Which pads to choose for mild upgrade?

[chiron]

Hi,

I'm looking for a set of pads to improve the bite of my Mk1's brakes. History is the car has been rebuilt (with added supercharger) and I feel the brakes are lacking some initial bite. Everything is is good order with new discs and pads on rear and nearly new discs and pads on front. The calipers are free and the brakes have been bled.

I don't want anything that requires a warm up phase, just something to inspire a bit more confidence.
Any suggestions? EBC used to get good press but now lots of people don't like them (or is it just internet rumours?).
What have people tried?

[un1eash]

Ive got no complaints about the EBC greenstuff for fast road use but i'm sure the trackday boys will be along soon to say how rubbish they are. I may be tempted by red's but i think these require abit more time to warm up.

[Nige_B]

It depends how you drive I suppose. I have EBC greenstuff on mine and they are very useable and do bite nice and sharp. I have had them fade, however but only after 10 mins of clear road and heavy braking.

I haven't tried any other pads (other than OE) so wouldn't like to recommend them over any others. All I can say is they are a definate improvement on OE pads and are completely useable for everyday driving.

[crazylegs]

do you know what make of pads you have at the moment? you could have nagasucki super quick road pads.
my sc runs with standard pads and i find it brakes perfectly well.

[Captain Vimes]

I find EBC reds fine for everyday use and they stand up to abuse too.

Yellows are better for track but do take some warming up.

I have no experience of greens but if you plan on going near a track then I'd avoid - otherwise probably OK for road use.

For all round use I'd go for Reds (not sure if they're all ceramic now but if you have the choice go for the ceramic option).


Have you tried bleeding the brakes with a high quality fluid as this can often make quite a difference when working brakes hard.

[System-G]

I've covered this topic to death so I won't go into too much detail again. A search will find my previous posts on the topic

Blackstuff are utter rubbish.
Greenstuff are just about OK for Sunday drivers with the ocasional short hoon.
Redstuff are good for road/fast road/occasional track.
Yellows are good for fast road/track and have very good cold bite properties, but the main difference is they can handle higher temperatures than the other variants.
Blues if you're into endurance racing or plan on spending more than 40 minutes on track pushing hard. They are not road legal and have zero cold bite.

[Stu.]

I'd just like to add that it's worth being careful,with your choice of brake pads especially EBC redstuff!

If it's for a road car,redstuff have ceramic in them and from experience (although not from using them on my MK1)they can be very aggressive on your brake disc's.after a few months of normal driving my new disc's had excessive wear and lots of deep groves bit like an old vinyl record lol (it looked like i was going to have to replace them before i replaced the pads!)i,ve changed to a carbon metallic pad now and there a lot kinder to my disc's now.

[Jim-SR]

have a look at Ferodo DS Performance (formerly called DS2000) pads for fast road use. they are awesome for the road, and capable of the occasional trackday as well. they work well from cold, have good bite, are capable of taking a good thrashing when required. they dont wear excessively, arent noisy, theyre pretty much everything youd want in a road car pad. EBC tend to be a love or hate brand, personally i hate green stuff and have never seen a need to try any of their other products based on how poor the green stuff pads were when i tried them a few years back. Ferodo all the way!

[WeirdNeville]

The Ferodos are available from Halfords for about £20 with the code "FC308" and are listed as an option for the MK1 MR2 in the halfrauds brake parts card index.

I like them, but they do have a slightly dead initial feel compared to the standard pads. Where they really excel is their fade resistance and depth of performance. You can ask more and more of them and they never give up. I've hammered my set round Silverstone (100+Mph-50Mph twice a lap) and Brands Hatch (a bit less brake intensive) without any hint of fade at all, and I can't imagine what you would have to do to cook them on the road (hot laps of Milton Keynes perhaps?).

If you want good initial bite, new standard pads and discs will probably be your best bet. Performance pads tend to have slightly less initial bite for the benefit of good performance when hot. You pays yer money......

[Bender Unit]

Mintex 1144 - hammered the utter crap out of these on the last trackday I did worked amazingly even with the crap stock brake set up and outbraked pretty much everything.

[Kooga]

So far i've had standard stuff, which died on the first spirited thrash I went on, Pagid pads which had zero cold stopping ability and wore my discs at a rate of knots and I'm now on EBC green stuffs, which appear to be quite good. Plenty of cold feel and good inital bite, though pricey (it also helps that I have braided lines, dot 5.1 fluid, good discs- black diamond grooved on the front- and have cleaned the sliders/replaced the slider bolts)
I had mintex 1144's on my old Cherry turbo and they were awesome, so I should imagine they'd be great on the 2. Didn't know you could still get them!

[System-G]

Different pads work differently on different cars.

The Yellowstuff which works well on the AW11 are rubbish on BMW's & Elises, but OK on Scoobies...

I would love to get hold of Pagid Blues (Race pads) for the track car, but they aren't made anymore.
The race director of Caterham (who specify Pagid Blues on the track/race4 caterhams) tried to get a set direct from Pagid for their AW11 project, but even as a high profile client, Pagid did not/could not comply

EBC's are a budget pad too - at ~£50 - £60 an axle you're not too bad off. The Pagids (Blue) were more and Carbotech, you are looking at around £150/axle.
If you expect a set of £18/axle ferrodos to perform the same, then I'm afraid you'll be in for a big surprise (and a scare)

But if you car is a daily drive and does not get pushed at all the £18.00 Ferrodos will be fine

As someone said above - you get what you pays