Brake experts chime in.

Rebel

TCG Elite Member
Dec 15, 2008
2,827
554
Reno, NV
I'll be replacing my pads soonish and I've been curious as to what other people use. Currently I'm looking at EBC yellow or redstuff, but I wanted to hear some personal experiences. I'm looking for something with a decent cold bite, high max operating temp and good all weather performance. Noise is a non issue to me and so is dust since I have gunmetal wheels. I do a lot of highway driving and like to have fun going through the mountains and various dirt roads, but ideally I'd like to get back into autoX sometime this summer. I may replace my rotors as well with some vented ones, haven't dove in that far yet.

What do you guys use? Any other recommendations?
 

sickmint79

I Drink Your Milkshake
Mar 2, 2008
26,884
16,592
grayslake
i don't know at what point that stuff really matters for street driving or at what point you really hit that level of competitive autocross. i don't think any driving i have ever done on the street actually stressed my brakes to the point of any of that mattering.

if you really want to know where you are at you can buy temp indicating paint for the rotors and some temperature stickers to put on the calipers.

i don't know ebc's product line and use carbotechs myself. just going offhand i'd say ax6 or xp8 compound. i'd err on the side of more street friendly pads myself.

have you had pedal go squishy doing any of these things? what fluid do you run?
 

Intel

TCG Elite Member
Oct 28, 2009
5,889
3,357
Palatine
I would run something milder then ebc yellow. I have ebc yellows and a seperate set of rotors for my Mazda3 but only put them on for track days. On the street they don't get warm enough to make me comfortable driving it daily but that is on my car/situation.

Personally owned
Porterfield r4s - prefer these vs the hawks.
Hawk HPS

driven
Carbotech 1521

By autox you mean around cones in a parking lot and not hpde right?
 

boostedguy05

not well known
TCG Premium
Dec 18, 2010
34,180
25,511
what car would this be for? i have signatures turned off if you have it in there.

if the car is mostly used on the street i would shy far far away from anyting that needs warming up to get a full bite from.

a lot of the manufactures web sites have a place to put in vehicle info and they recomend a brake pad rotor for you.
 

Rebel

TCG Elite Member
Dec 15, 2008
2,827
554
Reno, NV
what is most directly related to that is your brake fluid. put in some super blue or rbf 600 or rbf 660 and see what happens.

Right. I was also going to change fluid at the same time. The stock pads do have quite a bit of fade though even when I had less miles on them.

I would run something milder then ebc yellow. I have ebc yellows and a seperate set of rotors for my Mazda3 but only put them on for track days. On the street they don't get warm enough to make me comfortable driving it daily but that is on my car/situation.

Personally owned
Porterfield r4s - prefer these vs the hawks.
Hawk HPS

driven
Carbotech 1521

By autox you mean around cones in a parking lot and not hpde right?

Correct. I'll check out those pads also.


what car would this be for? i have signatures turned off if you have it in there.

if the car is mostly used on the street i would shy far far away from anyting that needs warming up to get a full bite from.

a lot of the manufactures web sites have a place to put in vehicle info and they recomend a brake pad rotor for you.

2014 wrx.
 

sickmint79

I Drink Your Milkshake
Mar 2, 2008
26,884
16,592
grayslake
Right. I was also going to change fluid at the same time. The stock pads do have quite a bit of fade though even when I had less miles on them.

pry mostly/all fluid. which you can change and bubble in the next 30 min if you are getting on them in a big way on wimpier fluid. the used/thinner brakes i think warm up quicker although dunno how much that matters.
 

Stink Star

Don’t Drive Angry!
TCG Premium
Jan 20, 2008
16,274
11,929
Big wood cock
I would run something milder then ebc yellow. I have ebc yellows and a seperate set of rotors for my Mazda3 but only put them on for track days. On the street they don't get warm enough to make me comfortable driving it daily but that is on my car/situation.

I was going to mention this. It seems the higher the performance pad you get, the worse they perform when cold/wet.

That being said I really like Hawk pads
 

nytebyte

Not Politically Correct
Mar 2, 2004
13,627
20,958
Have used Hawk HPS pads and they suck. The stock pads were actually much better. I have heard that Hawk HP+ pads are pretty good though and are streetable.

