Thanks gents for the replies
So in light of the responses, let me add that I’m starting to gather a considerable amount of evidence that our hub problems are more wheel stress induced/ related than heat (mostly brake), which is why I’m looking at the MK3. I have a couple other teams that can back me up on this as well so hear me out (if others have input feel free, I’m more than willing to admit I’m wrong if someone has evidence to the contrary or pokes holes in this, I’m just trying to minimize downtime and the evidence is starting to point in this direction).
Our wagon is running 08-10 brakes, with Portafield Endurance pads, full brake ducting, hubs checked every day. So while I agree the brake heat doesn’t help it’s currently not the limiting factor that I have found. I will also add that I know at least two other teams used Wilwoods and two piece rotors and they go through bearings quicker than we do, so unless they are installing the hubs incorrectly or something that certainly isn’t a solution. I know we are pushing ours harder than those teams as well as we have run circles around them in the past.
So…. wheel stress! Where I’m getting this from is tires. So again a preface, this is from running many of the same tracks, nearly identical braking points, etc (some environmental differences, ambient temps etc are different, but in my opinion is minimal) so the brake induced heat should be pretty similar in the situations I'm seeing and the conclusion is starting to be verified by a completely other team on different tracks (west coast). Stickier tires = less hub life. Again this is a “duh, more grip more stress on wheels”, cept this increase to a slightly stickier tire is yielding nearly HALF the life in the bearings. Not 10%, not 20%, nearly half. All with putting basically the same amount of brake induced heat in. I would also point out the times below are based on ambient temps from 45-95 (yes you read that right), so one would think more life with cooler temps. NOPE!
Originally I was running Direzza Z3’s and just tried Hankook RS-4’s with basically the same results, I can get at least one-two full races (15-30~ish hours of full on racing conditions) when using these tires, they grip great, but in all temps and conditions. Add the big data point! When switching to a slightly stickier tire like the RE71R (supposed to be the same treadwear, but its most likely an R compound badged so we can use them in the series, we knock a second or two off our lap times depending on the track), all of a sudden I can’t get a full race out of hubs, i.e 10-12 hours of racing, mid race bearing is gone….. This again has been verified by another team when going to stickier tires all of a sudden getting catastrophic failures when they were used to getting a full race. So this stress can also induce heat (another duh) but I’m finding more and more that instead of finding baked gross grease or missing grease, I’m finding the internals of the bearings look like business as usual many times even still having grease present, balls are clean, races look fine, wtf? Now I’m not discounting heat being part of the equation completely, but I don’t believe it’s the deciding factor (at least when talking about brakes), because I’ve heard of another team repacking their bearings and getting only a marginal boost in life (I don’t know what tires they are running, so if someone can chime in about repacking feel free
Again if anyone has a different experience I’m open, but ultimately I don’t think these bearings are stout enough to handle what we are doing to them from what I’m putting them through, so I’m hoping bigger is stronger