The definitve S14 brake pad poll

[amnesia]

Trying to decide which pads to use with my newly fitted Brembo discs.
Rears will probably be EBC Blackstuff, but can't make my mind up on the fronts.

Who uses what ?
Any noise issues ?
Wear rates ?
Price ?

etc etc.

[SM]

I've been testing various pads now, front and rear for 12 months or so.

Fronts
Ferado DS2500 - the daddy as general concensus goes and I agree, great bite from cold, 100% fade free on the track, cost loads. Last me 1 trackday and thats it, brand new before a trackday - dead afterwards. £120 is still a lot of money. Tested many time between June 04 and July 05.
Porterfield R4 - Similar to the DS2500 on track, but not as good on road/cold bite. Tested november 04
Porterfeild R4S - Fine for cold bite / road use. Only used on my first trackday, I thought they were fine but I'm much harder on the brakes these days, not sure it they would be as good - tested Japfest 04 castle coombe.
Project Mu (Street) - A very nice pad, fanatastic cold bite, didnt fade at all in normal driving. So impressed I was going to try them on a trackday, but before I did went out to see if I could get them to fade. And I did, although it took 4 very hard stops from 140mph to 40mph in very quick sucession. Cheap too £70. Tested - June 05 (taken off half worn before a trackday)
Project Mu HC - Awaiting testing - £140, Papa Laz uses these.
Redstuff Ceramic - STAY WELL AWAY - other people rate them, I thought they were utter shite. The "break-in" coating is noisy and they take ages to bed in (over 600miles instead of ~250miles) rears took even longer to bed in. Bite from cold was dangerously poor. Trackday performance was also the worst I've had on both breaking performance, feel and fade. They also lasted about 2/3rds of the time that Ferado's would have, under 1000miles and half a trackday.


Rears
Blackstuff/mintex
I just melt them on the track, fine for the road, wont last me a trackday these days, used to just, but now wont last the day.

redstuff
Worst ever - stay away - crap on all levels

Porterfield R4S - a Truly stunning rear pad, great bite, lasts 2 trackdays

Porterfield R4 - poor bite, even when warm on the track, still got these half worn after a trackday, replaced as the bite was that poor, just dont think enough temp gets into them on the rears, as they didnt on the raod on the fronts - fronts worked fine on the track.


I'll soon be going to Z32 rears and 310mm fronts so my continued testing may not be comparable, but hoping to try the endless, was going to try Yellowstuff too, but the reds were that bad I dont think I'll bother.
Been considering sending the reds back to EBC with a letter of disgust


Hope that helps, I'm guessing most people will just tell you the pad they use and that its good.

[JB]

DS2500s front
Blackstuff rears (though I've noticed my latest set have started to smoke quite badly when pressing on, so will probably try something else next time)

[SMiFFAD]

Ive only ever used two diff front pads...

Greenstuff - cheaper and more effective to fashion pads from stale jaffa cakes and use them..

Mintex - always found them 100% A1 perfect on my old sx.... but since using them on this one, the dont bite at all well when cold, almost scarily bad when really cold and start to faid when given a pasting, dont think id trust them on more than about 5 laps on track

So i wont be voting, but will watch with interest

[Ivanski]

I'm 'driving miss daisy' on the road, but not on track

Comments are with groved Brembo's allround.

Front's tried :-

Greenstuff:-
Never even thought of taking these on track!
No problems breaking from cold,
Soft as ****,
very noisy with groved disks,
fade very quickly - Only good for three D/C roundabout's at best.
Lasted a long time because you have to drive like a

Porterfield RS4 :-
Breaking from cold not perfect, otherwise a good road pad.
Quite noisy with groved disks until warmed up,
Didn't manage to fade them on the road,
Faded on track after about 5 mins.
Lasted quite well, one trackday and a lot of road miles in between.

Mintex 1155 :-
Breaking from cold not perfect, simalar to RS4 front's
Quiet with groved disks!
Not reccomended by Mintex for use as a road pad...
Didn't manage to fade them on the track,
Hard as nails / last forever
Regularly get 2 / 3 trackdays out of each set.
Cheaper than 2500's


Rears
Can't really comment about fade / breaking from cold / Noise as the front's have too much influence.

I've tried :-

Blackstuff:-
Fine as a road pad,
You'll be lucky if they last the day on track

Redstuff:-
Didn't last long enough to evaluate as a road pad, gentle 100miles break in only.
Mine did 117miles at a trackday before they were down to the wear indicators, this included a 20mile round trip for fuel mid-day.

RS4's:-
As said above the best rear's.
Good on the road,
Lasts at least two trackdays with no detectable fade.

The best advice I've had with break pad's is to stick with what you know works.

Cheers,

[JackaL]

Originally Posted by SM

I've been testing various pads now, front and rear for 12 months or so.

Fronts
Redstuff Ceramic - STAY WELL AWAY - other people rate them, I thought they were utter shite. The "break-in" coating is noisy and they take ages to bed in (over 600miles instead of ~250miles) rears took even longer to bed in. Bite from cold was dangerously poor. Trackday performance was also the worst I've had on both breaking performance, feel and fade. They also lasted about 2/3rds of the time that Ferado's would have, under 1000miles and half a trackday.

Rears
redstuff
Worst ever - stay away - crap on all levels

My thoughts exactly... Especially...

