more agressive pad line, and maybe I got those accidentally. I'll pull them and take a look at the stock numbers and see if they match Pagids recommendation.

 

Pics to come - they are still in the camera.

 

I would call the place that sold these to you before I did anything else. These should not be grooved if that is all you did.

That is not the best method for bedding them in- in my opinion. You should follow the repeated hard braking (getting the brakes up to temp) by letting them cool over night if possible. 15 minutes... then 7 more hard stops...? I guess that is ok, but not how I have done them.

It is probably not the hard tracking that grooved the rotors, it was the street driving or something else unrelated. Have you pulled the pads off and looked at them to see if there is anything strange? Not that you would do this, but I have heard of people put the pads on backwards... IE pads surface away from the rotor.

Please show us some pics.

The pads are not going to repair the rotors. If you get new pads, bed them in to the rotors and they will take on some of the characteristics of the rotors and be fine. You can turn the rotors (waste of money unless you have a show car) but only do that if you start off with new pads. That way you are back to a smooth surface vs smooth surface.