After the lackluster performance I got from my brakes last month at the racetrack, I decided I really needed to figure out how to make Irene stop on the track. I was previously running PBR ultimate pads in the front calipers. These are an aggressive street and autocross pad. Though on the track they really were lousy. They just couldn’t take the heat of repeated stops. Irene isn’t a lightweight car, and the brakes are modest in size. Its not really the greatest situation for road race type abuse.

Here is the solution I am going to try now. I bought some pads from Porterfield in California. They had to custom build some race compound “Raybestos ST” pads to fit the Volvo Bendix calipers. This should give the stock brakes a big improvement on the track. These are not intended to be street pads at all. Though, I have installed them in the car to bed them in before I hit the track next week. And their street performance seems decent. They aren’t really super greasy when cold. Maybe as good as some other street pads. But when they get about 1 secod of heat into them, WOW, they feel really good.

I took a downhill charge through one of the Boulder Canyons, and I can already tell these pads are going to make a huge difference.

Below, on the left is the new Porterfield Pad. On the right are the PBR pads. These only have about 500 miles and 1 track day on them. They were almost 1/2 worn. I think they were just disintigrating on the racetrack when the rotors got good and hot.

I decided it was time to add some extra features to the fuel injection system in Irene. I wanted to add a coil on plug ignition system to get rid of the Volvo distributor, wires, and other parts. I have been having trouble with misfires under boost and this seemed like a great way to upgrade. While I’m inside the megasquirt case, I’m adding a couple other nice features too.

The coil packs I’m using.

It looks like everything might fit inside with the lid on. In this photo you can see the 4 new ignition driver transistors mounted to the top of the case for good heat dissipation. The expansion board mounted in the lid is from Glen’s Garage and is also new. It contains lots of “potential” circuits that can be used. I plan to use signal conditioning to read a crank trigger signal for the new ignition, a knock sensing circuit, a boost controller driver, and maybe eventually some other inputs/outputs. Its all there on the board and easy to wire up now.

I started thinking about building an improved turbo header for Irene’s 16v motor. So, I dug up some cad drawings I have made and collected over the years. I’ll think this over a little and decide what I want to use for a turbo flange, wastegate flange, and general design.

Here is the link to some flange drawings I have.

Intake and Exhaust Flanges

Feel free to download them. Most are in autocad dwg file format.

A few header pictures to ponder tube routing.

Here is some video from the track day in Pueblo..

• Racetrack Video of the Volvo Wagon
• More Video of the Volvo Wagon, faster laps
  
• Tim’s Porsche at the racetrack

Did I mention how fun that was? I have been thinking about trying to improve the brakes before the next track day. Right now, I have 2 options. I could install some serious race compound pads. Or, I can just ditch the volvo brakes altogether and do some custom fabrication to install some Wilwood or other racing style calipers and rotors. I found out today that Porterfield could custom make some pads for the Volvo Bendix caliper, but they will be very expensive. $200 just for the front. Thats alot of bread for a pad that might wear out in 1 or 2 track days.