I am non-PP, but I have never tracked my car. I have been able to FULLY disable my ECS/TC using VCDS. I forget the actual sequence on how to do it, but there is a writeup or YouTube video somewhere, which is how I found out how to disable it. I use it quite often, especially in snow, because I can actually feel where I am loosing grip instead of the car doing nonsense work to try to gain traction...
7
Non-PP Track Setup
- Thread starter WJBenGTI
- Start date
I tried doing a stud conversion on my MK7 GTI. Worst thing I have done to the car. No matter how precise I was with the stud install, it never aligned with my aftermarket wheels correctly, nor was it completely safe. I got rid of them the day after I installed them. IMO, do not do a stud conversion! I have even had my tuner tell me the same thing.
Will_
Autocross Champion
- Location
- SF Bay Area
- Car(s)
- 2017 GTI S DSG
How does a stud conversion get messed up? Did someone bend all the studs?? I am quite happy with mine and it makes changing wheels a breeze (especially since my winter wheels need spacers). I check stud tightness and look for any issues when I change wheels but otherwise it’s pretty much set and forget.
Also, it costs like $120 and one hour to do. Don’t need any special LMS parts.
Also, it costs like $120 and one hour to do. Don’t need any special LMS parts.
up4speed
Go Kart Newbie
- Location
- Long Island
- Car(s)
- 2015 GTI
It's basic physics. I'm not sure if it's a "thing", but if you move the wheel away from the hub, it has more leverage to put more torque on the hub. I'm not sure if it makes a substantial difference, but I'm not comfortable with it because I don't know how much of a cushion the engineers built into the design.
JackRabbitSLIM
Go Kart Champion
- Location
- OHIO
- Car(s)
- MK7 GTI
^^^
If I were you I wouldn't take my word either, but ask someone you trust who is a real track rat.
Gvazquez
Go Kart Champion
- Location
- North Carolina
Our race cars on the team run spacers and it imposes no issue in premature bearing failures. I wouldn't worry about that at all
up4speed
Go Kart Newbie
- Location
- Long Island
- Car(s)
- 2015 GTI
Definitely good to know
Waltari
Go Kart Newbie
- Location
- Portland, OR
- Car(s)
- MK7 GTI
I ran two summers multiple HPDE trackdays with non-PP calipers, stock rotors, ceramic pads and RBF600. We've got two straights at PIR and on the back I'm dropping from 120+mph to about 50mph and on the front usually 110mph to 40mph. With 3 sessions, I usually would see some fade toward the end of each session, but were manageable. Just upgraded to factory PP calipers (wanted to keep stock for easy compatibility), slotted rotors, EBC Yellow stuff pads, stainless lines, and RBF600. EBC pads have bedded in and are quiet on street. Definitely feel more bite and looking forward to getting them on track next month.
I'd recommend the RS3 brake ducts for the front calipers. Cheap and easy to do. They make a big difference on a track.
Edit - A great guide on em https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/inde...ake-air-guides-from-the-audi-rs3-2017.353411/
Edit - A great guide on em https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/inde...ake-air-guides-from-the-audi-rs3-2017.353411/
GTI Jake
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Charlotte, NC
I’ve been running studs and spacers for over 100k miles now, no issues or worn wheel bearings.
WJBenGTI
New member
- Location
- Detroit Suburbs
- Car(s)
- 2017 GTI 6MT Non-PP
I just did my first track day of the year this weekend at Gingerman, it was a blast! I decided to use what remained of my Hawk HPS pads in the front, and fresh OEM rear pads. I installed the RS3 brake cooling ducts and had a fresh bleed with RBF600 as well.
Being that this was my 2nd HPDE ever and my first at this track, I had an instructor and I was in the novice group. The first half of Saturday was a lot of instructional laps and being stuck in traffic. Eventually in the afternoon the traffic thinned out and I was able to push for a few laps. I had one full session without much traffic and during that session my front pads went from about 2 backing plate thicknesses to 1 backing plate thickness with an insane amount of pad transfer on the rotors. The rear pads and rotors looked fine, with no crazy pad transfer or wear. The instructor verified that I was not doing anything incorrect on the brakes. The brakes didn't feel bad despite the large amounts of pad transfer and I never felt any large amounts of fluid fade either. I was able to run a 1:51.9 which I was pretty content with given my car and experience.
Day two I tried to take it easy on the brakes. Most laps I would take the corners at regular speed but then stop accelerating around 80mph on the straights so I didn't have to brake as long for the next corner. I would still do one or two full speed laps per session, but give the car plenty of cooldown between them. Also, I was able to find a fellow GTI driver who had an OBD11 and I used that to turn off my XDS completely. Before I turned it off, I could feel it activating the inside brakes around a lot of the track, so I figured it was definitely causing some of my brake wear and heat. Overall, limiting my speed on the straights and deactivating XDS meant I had enough brakes to get home at the end of the day (I had some autozone pads as a last resort too). I still had tons of fun, but obviously I would've liked to have more confidence in my brakes on the second day.
I was expecting the car to understeer off every corner without XDS but it was actually not bad. If you get on the power aggressively with too much steering, it would definitely push more than with XDS on, but I learned more throttle and steering control with it off. I wasn't much slower with it off either.
So, now that I have proven that I can not use Hawk HPS pads on track on my front brakes, I'll be looking for some decent pads, performance pack take off brakes, or a big brake kit. Is anyone running the Ferodo DS2500's on the front of a non-pp for track days? I've heard it's a decent choice and FCP Euro has them for the front of non-pp cars. Also, how big of a difference do slotted rotors make? I think my car is about due for new rotors anyway if I stick with stock brake dimensions.
