Track pads for '03 Miata ("big" brakes)

I'm looking for a nice but disposable track car because I'm not really comfortable anymore with slinging around a 40k car with a loan on it around the racetrack. I haven't had a Miata in a long time so I'm probably coming back home to one soon. I'm looking at track prep with an eye toward perhaps converting from DE to SM in a couple years when I have a garage.

I found a pretty nice '03, but it has the bigger "sport" brakes. I cannot find track pads! Hawk doesn't make them. Pagid doesn't make them. PFC doesn't make them. All of them specifically exclude the sport brakes. I know that SM doesn't allow the bigger brakes anyway, so how easy and cheap it is to replace with regular brakes? And in the meantime, where in the world do I find good track pads for a sport brake NB?

Gloc R10 Front R8 Rear. 949racing.com

I have heard literally nothing good about gLoc pads and the idea of having to abandon the ones I know and like is not appealing. 

I guess that answers the question if that is all that’s available. 

Lugnut said:

I have heard literally nothing good about gLoc pads and the idea of having to abandon the ones I know and like is not appealing. 

I guess that answers the question if that is all that’s available. 

I'm going to guess the "bad" you've heard about them is people that can't read instructions and don't know how to bed the brakes. 

Gloc are essentially Carbotech copies. 

Carbotech/Gloc bed in procedure. 

Hammer the car on multiple 70-5 stops, over and over again, until the pedal gets fairly soft and the brakes smell horrible. 

Let them cool completely. 

Go beat the crap out of them at the track.

z31maniac said:

Carbotech/Gloc bed in procedure. 

Hammer the car on multiple 70-5 stops, over and over again, until the pedal gets fairly soft and the brakes smell horrible. 

Let them cool completely. 

Go beat the crap out of them at the track.

Isn’t that the bed in procedure for most track pads?

Lugnut said:

I have heard literally nothing good about gLoc pads and the idea of having to abandon the ones I know and like is not appealing. 

I guess that answers the question if that is all that’s available. 

Or buy them from 949 racing and pay for the prebed. (I did)

I have R12/R10's and buy them with confidence the 949 guys would not sell them if they were garbage

The problem with answering "which brake pads" is it's like "which suspension"... the answer is:  "it depends".

There are so many variables for what will work for your car in your usage it becomes hard to be specific.  Even "track car" can mean everything from novice group HPDE on UHP all seasons to W2W car on Hoosiers.

With the stock brakes on my NA I ran Hawk HPS on cheap NAPA rotors and was perfectly happy for a long time doing canyon runs, autoX, and even light track duty on 200TW tires (Dunlop ZIIs).  As soon as I got to a fast track on NT01s, they were sketchy as E36 M3.

I'm currently running GLoc R12/R10 on a Wilwood big brake kit (11.75" front and sport 11" rear) and they are fantastic on the track (still running NT01s and Rivals) at an SM pace.  They SUCK on the street... lots of noise and dust.

The nice thing about Carbotech/GLoc is the dust is not corrosive (at least not that I've seen reported).  They are also very well regarded by folks I trust that are serious about track work, and using their recommendations, I've obtained really good results.  They may not be the best solution for a dual purpose car, but they offer a number of compounds, and do have fitment for the NB sport brakes.

Bedding is no big deal (and I prefer to do it on the car), but it's easiest/best to have new rotors.

EDIT:  BTW, that '03 Miata is a great starting point for a track car, and if you did decide to swap out the brakes, there's a good market for the sport brakes for folks that want to upgrade.  I would keep them...  

I like the Hawk DTC-60, Pagid RS14 Black, mostly. I will destroy a set of HPSs, even on a light and slow car like a Miata. I have run the, on previous Miatas and they are not meant for me. I’m actually still on a set of Raybestos ST-43s on the Camaro that I didn’t take off, so dust and squealing are a price I’m willing to Payne for longevity and high initial bite. I know I won’t see the glowing rotor temperatures on a Miata like with the M3 or the 1LE, but I use my brakes and I ask a lot of them. I need to have a pad that feels like I want (use the Pagid Blacks for example) that I can get maximum usage out of. 

I’ve tracked other Miatas and never had the, “Where are alone the brake pads?” question before. If I got the small brakes I can get DTC-60s, but not for these ones.

But you make a good point about what “track car” means to me. For me, this is 24-30 days a year split across Blackhawk, Road America, Gingerman, and Autobahn, with the majority being at Blackhawk. I’ve been doing this for a very long time. In my Camaro, for instance, I’m at consistent 1:19s at Blackhawk, if that helps you benchmark how I drive and what I’m looking for. I don’t trailer the car and it will not be track-only. So not W2W on Hoosiers, but like I said in the first post, I want to move to Spec Miata in the next couple of years, and when I do that I’ll be forced to give up the bigger brakes anyway.

So, yeah, I wasn’t looking for “what pad should I get for track?” I really was asking, since I can’t  get my favorites, who makes pads for these brakes?

https://supermiata.com/G-Loc-miata-brake-pads-01-05.aspx

01-05 sport brake gloc's anyway

I'll throw in a vote for Carbotech/G-lock. A couple of us (at least) have run them on our One Lap cars for a couple of years with success. Customer service through Carbotech has been phenomenal. They are one of the few companies that I actually like calling on the phone to ask questions. Yes they're dusty and noisy on the street and the higher you go temperature wise the harder they are on rotors, but that's just sort of what track pads do in my experience. Another upside is that they do make a proper street compound that is fully swappable with their track compounds without re-bedding if you put on a lot of street miles. I personally just run the milder xp-10 track pads on my daily and find that it's not really an issue.

Lugnut said:

z31maniac said:

Carbotech/Gloc bed in procedure. 

Hammer the car on multiple 70-5 stops, over and over again, until the pedal gets fairly soft and the brakes smell horrible. 

Let them cool completely. 

Go beat the crap out of them at the track.

Isn’t that the bed in procedure for most track pads?

Yes, but that's the only complaint I've ever read about them. 

If you're going to have to go to small brakes for SM anyway, sell the Sport brakes and start getting used to the smaller brakes, IMHO.

I’m running the Carbotech X10/8 combo for HPDE, and have no complaints.  They just work.  I’m also lazy and don’t bother to swap them in/out around track days, and they’re acceptable (if noisy) for street driving.

Lugnut said:

I have heard literally nothing good about gLoc pads and the idea of having to abandon the ones I know and like is not appealing. 

I guess that answers the question if that is all that’s available. 

Just wondering where you've heard that from? The supermiata guys know their ish. It's either that or PFC pads. Both great options, just please promise you don't go for hawk pads. You're better than that.