Toasted Akebono Piston Dust Boots
 

Since our track day season has come to a close up here, I swapped out my track pads for the street pads once again. My last track day was Road America which surely was the most brake-intensive track I've driven this summer. Well, I'll be damned if my front Akebono piston dust boots aren't all but disintegrated. The brakes were flawless all season using Carbotech pads and Motul fluid, but apparently the boots weren't up to the temps that the rest of the system could take.

How important are these dust boots? What kind of issues am I looking at down the road if I just ignore the fact they're in dust boot heaven? I vaguely recall a thread about this long ago, but the ubber-advanced Google forum search left me hanging.

No pics...just imagine a caliper piston with a vaporized rubber boot fragment around it.

since you got road salt and you're driving the z in the winter, i'd get those boots replaced...(?)

You should be ok without them. Brake dust can get into the seal area over time, buy a lot of corvette track junkies just run without them for the same reason

My old 05 STi had the same issue. Never replaced them and tracked it for 3 years without issues. I think you will be fine...but since it's brakes which are VERY important, it wouldn't hurt to check them out every time you do a fluid flush or pad swap just to be safe.

Thanks for the input. Given my inherent laziness and loathing of doing repeated tasks, I'm going to leave them baked. If a piston seizes, it will be my motivation to get an AP Racing 6-pot BBK. If brake dust/grime gets into the seal, do you develop a leak or just get $hit in the brake fluid?

Is this something that frequently happens to any brake kit though?

They would probably develop a leak. Do a track day at road Atlanta and I'll rebuild them foryou while you are here.

Ah ha! Now I have even more motivation to get down there :).

How did your Brembo dust boots hold up?

You may develop a leak in time. Or enough gunk could eventually get in there to seize a piston. The longer term issue is corrosion from water, salt, etc. Once corroded, you'll be replacing either the pistons or the entire caliper.

The better brake kits use seal materials that are much better than the typical OE's use. In fact, the materials used in the current AP Racing brake systems have the same temperature profile as the full-on racing seals of just 5-6 years ago.

OK Chris. I'm saving my pennies. Put aside a nice set of Competition Grey 6-pot front calipers. They're going to be my spring upgrade that I'll have to hide from the wifey :).