^^agree. For your first time out you just want to get the hang of it. Make sure you have plenty of pad left and maybe even go as far as to upgrade your brake fluid. See my mods, I have tracked the car twice now and it is very fun. The G holds up very well on a track considering what it is. I was on a prepped C5's azz at our last event, when we got off the track I went up and apolgized for being on his bumper the entire time. He said "I couldn't believe and INFINITI was on our tail that long!". My FK452's do well, Project Mu B-Force pads have done well too. I need to change the pads now and I'm going to either stick with these or just upgrade to the G37 BBK kit altogether. Both track events were at road coarses where we would get up to 95-100mph on certain points. Both tracks were very brake intensive too.

 

RE: VDC I've done some pretty fast laps with the vdc engaged, not realizing I'd left it on until I turned in a bit hard and the yaw control kicked in. If your getting into and off the corners smooth and squeezing the throttle right it does not interfere. I have beat mine into submission though so it does tolerate some wheel spin before it kills the throttle. While you are learning it might not be a bad idea to leave it on, if it kicks in you know you screwed up.

Definitely get some good pads, at least street/track blends, if your budget is real tight get semi-metallics at the parts store not ceramics. Bring an extra set too, sux driving home metal to metal or changing pads in the parts store parking lot, heh, don't ask how I know...

 

I'll sell you OEM brake pads. I Always kept 2 fresh set of spares for front and rear then a set of used to drive home on because I knew I was going to eat up a set of pads a day. I always wanted to time myself changing pads because I was getting pretty proficient at it. J.K. about the selling thing just wanted to emphsise a point.

And don't let anyone lie to you about more or less intensive braking tracks. With the G and all of it's 3500+ pounds every corner heats up the pads rather quickly.

I'll share my first time though. It's was with BMW @ NHIS (New Hampshire). I still had the original pads at the time and they held up just fine. Still had stock brake fluid too. My second event at TWS (Texas World) went pretty much the same on stock parts. It ended there however. By the third event I had learned to use the brake and since I've probably put in over 7.5k into brake repairs and components alone.

Here's the order of my upgrades after stock.
1a) Autocross Brake Pads (a joke, went through in aweekend)
1b) OEM Size Slotted Calipers (on the third weekend they cracked)
3) Full on Racing Pads (Boiled brake fluid first time out)
4) DOT5 Fluid (Boiled again first weekend)
5) StopTech BBK (Serious, VERY Serious knockback issues that I lived with for a long time)
6) Knockback spring added and modifications to the rotor hat & rotor (so far so good! )

If your a poor college student do some autocross then when the checks start rolling in to pay for everything switch to the track and your instructors will congradulate you on your mad driving skills.

I've only met one person with VDC that keeps it on. You'll probably figure out it's incredibly too annoying to keep it on. I would suggest you keep it on stubornly for a while until you get to that extreme annoyance level (about 30 minutes). In the future when you forget to turn it off you'll feel it kick in around a corner and you'll be glad for autocross skills because when the tires are working 100% VDC makes it worse and your grip on the steering wheel will suddenly tighten up as you plow towards the grass.

 

I'm sort of in the same boat as the OP. I WANT akebonos, but don't really feel like shelling out. I'm not really planning on any "track days", maybe a performance driving school at Texas World Speedway soon but for the most part autocross.

Is my best bet just to go with the OEM pads and prepare to replace them often? Or could anyone recommend a good aftermarket pad for street duty that can stand up pretty well to a few autocross events?

 

Hi I'm a poor college guy too. And I went to my first track event yesterday in my bone stock coupe. For being my first time in a track I was doing pretty good considering that there were two evo x and only one managed to pull away from me. One 3 series with an 2005 m3 engine in it wasn't able to get near my bumper. So about the g it held up really good, the brake fluid got kind of hot and my outside temperature sensor was reading 100 degrees out but it was really 60 degrees. It fixed it self though. My only complaint was body roll, which is to be expected from such a heavy car. So for next event I'm planning to upgrade the brakes and suspension. But that's it For now. So don't be scared to take your stock g out there just make sure you are Rafy for heavy wear on the brakes and tires.