larryV

I just like it too much as a daily driver and beating it up at the track may compromise its long term job at doing just that especially since this is the first car since my B5 S4 that I might actually keep longer than 2 years. It's also not very pleasant to go through at least $5k worth tires, brakes, and other items for not even a single full track season. I'm still glad I had the chance to toss it around at the track and would highly encourage any new owner to try it at least once. It's incredibly fun to smack around. Add to that my already aggressive street driving and at nearly 6k miles on the odo, the car has held up very well, has had minimal oil consumption (almost none after break-in), and still drives like new, if you don't count the faulty tpms issue that the dealership has yet to figure out. I'm very happy with this Audi. It's fvckn solid. That is all.

HiRev

what happened to your brakes?

larryV

The rotors held up fine and the only reason I had to replace my front rotors was due to carelessness on my part. I did not monitor the amount of pad material left closely enough and went out for one more session than I should have. Result: rotors damaged by backing plates.

The only reasons to upgrade to Alcon mono 6-pots are if 1) you really want to reduce unsprung weight, 2) you want to have more flexibility as far as replacement pad options and cost, 3) you will be tracking it very often and perhaps even on a competitive basis (doubtful for most owners of this car) where sessions go longer than 30 minute. Otherwise, the stock 8-pots were awesome on track and will be fine for most HPDE's.

Don@STaSIS

as replacement pad and disc costs are less than OE and we will see far greater longevity out of pads using the proper compounds for these events versus a street oriented compound like OE RS4 pads. In the long run an Alcon kit will save any track enthusiast time and money over trying to maintain the stock system on the RS4. Anyone increasing mechanical grip, ie track tires or even more aggressive wide street tires on a wider wheel, may really find the themselves taxing the factory system. With street tires of factory width you can only have so much traction and in time we will see folks upping the levels of mechanical grip that can be produced with the RS4 on the street and the track.

We see folks running race pads and discs for entire seasons of driver's training events with this size kit. As long as proper temps are reached on the disc and the proper compound is used during track sessions the Alcon rotors will last a surprisingly long time.

If you are really serious about tracking a car it's time for a fun little point and shoot car

Cheers,

larryV

that it becomes hard to justify track-focused brakes and suspension for long-term use because people like me who like to hit the track but live in the midwest where there is a considerable off-season, will likely make their RS4's track career fairly short-lived or even limited to rainy days when their regular track car shod with R-comps or slicks won't quite cut it in conditions other than dry.

ny bruin

That is the truth

Don@STaSIS

If you are replacing pads and rotors at a good clip above the replacement time frame of the Alcon components then it actually can add up very quickly for someone who runs 5, 10 or more track days a year. As we've seen you can easily go through a set of pads in one event on an RS4. We see our race pads take 3-4 events of tracking, of course driver dependent, condition dependent, etc. We see our rotors last entire seasons of aggressive tracking in this size.

So far we've heard at SOT events that rotors and pads were very frequently changed at events in the span of a day, we've seen customer go through OE pads in one event and even before the event is over.

Our replacement cost ranges from $200 for street up to $300 for the most aggressive. We can replace rotor rings unlike the OE units which are sold as whole units with new hats, $700 for new 14.5" Alcon rotors. If you are replacing these on a far less regular basis if you are tracking 5-10 times a year, which is not uncommon for a track junky Audi owner, then the initial expensve of the Alcons can be outweighed in cost and time savings, plus from my experience the Alcons have a nicer pedal feel and far better initial bite.

It's not a modification for everyone, as I've always said folks are welcome to modify as they see fit or not modify at all. For a track junkie the Alcons are going to be extremely useful and in the long term may end up saving money and most definitely time.

As a hypothetical 5 events, 5 sets of pads at $400 a set ($2000), one set of rotors ($1000), $3000 total in brake wearables for OE.

5 events with Alcons, 2 sets of pads at $300 (with 2-3 more events left on the second set) $600 with room to spare.

We'll see some RS4's out on the track here at Infineon shortly, some stock and some not

Cheers,

larrycr

I thought my brakes were going downhill pretty fast there after a few hot laps in a 25 minute session.