Model S Plaid Brakes Are Terrible!

[bhzmark]

That’s because of cold track pads!!!

Sorry I should add I rarely reply without sarcasm. ( even that comment was a little sarcastic.) I always do.

I find it odd that a lighter BMW with "upgraded" brakes, and Porsche 911 Targa is **worse** than the much heavier Plaid with original stock brakes from 100mph. The tires are roughly the same.

A very possible explanation is that both Porsche and BMW use pads that have higher high temperature operating room and so will better withstand a light track day (especially with their lower weight and power), but they trade off some cold performance and the C&D testing protocol from 100mph doesn't quite get those slightly track oriented pads to peak operating temp. Their pads were still too cold. But I'm speculating.

It's also possible that the new OEM Plaid track pads from Tesla (or the CC kit) may have a different pad compound that strikes a similar trade off -- worse cold performance for better hot performance.

 

[MFrunkerOG]

So now I have been through Tesla’s 2021 oem pads, Gloc GS1, NRS and finally put on Gloc’s R12 pads for an upcoming event.

The r12 combined with the 280 treadwear Pirelli summers is truly what this car should have come with. The cold bite on the R12 is astounding!

I’ve also managed to reduce pedal travel with pad shims and by bending the caliper springs a wee bit so they don’t keep as much space between pads and rotor.

I’m stopping really really well now. The oem and other street pads are well designed but not for tires in the 200 treadwear range

 

[Sam1]

So now I have been through Tesla’s 2021 oem pads, Gloc GS1, NRS and finally put on Gloc’s R12 pads for an upcoming event.

The r12 combined with the 280 treadwear Pirelli summers is truly what this car should have come with. The cold bite on the R12 is astounding!

I’ve also managed to reduce pedal travel with pad shims and by bending the caliper springs a wee bit so they don’t keep as much space between pads and rotor.

I’m stopping really really well now. The oem and other street pads are well designed but not for tires in the 200 treadwear range

Mind showing a pic or basic sketch of what you did with the springs?

The NF0 Goodyear F1's I'm running are 240 TW. Talk about some sticky sticky...and terrible range

 

[MFrunkerOG]

Mind showing a pic or basic sketch of what you did with the springs?

The NF0 Goodyear F1's I'm running are 240 TW. Talk about some sticky sticky...and terrible range

On each caliper spring (2 on each caliper - top and bottom pad separation) the spring edge that contacts the pad edge need to be bend inwards so it’s not as wide. When you take out the spring clip measure the width of the springs and bend away. You can’t screw it up . If you bend inwards too much you can just bend it back out.

Then add a tiny dot of caliper grease on the end of the spring and put it back in. Make sure the edge of the spring it actually holding the pad with a little tension. A little tension is all that’s needed.

 

[Mash]

wow. the bmw pads on the M5 CS must be even worse!!!

View attachment 928552

Stopping distance has nothing to do with pads friction coefficient. Any proper OEM pad can lock stock tire. Stock car stopping distance only influenced by tire compounds and ABS program tuning.

 

[WilliamG]

Stopping distance has nothing to do with pads friction coefficient. Any proper OEM pad can lock stock tire. Stock car stopping distance only influenced by tire compounds and ABS program tuning.

The first few times, yes. After the brakes themselves overheat, then tires become less relevant.

 

[bhzmark]

Stopping distance has nothing to do with pads friction coefficient. Any proper OEM pad can lock stock tire. Stock car stopping distance only influenced by tire compounds and ABS program tuning.

You said Tesla stock pads are low mu in the first place. Really? When cold? friction generated is a function of temperature and the operating temp range of the pads. So first, where is your data on stock pads mu, and especially what temp are you stating that the stock pads are low mu?

The (wrong, proven false by real data) title of this thread is that Plaid brakes are terrible. In fact the data show that the Plaid stops shorter, from high speed (100) in repeated tests, by reliable car testing teams, than other lighter performance cars. What more should brakes do for the 99.9% of buyers who never go to the track?

What is unique about Plaid is that in a track context, where brakes are used repeatedly in quick succession for long times, and the brakes have to deal with lots of mass at very high speeds, they will heat up quickly —- in a track context. And so the only thing unique about the plaid is that because of the massive weight and amazing speed, track usuage requires much higher temperature brake components — for track usage only.

For normal every day, even energetic, driving the Plaid brakes are just fine for their intended, and most commonly used, purpose.

