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© 1999 Brian F. Schreurs
Even we have a disclaimer.

That said, we like to race the Firebird. Our first road race -- er, driving school -- demonstrated beyond a doubt that the stock brakes were a) overbiased to the rear; b) not particularly fade- resistant. We could have fixed the bias issue with a brake proportioning valve, but since we had fade issues also, there's an Easier Way.

New Panthers on the left; original GM on the right.

We upgraded the front pads but left the rears alone! In theory this will adjust the bias forward since the upgraded pads will have far better stopping ability. Plus the new pads should be less likely to fade. Two birds, one stone. Cool.

Pad selection must be done carefully. Too much race and the pad will destroy rotors; too much street and the fade problem won't be resolved. We decided a good compromise lay with the Carbotech Panther pads (#CT749-P) on the front and GM stock pads (#12454972) on the rear. By the way, when ordering pads, the Federal government assigns numbers to all brake pads and the 98+ F-body front pads are #749750. We also decided to flush our brake system with ATE Super Blue brake fluid (OGRacing #ATE1SBLT).

Because we planned to flush the brakes, we had to work from back to front -- you want to start at the brake furthest from the master cylinder and work forward. If you're not going to flush the brakes, it probably doesn't matter as much.

Suck the fluid out with a turkey baster. Surround the master cylinder with towels so you'll have paint on the car when you're done.

As part of the flushing procedure, pop open the master cylinder and use a turkey baster to suck out most of the old brake fluid. If you don't do this now, you'll have to push it all through the brake system -- a waste of effort. Take it out now. Then refill the master cylinder with new fluid.

Put chocks behind the front wheels while you work on the rears and make sure the emergency brake is off. Use a floor jack to lift the right rear wheel (lift from the subframe just ahead of the axle). Remove the wheel. The lugnuts are 3/4".

There's the caliper. Ahhh, ain't it a beauty. A genuine PBR caliper on a stock brake system. Gotta love economics of scale.

The caliper doesn't have to come off. It scissors open to provide access to the pads. Look at the bolt at the top of the caliper. The bolt can be removed with a 15mm socket; the little spacer thingy just on the inside of the carrier, which only has two flats, must be held steady with a 16mm wrench.

With this bolt removed the caliper should just swing forward and down. Ta-daa, there's the pads. Remove them, but be sure to note which is which. They are directional.

Passenger-side rear single-piston caliper and front dual-piston caliper. Both easy to service.

Put in the new pads. The GM pieces come with a selection of replacement clips; take a look to see how they're holding up. Ours were in fine shape so we kept the originals and put the new ones in storage as spares.

Use a piston compression tool to compress the caliper piston. Ohhhh don't have one of those? Well you might be able to do it by hand, or you can use a C-clamp. Just be careful that the piston goes straight down or you could score the bore. And that's bad. You can build your own compression tool by using a thin but sturdy piece of wood and the aforementioned C-clamp.

Put the caliper back in place and bolt it up.

We're flushing the system, but the instructions are the same even if you are only going to bleed out the fluid closest to the caliper. Just don't pump as much fluid through.

The bleeder screw is located on the back of the caliper, right where the brake line connects. It's 10mm, but be sure to use a line wrench to minimize the chances of damaging it. Connect a clear hose to the bleeder, and have some sort of container on the other end. With one person who can follow directions in the car, get ready at the wheel.

Our high-tech brake bleeding tool.

Tell the person in the car to press on the brake pedal until it hits the floor. We usually use the "down" command. When he presses the pedal, open the bleeder screw. You'll get a squirt of fluid and he'll get a pedal that sinks to the floor. When it's done squirting, close the bleeder screw and tell your assistant to release the pedal. We use the "up" command.

Get this in the right order. If your assistant lets up on the pedal before the bleeder screw is closed, it'll suck air into the system.

If you're replacing standard brake fluid with ATE Super Blue, it'll change colors. From golden (or brown), it'll turn green, and eventually blue. Keep bleeding until it's a nice Smurf blue.

Check the brake fluid level in the master cylinder. This should not be allowed to dip too low.

Put that wheel back on and move to the driver-side rear wheel. It's exactly the same as the other rear. Bleed this one until it, too, turns blue; don't forget to check the master cylinder level when you're done.

Move to the passenger-front wheel. Don't forget to move the chocks to the rear wheels. The fronts work basically the same as the rears, with a couple small differences:

The bolt holding the caliper in place is 12mm on the front; and, the front calipers are dual-piston PBR units so it's even more helpful to have a caliper piston compression tool. Otherwise be very careful.

The Carbotech Panther pads come with shims which you may or may not use, as needed. We chose to not use them but kept them in case we change our mind later. In all other respects the Panthers are a simple swap for OEM pads; probably the easiset aftermarket mod you will ever likely encounter.

In all other respects the front brakes are the same: remove bolt, lift caliper, swap pads, compress pistons, close caliper, install bolt, bleed brakes, check master cylinder.

Do it all one last time for the driver-front caliper, and the deed is done!

Now you just need to break in the pads. Find a secluded bit of road and do a couple of moderately-heavy (but not brake-locking) stops from 40 to 20. Then repeat this process from 40 to zero a couple more times. The idea is to gradually build heat up in the brakes. This will help the pads bed in with the rotor. Now they're ready to race!

'Course if you know these cars, the first question is: What about the ABS block? No, this procedure does not bleed the block. And the ABS block stopped being owner-serviceable for some stupid reason. But there's no real harm in it; the block doesn't see much heat, so just have the dealer bleed it next time you bring the car in for a recall or something.

First impression of the Carbotech Panther pads: Stopping Power. Dang it's like driving into a brick wall! These Panthers can actually stop the car so fast that the speedometer can't keep up! Yep, I whaled on the brakes at 50 mph to test them (after break-in) and the car was at a standstill while the needle was still swinging past 10 mph. Not bad.

Second impression: Dust. Lots and lots of dust. If you're into sparkly clean chrome wheels, forget about it. Our wheels were black in about a day. Frankly we don't care -- our philosophy is that if it's functional it's pretty. We've also had an intermittent squeal which we haven't nailed down yet. We called Carbotech about this, and they say it's a nagging problem for the F-bodies but not on any other cars they sell for. Maybe we just drive too hard. If we figure it out, we'll post it here.

It's one thing to talk about how great the Panthers feel on the street, where we never really had any problems with the stock pads. It's another thing to flog them on a racetrack. Two days after installing the Panthers, we visited Summit Point Raceway for a Friday At The Track. They did well. How well? Read the story to find out.

Third impression: Short lifespan. As much as we loved the incredible stopping power, there are drawbacks. The Panthers only survived three months of street duty (with one track session). It goes without saying that this is way too short. They also destroyed a set of rotors. So, don't use these pads on the street long-term. Use them to and from the track, then go back to stock or stock equivalent. These are track pads which are safe on the street. These are not street/track pads for anyone who didn't inherit money.