Blackhawk with the parents + the brake-feel debate

Last weekend I was out at Blackhawk Farms again, this time with Northwoods shelby club. Two weekends in a row is a lot for me. However my folks came out from Idaho and I took them to the track with me. My dad got to ride on the track for the first time with me. At least they can understand what I’m doing a little better. Unless you’ve been on a track you can never understand how big the forces are relative to what you’re used to on the street.

Anyhow, no time for changes. It was check the car and time for a pad swap. I had killed my front pads. due to some vague shipping dates I ended up with 2 complete sets of er-1 pads trying to get a new set. I guess I’ll use them eventually. I moved the rears up to the front to accelerate their wear. I’ll find out if ECS stands by their warranty on pads soon. I also did get the tires flipped at crown customs. I hope it gets me through the end of the season on this set.

No new PBs this weekend. However this was my first time out on more than a damp track. It was raining pretty good at the start and tapered off a bit towards the end. Most of the cars packed it up after a couple laps. I stayed out the whole session. You can watch me fumble my way through trying to figure out the wet line.

The only other event of note was me chasing a Rx8 that spun off in front of me. He was back lapping after a short check-in, so no harm done. He definitely had more grip than me. I think he was on Hoosiers. I’d out brake him somehow. Given the spin I have to wonder if he disabled ABS.

Nothing major to track down. The car was relatively hot this weekend, but a slower track and more time at high RPM explains it. The brakes are still pretty inconsistent feeling. They brake fine, but it’s not a good feeling having your pedal feel change all the time.

I’m pondering going to manual brakes FDF makes a kit that changes the pedal ratio for you. Probably $700 all in. I just looked up using an electric pump off a newer accord- ibooster https://www.evcreate.com/ibooster-donor-vehicles/ There is more development work to do here, but it would give me a boosted pedal that doesn’t depend on vacuum, so no variable feel. I think it might actually be cheaper than the manual brakes, but I’d have to figure it out myself rather than have a bolt on setup. The pump is easy. I think I know where I can get a kit to adapt a wilwood MC to the ibooster. I’d need to figure out a bracket to adapt the pump, the linkage to the pedal, and probably redo some brake lines. Wiring looks pretty simple.