For any car, but especially with the Plaid (because of weight and speed), if you take the car to track, put track optimized (rather than street optimized) parts on it. But beware that your track tires will wear faster, and be crappy in the rain, and your track brake fluid will need to be flushed more often, and your high temp operating track pads may not work as well when cold (e.g., when cruising on the highway and need to emergency stop in as short a distance as possible with stone cold brakes) as the OEM pads.

 

[Duke846]

You said Tesla stock pads are low mu in the first place. Really? When cold? friction generated is a function of temperature and the operating temp range of the pads. So first, where is your data on stock pads mu, and especially what temp are you stating that the stock pads are low mu?

The (wrong, proven false by real data) title of this thread is that Plaid brakes are terrible. In fact the data show that the Plaid stops shorter, from high speed (100) in repeated tests, by reliable car testing teams, than other lighter performance cars. What more should brakes do for the 99.9% of buyers who never go to the track?

What is unique about Plaid is that in a track context, where brakes are used repeatedly in quick succession for long times, and the brakes have to deal with lots of mass at very high speeds, they will heat up quickly —- in a track context. And so the only thing unique about the plaid is that because of the massive weight and amazing speed, track usuage requires much higher temperature brake components — for track usage only.

For normal every day, even energetic, driving the Plaid brakes are just fine for their intended, and most commonly used, purpose.

For any car, but especially with the Plaid (because of weight and speed), if you take the car to track, put track optimized (rather than street optimized) parts on it. But beware that your track tires will wear faster, and be crappy in the rain, and your track brake fluid will need to be flushed more often, and your high temp operating track pads may not work as well when cold (e.g., when cruising on the highway and need to emergency stop in as short a distance as possible with stone cold brakes) as the OEM pads.

You forgot to attach the charts!
I agree with everything you say! I am not a paid sponsor from tesla. I make a living using brake energy charts.

 

[MFrunkerOG]

I wonder how many of you vehemently making a point have actually experienced the difference yourself between stock braking and aftermarket on this specific car!

 

[bhzmark]

I wonder how many of you vehemently making a point have actually experienced the difference yourself between stock braking and aftermarket on this specific car!

How have you measured the “cold bite” of the R12? How long does it take you to stop from 100 mph (or whatever) with R12 versus the stock — when cold? on the highway? in the winter?

Note that the R12 pad “cold bite” (operating range starting at 173 F) isn’t as good as the R6 cold performance (operating range starting at 0 F). GLoc Brake Pads.

I haven’t seen data on the stock pads but I think they are likely optimized, as they should be, for having a very low operating range temperature — as well as being low noise and low dust. All elements that are ideal in a stock pad for the 99.9% of buyers, but are all trade offs with pad compounds that have a much higher operating temperature.

 

[Duke846]

I wonder how many of you vehemently making a point have actually experienced the difference yourself between stock braking and aftermarket on this specific car!

My brakes work the anti skid from 150-0 the whole time, stock. No need for aftermarket’s on my plaid. For what I use it for.

 

[WilliamG]

My brakes work the anti skid from 150-0 the whole time, stock. No need for aftermarket’s on my plaid. For what I use it for.

True for 99.9% of Plaid owners.

 

[Gninoked]

No offense to anyone offering brake ducting solutions out there - but we thought we could do something better and I'm happy to say I think we achieved it with this prototype setup. This is based on a motorsports design that we have observed on pro cars and then adapted to our RX7's and now to the Plaid.
The plates are made of 1/8" 6061 aluminum, cut to fit the Plaid axles/knuckle. This version is about 80% of the way to good, next rev will have a few more updates to better conform and therefore reduce air leakage. The lip around the edge fits into the MPP 400mm rotors with about 2mm of clearance to seal the back of the rotor. We didn't modify the knuckle - so that meant for the duct entrance we had to do a cutout for the wheel speed sensor and wiring. We've got a couple ideas on how to modify this further so that we can ease the manufacturing and increase the airflow a bit more. This backing plate is sized for a 3" brake duct hose, and while working, we would like to go bigger if possible in a future rev. For comparison the general setup for endurance sports cars is twin 4" hoses!