Finally, a few times on track I had a strange thing happen with my brakes and I'm curious if anyone else has experienced it. At the end of a straight, I would go to the brake and it would almost immediately feel like ABS had kicked in, the pedal would vibrate like it does with ABS. While this was happening the pedal would also go soft and I would ease off the brake a bit. As I eased off the brake, the ABS feeling would stop and the pedal pressure would all immediately come back (while my foot was still on the brake) and I could push hard again with normal feeling brakes. It was like I had brake fade that was only present during ABS during the first part of a braking zone but it was happening when it didn't feel like ABS should've been doing anything. Could it have been pad knockback? Has anyone felt anything like that? Again, I'm new to HPDE's so it could've been something I was doing wrong, but it definitely felt weird.
Edit: It looks like up4speed is running DS2500's on his non-pp car, I forgot that was mentioned earlier in this thread!
Being that this was my 2nd HPDE ever and my first at this track, I had an instructor and I was in the novice group. The first half of Saturday was a lot of instructional laps and being stuck in traffic. Eventually in the afternoon the traffic thinned out and I was able to push for a few laps. I had one full session without much traffic and during that session my front pads went from about 2 backing plate thicknesses to 1 backing plate thickness with an insane amount of pad transfer on the rotors. The rear pads and rotors looked fine, with no crazy pad transfer or wear. The instructor verified that I was not doing anything incorrect on the brakes. The brakes didn't feel bad despite the large amounts of pad transfer and I never felt any large amounts of fluid fade either. I was able to run a 1:51.9 which I was pretty content with given my car and experience.
Day two I tried to take it easy on the brakes. Most laps I would take the corners at regular speed but then stop accelerating around 80mph on the straights so I didn't have to brake as long for the next corner. I would still do one or two full speed laps per session, but give the car plenty of cooldown between them. Also, I was able to find a fellow GTI driver who had an OBD11 and I used that to turn off my XDS completely. Before I turned it off, I could feel it activating the inside brakes around a lot of the track, so I figured it was definitely causing some of my brake wear and heat. Overall, limiting my speed on the straights and deactivating XDS meant I had enough brakes to get home at the end of the day (I had some autozone pads as a last resort too). I still had tons of fun, but obviously I would've liked to have more confidence in my brakes on the second day.
I was expecting the car to understeer off every corner without XDS but it was actually not bad. If you get on the power aggressively with too much steering, it would definitely push more than with XDS on, but I learned more throttle and steering control with it off. I wasn't much slower with it off either.
So, now that I have proven that I can not use Hawk HPS pads on track on my front brakes, I'll be looking for some decent pads, performance pack take off brakes, or a big brake kit. Is anyone running the Ferodo DS2500's on the front of a non-pp for track days? I've heard it's a decent choice and FCP Euro has them for the front of non-pp cars. Also, how big of a difference do slotted rotors make? I think my car is about due for new rotors anyway if I stick with stock brake dimensions.
Finally, a few times on track I had a strange thing happen with my brakes and I'm curious if anyone else has experienced it. At the end of a straight, I would go to the brake and it would almost immediately feel like ABS had kicked in, the pedal would vibrate like it does with ABS. While this was happening the pedal would also go soft and I would ease off the brake a bit. As I eased off the brake, the ABS feeling would stop and the pedal pressure would all immediately come back (while my foot was still on the brake) and I could push hard again with normal feeling brakes. It was like I had brake fade that was only present during ABS during the first part of a braking zone but it was happening when it didn't feel like ABS should've been doing anything. Could it have been pad knockback? Has anyone felt anything like that? Again, I'm new to HPDE's so it could've been something I was doing wrong, but it definitely felt weird.
Edit: It looks like up4speed is running DS2500's on his non-pp car, I forgot that was mentioned earlier in this thread!
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IMO the Macan brakes are the best bang for your buck costing around 800 with slotted rotors/pads/ss-lines and calipers. I haven't tracked them yet but have really pushed them on some upstate backroads and I can already tell they hold up a lot better than non-pp brakes. They do require a bit of trial and error with greasing the pistons and obd11 to get them to feel good for track use. Anything after that like the ST-40 kit or a Brembo kit and you are looking at 2.5k+. Also the Macan calipers are quite a bit lighter than pp calipers+braket.
If you are going to stick with non-pp brakes, I've had good experiences with EBC yellow stuff up at Watkins, however, they will eat rotors after about 10k miles. The small 312mmX20mm rotors are the limiting factor, eventually if you are pushing hard enough they just can't deal with the heat no matter what pad you run.
For that weird ABS thing were you on the stock rear pads? I found while bedding in my yellow stuff while still on the stock rear pads and non-pp rotors, the rear pads would overheat way faster and lose friction due to being absolute crap from the factory. Abs would then try to kick in on the rear causing all sorts of wacky stuff. Switched to a more aggressive rear pad and it solved it.
I also run drilled FCP rotors front and rear. Does it help, eh maybe, it's more for the look for me. They only cost 20 more per rotor, and I get free replacements with FCP
If you are going to stick with non-pp brakes, I've had good experiences with EBC yellow stuff up at Watkins, however, they will eat rotors after about 10k miles. The small 312mmX20mm rotors are the limiting factor, eventually if you are pushing hard enough they just can't deal with the heat no matter what pad you run.
For that weird ABS thing were you on the stock rear pads? I found while bedding in my yellow stuff while still on the stock rear pads and non-pp rotors, the rear pads would overheat way faster and lose friction due to being absolute crap from the factory. Abs would then try to kick in on the rear causing all sorts of wacky stuff. Switched to a more aggressive rear pad and it solved it.
I also run drilled FCP rotors front and rear. Does it help, eh maybe, it's more for the look for me. They only cost 20 more per rotor, and I get free replacements with FCP