Have used Porterfield R4S and they are pretty good. They are on one of my cars right now and I'd probably buy them again.

So far, the best street pad I've used is made by Galfer. I have a set on the Cobra now and they're great, but I haven't been able to find them anywhere lately. It appears that Galfer only makes brake pads for motorcycles these days. :(
 

sickmint79

I Drink Your Milkshake
Mar 2, 2008
26,884
16,592
grayslake
seems as good a place as any and i just took off my wheel to get some more pics and info.

brz, with me in it, < 3000 lbs
driven at intermediate level - i'm not slow, i'm not fast. i think i have poor braking habits and modulation that probably causes them to heat up more than they should.
i have 328 mm x 28 mm stoptech 2-piece rotors with st40 4-piston front calipers. rear is oem stuff i ignore.

i have this expensive as rs683 brake fluid in now although when i run out i'll use rbf 660, even though it would seem i'd be fine with rbf600 or super blue.

not sure why i can't find any pics anymore of when my brakes were beautiful and new. they don't look so great anymore. ho-hum. in any case i bought some temp stuff to use.

11204389_10102715245707939_4113868557210267423_n.jpg


11377307_10102730474599119_8404706523913637634_n.jpg


this is from my first time at blackhawk.

11401009_10102747683996349_4057875946329107462_n.jpg


for some reason i can't find a pic of a later time at autobahn. i had a hard time finding it but did a few weeks ago though. i changed the 370 then, so the caliper got to at least 370 f. how hot does that mean the fluid was? i really don't know. doing some googling, per http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/162888.pdf maybe i can assume the caliper temp is a good proxy for fluid?

i was at gingerman this weekend. lots of pad life left. i also ziptied some porsche gt3 duct thingies to my control arms and used some tin snips to cut away part of the dust backing plate. a proper ducting kit would get air from the front and route it into the center of the rotor, i'm just blowing it at it. i put temp paint on before this weekend.

13412930_10103450399838169_3397886080923515542_n.jpg


it's a year old but still feels thin. i thought i did a good job but after the weekend no white to be found at all, and not because i did anything toasty to it. the green is the low end, which did turn white. but that orange/red stuff did not. so my rotors are between 750 f and 1000 f.

13435310_10103450399873099_7923261117308287444_n.jpg


per that paper it appears disc is more hot than pad as well.

so things might change if i go to a faster track like road america, but it seems i'm living well within my current compound of carbotech xp8s. i just ordered some again but the g-loc version. i do the same pads front and rear.

carbotech_compound.jpg


hawk has a more interesting graph although i have not used a pad of theirs in some time.

629736_x800.jpg


seems like a dtc-15 or black would feel most similar to me now. with a dtc-30 being safer temp wise, but with a higher coefficient of friction it would wear everything faster but not really give me any benefits it would seem.

given all this i wonder if i could even step down to ax6 pads? although carbotech's current site has mixed info from the chart above.

"A high torque brake compound delivering reliable and consistent performance over a very wide operating temperature range of 50°F to 1000°F + (10°C to 537°C+)."

i have no idea how far i am from the 1000 and the friction isn't much lower on the ax6 anyway though so i think i'm in the right spot i picked before i had all this info, that the xp8 compound (or g-loc r8) is the place for me to be.
 

sickmint79

I Drink Your Milkshake
Mar 2, 2008
26,884
16,592
grayslake
front left (probably worst) tire after gingerman this weekend, where really i only did about ~130 min of track time at the absolute max. just put this tire on a weak ago, dunlop direzza z2 star spec. the first wear bar is very very slightly visible but not in anything that i think would even be measurable, you can just tell where it was. i'm sure the others will take more effort to get to but i plan on swapping tires around a lot more with this set, which i didn't really do in the past.

13406704_10103450399593659_331932896898064308_n.jpg
 

Rebel

TCG Elite Member
Dec 15, 2008
2,827
554
Reno, NV
So I swapped out the brake fluid the other day. Later on my ABS, hill assist and tc lights came on. I thought maybe I put too much in, it was close to the max line but still under. Drained some out and now it comes on intermittently, usually after a few harder brakes. This morning the brake light came on as well. I'm thinking I may have knocked the sensor or something. I was able to get it to turn off briefly but it comes back. My accessport reads no codes. Any thoughts?
 
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