For the connection to the nose our friend Damian (a friend by way of our RX7 racing endeavors!) helped us design and print some PC-CF pipes to get from the back of the front duct around the corners to a spot that can be anchored to the horns and then to the 3" hose. This was a ton of fun to model and build but a real challenge too especially with 12+ hour print times! The hose has a built in flange that connects to the front duct sandwiched through the grill. Very solid in the end - and the pipe is held to the car frame with a flexible captured coupling to avoid breaking anything when the bumper flexes a bit. One note - we do not have the air suspension anymore, so we removed the air pump as well. The design we have now wouldn't work with the air pump - something to figure out if we decide to manufacture these for others!

The final piece of the puzzle was the front duct - from the beginning we had the idea to use the space next to the grill opening - it's just too perfect. Obviously others had the same idea - you can see that in the options that are commercially available now. We wanted to do something that was good enough to look OEM if you didn't know what you were looking at - but the grill and bumper are a very complex shape. In addition we were not willing to run without some sort of screen - we run the car on the street and the track and want to make sure we don't suck a bunch of junk into the duct that block the rotor cooling passages. With some scanning and careful modeling I think we are 95% of the way there. The duct is now a 2 piece part, the main duct is a large area with the screen held in shear on the front via screws to ensure that the screen blockage doesn't limit the airflow through the 3" duct, and then a 3d funnel that matches up with the pipe behind it. There is a cosmetic cap on top of that to hide the screen edge and screws. In order to install it successfully it has captured nuts/threaded rod on the back - there is not a ton of room in there! We've got some ideas on how to improve this design a bit - but in general it works great. We installed it with some 1/16" foam around the edge to ensure we are not damaging the bumper.

I don't have pictures - but we ran the duct hose like normal, only modifying the fender liner a small amount. We did have to oval the hose as is the case with many cars, and at full lock it can still rub. We are thinking about creating/printing a duct to avoid this as well, but ran out of time for this version and wanted to get some data to prove the value first! The routing is up on top of the sway bar and then under the shock and across to the entrance and it's secured with zip ties and protected with silicone hose.
Here's what the car looked like all ready to run this past weekend. At NCM and Nelson ledges the Motec data appears to show that we achieved the original goal - we are more than 100C down on peak temps (closer to 150C!) The temps decrease more quickly (slope of the cooling curve) and they are not continuing to rise when the power runs out as before. More testing is needed, but we are headed the right direction!

 

[Awiner]

No offense to anyone offering brake ducting solutions out there - but we thought we could do something better and I'm happy to say I think we achieved it with this prototype setup. This is based on a motorsports design that we have observed on pro cars and then adapted to our RX7's and now to the Plaid.
The plates are made of 1/8" 6061 aluminum, cut to fit the Plaid axles/knuckle. This version is about 80% of the way to good, next rev will have a few more updates to better conform and therefore reduce air leakage. The lip around the edge fits into the MPP 400mm rotors with about 2mm of clearance to seal the back of the rotor. We didn't modify the knuckle - so that meant for the duct entrance we had to do a cutout for the wheel speed sensor and wiring. We've got a couple ideas on how to modify this further so that we can ease the manufacturing and increase the airflow a bit more. This backing plate is sized for a 3" brake duct hose, and while working, we would like to go bigger if possible in a future rev. For comparison the general setup for endurance sports cars is twin 4" hoses!

View attachment 932071

For the connection to the nose our friend Damian (a friend by way of our RX7 racing endeavors!) helped us design and print some PC-CF pipes to get from the back of the front duct around the corners to a spot that can be anchored to the horns and then to the 3" hose. This was a ton of fun to model and build but a real challenge too especially with 12+ hour print times! The hose has a built in flange that connects to the front duct sandwiched through the grill. Very solid in the end - and the pipe is held to the car frame with a flexible captured coupling to avoid breaking anything when the bumper flexes a bit. One note - we do not have the air suspension anymore, so we removed the air pump as well. The design we have now wouldn't work with the air pump - something to figure out if we decide to manufacture these for others!


