Stock brakes - dust boot failure

[Rostasteve]

It's November, it's cold, track season is over. Time to swap out my track pads for street pads. I removed the pads and noticed that 3 of the piston dust boots have serious holes in them, and 1 is brittle and cracking but no obvious holes.

The car only has 4 track days on it. I'm confident that all dust boots were in good shape before I installed track pads (PFC 08) in July. My brake temps were 750-800F after sessions.

Questions:
1. Should I expect dust boots to fail this fast on stock brakes or is age (5 years) a contributing factor?
2. Rebuild myself or buy remanufactured calipers from Turner? (BBK is not an option)
3. Does anyone sell high temp boots?

[mid-corner fun]

Originally Posted by Rostasteve

It's November, it's cold, track season is over. Time to swap out my track pads for street pads. I removed the pads and noticed that 3 of the piston dust boots have serious holes in them, and 1 is brittle and cracking but no obvious holes.

The car only has 4 track days on it. I'm confident that all dust boots were in good shape before I installed track pads (PFC 08) in July. My brake temps were 750-800F after sessions.

Questions:
1. Should I expect dust boots to fail this fast on stock brakes or is age (5 years) a contributing factor?
2. Rebuild myself or buy remanufactured calipers from Turner? (BBK is not an option)
3. Does anyone sell high temp boots?

Yes, high temps will do that to dust boots.

No experience with the same car doing this, but with the same caliper. My old 335's front dust boots practically disintegrated after a season of heavy track use with DTC70s and PFC01s. I researched route #2 (rebuild kit) but ended up buying a used caliper set from here for ~$100.

PS. This year I melted the caliper guide pin threads on that caliper (on the M3) by attempting to swap out pads between sessions - no cooldown.

[TXmtrhed]

Get some .05 mm Ti pad insulators for next season from Hardbrakes or somewhere similar. I got a pack of four, used two up front and modified the other two to fit on the rears.
Never a problem since I started using them.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by TXmtrhed

Get some .05 mm Ti pad insulators for next season from Hardbrakes or somewhere similar. I got a pack of four, used two up front and modified the other two to fit on the rears.
Never a problem since I started using them.

Good call. Fwiw, StopTech Street Performance pads at least for the fitment for their ST-60 BBK caliper come with titanium plates that you can swap onto race pads when you're headed to the track. I can't remember whether the pads in OEM fitment come with them though.

[surlynkid]

Originally Posted by TXmtrhed

Get some .05 mm Ti pad insulators for next season from Hardbrakes or somewhere similar. I got a pack of four, used two up front and modified the other two to fit on the rears.
Never a problem since I started using them.

This is what I do.

[surlynkid]

Originally Posted by jphughan

Good call. Fwiw, StopTech Street Performance pads at least for the fitment for their ST-60 BBK caliper come with titanium plates that you can swap onto race pads when you're headed to the track. I can't remember whether the pads in OEM fitment come with them though.

No. The backing plate on the stop tech street pads that come with the BBK do not just swap over to something like a Pagid RS29. I know. I tried. They are not the same shape backing plate. Just order from hard brakes

[Rostasteve]

Originally Posted by TXmtrhed

Get some .05 mm Ti pad insulators for next season from Hardbrakes or somewhere similar. I got a pack of four, used two up front and modified the other two to fit on the rears.
Never a problem since I started using them.

Interesting... Do these work with the clips on the pads or do the clips have to be removed? If they have to be removed, do you get a lot of rattle?

[CanAutM3]

Originally Posted by Rostasteve

It's November, it's cold, track season is over. Time to swap out my track pads for street pads. I removed the pads and noticed that 3 of the piston dust boots have serious holes in them, and 1 is brittle and cracking but no obvious holes.

The car only has 4 track days on it. I'm confident that all dust boots were in good shape before I installed track pads (PFC 08) in July. My brake temps were 750-800F after sessions.

Questions:
1. Should I expect dust boots to fail this fast on stock brakes or is age (5 years) a contributing factor?
2. Rebuild myself or buy remanufactured calipers from Turner? (BBK is not an option)
3. Does anyone sell high temp boots?

I rebuilt my calipers twice because of those dust boots falling apart. I decided to give up and leave them like this and rebuild only if the pistons start to seize. So far so good.

[TXmtrhed]

Originally Posted by Rostasteve

Interesting... Do these work with the clips on the pads or do the clips have to be removed? If they have to be removed, do you get a lot of rattle?

The pads knock about quite a bit with the clips removed; wouldn't recommend it for daily driving. I usually have my race pads in for no more than a week at a time with no harm.

You can use the Ti shims with the clips in place; you just have to finish cutting a precut circle in the shim (for the clip pin) and then a slot toward the top so you could slip it behind the clip. I may do this with my next set of pads.

[bigjae1976]

My dust boots were actually on fire when I came off the track once. Thank god for bottled water!

[TXmtrhed]

Originally Posted by bigjae1976

My dust boots were actually on fire when I came off the track once. Thank god for bottled water!

Why does this not surprise me?

[bigjae1976]

Originally Posted by TXmtrhed

Why does this not surprise me?

My dust boots are like me...EN FUEGO!

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by surlynkid

No. The backing plate on the stop tech street pads that come with the BBK do not just swap over to something like a Pagid RS29. I know. I tried. They are not the same shape backing plate. Just order from hard brakes

Interesting, they swap over to my PFC 08s just fine. I'm surprised the pad shape can be that different between two products that are designed to fit into the same caliper....