Bite from cold was dangerously poor.

Fully agree with that!

[amnesia]

Weird - over 100 views and only 17 people use brake pads

[Aitch]

I stick any old shite in that I can get from the local motor factors - the brake pads I've used have always stopped the car

[andy14a]

Originally Posted by amnesia

Weird - over 100 views and only 17 people use brake pads

must all be on standard pads then

[BBB]

Originally Posted by Aitch

I stick any old shite in that I can get from the local motor factors - the brake pads I've used have always stopped the car

Have you never been curious about how much better they could be?

[sroberts]

Using R33 setup I found:

DS2500 ok but managed to make them fade twice on fast cross country driving. But a nice pad, easy to live with and good from cold.

Then changed to DS3000 fantastic bite, very hard. Just like an american pitbull latching onto your arm I could not get these to fade. But the major downside was that I had to drive for a good couple of miles with my foot on the brake to get any heat in the pads. A real nightmare from cold, no bike at all untill they are warm. Caused a few momments in the mornings. The other major downside is that the pads gave of so much dust it was unreal it was like a smoke screen trailing behind the car... no point cleaning you wheels

Got so fed up with these, I researched/changed to Endless SSS pads. Bite is probably between the DS2500 and the DS3000 but they are as well mannered as the DS2500 from cold and give off less dust than the other two. They work a treat and sometimes cause the ABS to have a bit of a fit

These are for R33 setup not S14

Project Mu's next I think

Si

[bonza]

ive got black diamond predators front and rear on my s14.they stop the car a treat.

[jonboy]

I've had Mintex 1144s and Ferodo DS2500's on the front of mine.

The Mintex seemed to have more cold bite, but less when hot. They gave off a LOT of dust, and wore out pretty quickly. They were also very noisy at slow speeds - a really unpleasant metal on metal graunching noise.

The Ferodo's have a lot less cold bite, and can be a bit worrying pulling up at junctions, as you have to press harder than you expect to stop running into the car in front sometimes... However, when they are hot, it's like hitting a brick wall - had to emergency stop on the motorway yesterday, and they worked a treat - so much that I was getting pretty worried that the bloke in the punto behind me wasn't going to stop (he had all 4 locked up :| )

This is with TarOx G88 grooved front disks, standard size.

[Johnny]

Originally Posted by BBB

Have you never been curious about how much better they could be?

The stock pads bite from cold ...... that is where the majority of my breaking in everyday road application is done. I want a pad that bites straight away.

the problem with pads like this is they heat up very quickly so suffer from fade, or in the case of Greenstuff get so hot they warp disks.

The alternative is to get a pad that takes longer to heat up, Great after a few bends, but driving down a road at normal speeds and a kiddie runs out in front of you, they will not be as effective as a soft "crappy" pad.

I used stock pads, followed by redstuff followed by Green Stuff ...

It all depends upon what you use the car for, but having the ultimate in racing pads, with massive 400mm breaks and 8pot pistons, with 3" thick arbs solid coilovers lowwered by 150mm 21" wheels with 300mm rubber on them, may sound cool, but for road use, it is over kill and quite probably worsening your ride.

For the way I drive, Green Stuff seem to be absolutely fine, they bite hard from cold and with my style of driving dont fade.

I wouldnt use them on the track though

[mambastu]

For what its worth (as its a S13 )

315mm front discs with Z32 calipers, 298mm rear discs with R33GTS-T calipers, Z32 master cylinder.

Used to use EBC Red stuff ceramic front pads and EBC Black stuff rears which were fine for road use. Bit well from cold, never had any fade on-road, never tracked with that combo so couldn't comment on that. Very low dust levels front and rear.

Changed to DS2500 front pads and DS2500 rear pads recently. Comparable bite from cold, noticeably better bite when hot. Dusty front and rear.

Trackday'd at Brands Hatch a few weeks ago - Very impressed with the setup, no fade at all in any of the sessions, seem to be wearing well and I would say they're generally much better than the EBC's. Downsides are the cost of them, the high levels of brake dust and since the trackday they squeal a bit too.

[tatsuro]

i still use Nissan or halfrauds OEM pads

[Jez]

I'm on 310mmx32mm fronts (Z32 caliper) and 296mmx22mm rears (Z32 disk and caliper) with DS2500 front and red stuff rear. Also a Z32 BMC. Works bloody well. They don't fade, the pads last a reasonable amount of time, quite dusty I guess, but I rarely clean my car anyway.

In the past I've used:
Green stuff - OK for slow road use, shite for anything else
M1155s - poor when cold, average when hot

My next pad is probably going to be the DS3000, just to see what they're like

[Mr OCD]

Currently have Brembo (grooved) disks installed with standard OE pads... work fine for day to day stuff but the minute I start using them hard they are noisy, crap, fade, crap, leave marks on my disks, crap, stink, crap ...

Well you get the gist...

I'm having Porterfield R4S front and rear when pads need doing (wont be long!)

[Mark]

Currently using the Endless pads on the front and mintex on the back. Seems to stop fine from cold, very little noise with the brembo grooved discs unless very hard braking and i havent had them fade yet on the road. Cant comment on their track performance.

[JuZ]

I am currently using Tarox red-dot fronts and ADL rears pleased with the results, was contemplating red stuff rears but Kev has worried me