Bedding in Carbotech pads with Used Rotors
 

I just picked up some Carbotech pads and I want to install them tomorrow. But Carbotech instructions say if you used a different pad on your current rotors that you should replace or resurface your current rotor. Well I have slotted rotors so they can't be resurfaced. What should I do? I have some Stillen J-Hooked rotors but don't want to use them yet. My current rotors only have 3K miles on them with plenty of life. Does it really make a big difference if the rotors are not resurfaced?

I'm not sure, i just know i HATE bedding in brakes.

I was running HPS pads on my slotted rotors and then switched to the XP 10/8's. I opted for the Carbotech pre-bedding service and then went through the regular bedding in process for "insurance". I now have awesome brakes and feel very comfortable at Texas World Speedway Track.

Don't worry too much about it, just make sure you bed them in like they say. Else you will be wondering where your brake pedal is on your first session at the track

Aren't there instructions regarding used/non turned rotors too? I had 12/10s and I recall some wording about non-turned rotors….albeit turning before bedding in showed as the priority in the instructions.

Sounds good
Maybe on there site but not on the set of directions I have

carbotech will stick to their story that you shouldn't use rotors that have been run previously with their pads. I know people that have done it with no issue, just cleaned up the rotors and went to it....don't know that I'd risk it.

You can scuff up the surface with a 90deg die grinder with a 50 grit roloc disc then break clean it when finished and bed them as if the rotors are new.:tiphat:

I was just asking about this before I made it to this thread. Hoping to swap between Carbotech and OEM pads without messing with rotors constantly.

It would be great to have new rotors for every new pads, but then it's also nice to have a fresh set of slicks for every track session. You will be fine, don't worry about it. I swapped my pads way too many times this year (so have others), you will be fine at the non professional level.

Oh yeah, I bought a 50 or 100 pack sandpaper. It's the special 80 grit one that one of the forum member recommded. Let me know if you want a few, I have a whole stack of them and they are taking up space. I have to check exactly what they are.

Anything other than Bobcats say to bed on the track. :P

Oh yeah, I had my car shipped to a private air strip. I then did a few 130-40 to bed in my XP10. I chickened out on the XP8 and didn't quite get up to speed for a full bleed, I ended up not having my brakes in my first session at the track. Plus I got some deposits on the rotors as a result.

A former race car driver told me that bedding in pads is super important. If you screw it up, the pads are basically junked. You just need to get the pad to bond perfectly at the first heat cycle. The whole rotor/pad mating thing is secondary

Easiest way to do it is run the pads on the street hard enough to scrape material, but not hard enough to get them hot enough for bedding to begin.

Basically do a hard stop, then drive normally for awhile until everything completely cools down and do another somewhat hard stop. This should scrape the old material off as Carbotechs are generally abrasive under "cold" usage.

Then you can go about bedding them in normally with multiple hard stops within short periods of time.

^ this is what I did today. They seem perfect IMO. Did several 120 to 30 stops. These pads ate so bad a$$. I see why Cossie hated on the HP. Far surperior. I did like my HP+ though. But I have a new love now.

We always recommend resurfacing or replacing the rotor, but we know many customers that have not and they sometimes end up with some rotor warpage.

I'm a noob at this brake bedding thing and all...What do people that swap between street and track pads do then? is it ok to swap as long as the race pads have already being bedded with a new/resurfaced rotor?

XP 10/8 or 8s front and rear?

HP+ is a fine pad, but I just don't think they offer enough bang for the buck. They also murder rotors too.

I agree. They would be fine for DD and spirtited days IMO. If you don't mind the dust. They did do well on my first track day. Even though the track wasn't brake intensive and I wasn't pounding on the brakes yet.

That's what I hope to learn more on my next two track days in Nov. (which are two days in a row) is to brake later and harder. I did some runs today after my pads were bedded in and really starting to learn the feel of our cars and how well they actully can handle with my setup under hard braking. I was more than shock of what it can do under braking when combined with my LSD also, being it locks at 50% under deceleration.

But my second little run later that day I got down the road about four miles (casual driving) then went for and under braking it did overload the tires with the first two hard stops. I know these pads are awesome and the tires were probably colder when I first started. But is this to be expected from time to time with the XP 8's? I have RE-11 tires. Also after bedding them in I haven't heard hardly any squeals. Boooooo. I want them to. I love that. Just call me crazy. Pretty sure I'll have my far share soon enough.

Just be careful of ice mode. The last time I drove my car, the temps were in the 50s. I couldn't do any hard stops without ice mode kicking on

I really wish I could reproduce that. I've yet to be able to cause ice mode and I want to know what it feels like so I can train myself to mitigate it if it occur.

I recently had some fun after something unknown caused the car to disable ABS and VDC... it was fun to lightly lock up the brakes on a country road and find the limit of that grip.

When I get home, I will try to take a video of it. The pedal basically goes stiff and you lose a lot of braking power

Find a shitty broken up parking lot. Grass growing through cracks is the best. Brake hard going across it. Enjoy ice mode.

BRAKE and VDC will give up and turn off (light up) if the brake fluid sensor reads low. It's towards the front of the reservoir and if you're a little low can be tripped by hard acceleration. Credit to ChrisSlicks for helping diagnose that on my car after one track day.

I had that issue before a track day as well.. and thankfully a friend had some RBF600 so I could top off. This time was different. I immediately hopped out and checked the fluid which hadn't changed/was probably over-full. I chalked it up to the angle of the garage anyway but I'm going to be careful for a while anyway because of the fluid level at the time.