I'm looking for some recommendations for pads for street and autocross. Dust isn't a big concern of mine, noise is more important but not crucial. It would be nice to have a pad that could handle both scenarios, plus be able to handle the heat of 15-20 minutes of track time. I'm planning to keep the current rotors. I'll give a summary of the car, in case it helps. Mostly street driven, will be doing some occasional autocross and possible track use.
2004 Lancer wagon, ralliart version. 3050 lbs, four wheel disks with antilock and brake force distribution. Front rotors are 10.9 inches, the solid rear rotors are 10.3. The car is a decent platform and nearly entirely stock (just a K&N panel filter and braided brake lines).
The ralliart is a rigid platform with extra chassis bracing and welds, plus different springs, shocks (just did new stock replacement KYBs), sway bars, retuned steering rack with less damping and 16 inch factory wheels. Tires are Extreme Contact DWS 205/50/16s, about half tread remaining. Four speed auto, open diff. 162 HP, 160 trq, the latter is all in at only 4000 so the torque curve is really flat. 2.4 liters with 100 mm stroke and three step VVT, so good power down low. Planning to keep the stock wheels, unless I get into autocross more frequently, in which case I might replace them with a set of Miata wheels. With the Miata attached. Right now, I need to use this car for a year so I can see how motivated I am before buying another car.
Right now I just have parts store ceramic pads, and the car stops fine, but would like a firmer pedal. I can smell brakes after just two hard stops. I've never been real happy with the pedal. I added braided lines, but I can't tell the difference between them and the stock rubber lines. The Evo 8 is built on the same platform, and one of the common mods is to add a support for the brake master to compensate for bulkhead flex, causing a softness in the pedal. I don't know if one of those braces would fit my car. The manual transmission Ralliart and Evo both use the same master cylinder, but unfortunately, the North American wagon only came with an auto, which has a different part number for the master cylinder.
Brake fluid recommendations? Again, something that would be fine for street and autocross is my primary goal, but like the pads, I don't know if the same fluid would be up to 20 minutes on a track.
Finally, this is a 14 year old car with about 135k miles, after reading today's post about the sheared studs, I'm wondering if I should change the studs with the brake pads? Brand and source recommendations for studs?
Anything else I'm not thinking of?