View attachment 932075

The final piece of the puzzle was the front duct - from the beginning we had the idea to use the space next to the grill opening - it's just too perfect. Obviously others had the same idea - you can see that in the options that are commercially available now. We wanted to do something that was good enough to look OEM if you didn't know what you were looking at - but the grill and bumper are a very complex shape. In addition we were not willing to run without some sort of screen - we run the car on the street and the track and want to make sure we don't suck a bunch of junk into the duct that block the rotor cooling passages. With some scanning and careful modeling I think we are 95% of the way there. The duct is now a 2 piece part, the main duct is a large area with the screen held in shear on the front via screws to ensure that the screen blockage doesn't limit the airflow through the 3" duct, and then a 3d funnel that matches up with the pipe behind it. There is a cosmetic cap on top of that to hide the screen edge and screws. In order to install it successfully it has captured nuts/threaded rod on the back - there is not a ton of room in there! We've got some ideas on how to improve this design a bit - but in general it works great. We installed it with some 1/16" foam around the edge to ensure we are not damaging the bumper.

View attachment 932076

I don't have pictures - but we ran the duct hose like normal, only modifying the fender liner a small amount. We did have to oval the hose as is the case with many cars, and at full lock it can still rub. We are thinking about creating/printing a duct to avoid this as well, but ran out of time for this version and wanted to get some data to prove the value first! The routing is up on top of the sway bar and then under the shock and across to the entrance and it's secured with zip ties and protected with silicone hose.
Here's what the car looked like all ready to run this past weekend. At NCM and Nelson ledges the Motec data appears to show that we achieved the original goal - we are more than 100C down on peak temps (closer to 150C!) The temps decrease more quickly (slope of the cooling curve) and they are not continuing to rise when the power runs out as before. More testing is needed, but we are headed the right direction!

View attachment 932130

Aesthetically this is the best I’ve seen out there.

 

[MountainPass]

The honeycomb mesh is

 

[1100MCM]

Yesterday I had Carbotech pads installed on front and rear of my 22 Plaid. A couple months before that I had already upgraded to the MPP big brake kit on all four wheels and dot 4 brake fluid. Good gawd does this thing stop now! It’s like eye popping braking force now that is a night and day difference to stock brakes. Who knew you could get 5k lbs to stop in such a hurry with no fade after repeated use! I’m extremely happy with this setup.

 

[lbowroom]

Yesterday I had Carbotech pads installed on front and rear of my 22 Plaid. A couple months before that I had already upgraded to the MPP big brake kit on all four wheels and dot 4 brake fluid. Good gawd does this thing stop now! It’s like eye popping braking force now that is a night and day difference to stock brakes. Who knew you could get 5k lbs to stop in such a hurry with no fade after repeated use! I’m extremely happy with this setup.

That’s good to hear. I’ve had the MPP rotors on for a while and recently received the carbotech pads and Castro SRF, just haven’t had a chance to bleed and swap pads. Maybe tomorrow

 

[Sam1]

Yesterday I had Carbotech pads installed on front and rear of my 22 Plaid. A couple months before that I had already upgraded to the MPP big brake kit on all four wheels and dot 4 brake fluid. Good gawd does this thing stop now! It’s like eye popping braking force now that is a night and day difference to stock brakes. Who knew you could get 5k lbs to stop in such a hurry with no fade after repeated use! I’m extremely happy with this setup.

I got a set of the UP/PFC pads on the stock rotors a while back and that singular change made was the biggest braking change on any car I've ever had...just from brake pads. Added the Girodisc rotors a little later, didn't make any difference in braking, but it did help keep the rotors a little cleaner from all the desert dust and reduced glazing. A lot of people are avoiding changing the pads because historically we haven't seen much of a benefit from doing that, but as you said, they (whatever brand) really do make the car stop like it should.

I also ordered a set of the lightweight/drag CCBs from UP a few days ago, really interested to see if they make an even bigger improvement from the 150+ brakes.

 

[Sam1]

That’s good to hear. I’ve had the MPP rotors on for a while and recently received the carbotech pads and Castro SRF, just haven’t had a chance to bleed and swap pads. Maybe tomorrow

100% get on it, it's astounding how much of a difference it will make.

 

[MichaelP90DL]

I splurged on MountainPass Performance's "Easy Big Fella" 400mm front rotors and the corresponding rotors for the rear, then went with Unplugged Performance's street/track pads for the stock calipers, and their stainless brake lines. Install was done by Parts3Xpress.com in Temple City, CA. I really smoked the OEM brakes at Willow Springs on drag nights when trying to slow down enough to make the return road. It's easy to see braking performance is a lot better just by driving around on streets. Thanks to everyone for the great products, and to P3XP for their excellent install work. Wheels are 20" forged Signature SV-501s. Next up: red calipers and (probably) metallic silver racing stripes. Woohoo! See you at Willow on drag nights.