VW brakes

I posted here earlier looking for pad shims. I was scoffed at, as usual. :)
Carquest/ Raybestos sells them . FWIW carquest also sells a
" Blue pad" that is nice for track days or tracks that are not brake intensive. I cut the shims in half and use the piece under the trailing end of the inner pad.
The results are a more even pad use, thus a better pedal for longer time frame.
I also rebuild the calipers very often, like at axle time or 10hrs. The current brake fluid seems to swell the seal and hang up the piston a bit. I leave out the dust seals and notch the piston for air to pass between the piston and pad.
The Pistons like to be well into the bore. At about half pad wear, you can fit a naked pad backing plate behind the inner pad, keeping the piston deeper n the bore. The piston will not bind as easy this way and the car will roll cleaner.

Use as much brake duct as you can, cool is better for the brakes and wheel bearings. They are related!!. Roast the brakes and the wheel bearings will be failed soon also.

Read the rules to see if any improvements can be made legally.
MM

good ideas.... Not IT legal though right?

In my lemons car, I'm using $350 of brakes a weekend, so I like the shim idea.. maybe I could get two events out of a set. I don't get much taper, but its just enough to preclude getting two events out of them.

I've been running the full compliment of shims, spacers and clips from the street setup - I think its just to prevent noisy calipers, but any benefit to just dumping all that or any harm in doing so? I wonder if the shim stack (there are several) helps as a heat barrier?

I wondered about pulling the dust seals too since they bake to death in short order anyway, and with my 4 piston calipers, are expensive to replace... any downside to pulling the boots?

Do you think the notch in the piston reduces heat transfer more than the loss of the thermal mass of the notch?

For my lemons car, I also cnc "wave cut" the perimeter of my rotors (ala Audi R8 GT and motorcycles) to cut some weight and give more edge for thermal transfer (plus it looks cool :) ....