Autocross brake pad recs

[tri-pedaler]

My car came with some cheap otc pads. Great for learning to heel-toe 2 years ago since they were very squishy and forgiving. I’ve driven a FiST with the bitty OEM pads, which were touchy but seemed fine.

With more events now I’m ready to upgrade. I can put up with some brake dust (black wheels for daily use, silver for autox but who cares).

I’m leaning EBC Yellowstuff -
Thoughts?

 

[dhminer]

Yellowstuff got reworked and is mostly a street pad now, but I love them. If changing pads for auto x is feasible, I’d go for some bluestuff pads for auto x and yellow for street

 

[tri-pedaler]

Yellowstuff got reworked and is mostly a street pad now, but I love them. If changing pads for auto x is feasible, I’d go for some bluestuff pads for auto x and yellow for street

Good to know DHM. don’t need much heat resistance for 60 second runs, but the extra grab of the blue might be worth it. I put tires on before events so pads are feasible, if a little annoying. I’ll check them out

 

[CSM]

I know Caleb Pardus, when he was running HS in his FiST preferred Ferodo DS2500 front and factory pads rear.

I only use the Ferodos on my autocross cars. Pricey, but the modulation is really good

 

[Jabbit]

I run EBC Blue on my track car. For now I drive the car to/from the track, sometimes up to 2 hours each way. No issues or noise whatsoever with the Blues for some street driving. Orange is their "track only" pad so you are probably fine to run Blue all the time.

 

[TyphoonFiST]

Blue EBC NDX are great...coming from Yellow EBCs. I will Never go back to Yellows after the switch. I DD mine also with alot of High speed off Ramp braking. Dust isn't too bad IMO very similar to Yellows.

 

[tri-pedaler]

Blue EBC NDX are great...coming from Yellow EBCs. I will Never go back to Yellows after the switch. I DD mine also with alot of High speed off Ramp braking. Dust isn't too bad IMO very similar to Yellows.

Nice. How do they compare to the Carbotechs people liked a few years ago?

 

[cidsamuth]

I assume with your experience, that you are getting faster.

You might want to consider a mild track pad, such as Hawk DTC-30s. Would still be okay on the street, but much more durable under heated conditions.

If you’re okay with the dust and need to warm a little, you could even put DTC-60 on the front and 30s on the back; it’s a combo commonly used on light track cars.

 

[tri-pedaler]

I know Caleb Pardus, when he was running HS in his FiST preferred Ferodo DS2500 front and factory pads rear.

I only use the Ferodos on my autocross cars. Pricey, but the modulation is really good

Just went back and checked my notes from the Cincy starting line event with Alex Piehl. He also recommended Ferodos, and won pro solo with them in 2019…

 

[The_Ryan]

I’ve gone to EBC yellows, and now I’m back to the stock S pads all around. They’re pretty great and IMO are good enough for casual autocross, especially for a car that gets driven daily.

I didn’t find the EBC yellows to be super predictable for me because the hotter they get, the harder they bit. With the torque vectoring system of these cars, it was hard to get an idea of when they were hot and how much bites my pads would have.

 

[CSM]

I’ve gone to EBC yellows, and now I’m back to the stock S pads all around. They’re pretty great and IMO are good enough for casual autocross, especially for a car that gets driven daily.

I didn’t find the EBC yellows to be super predictable for me because the hotter they get, the harder they bit. With the torque vectoring system of these cars, it was hard to get an idea of when they were hot and how much bites my pads would have.

I liked the factory S pads OK, but they lack a lot of the modulation from some of the nicer higher end pads. Once you learn how to modulate the brake pedal to induce weight transfer, you quickly learn why pads that act like "On/Off" switches are so bad.

Factory S pads are also dirty as hell - dust like a MFer.

 

[ronmcdon]

dtc30s are great for the track but imo also difficult to modulate. they are like an on and off switch.

 

[M-Sport fan]

I know Caleb Pardus, when he was running HS in his FiST preferred Ferodo DS2500 front and factory pads rear.

I only use the Ferodos on my autocross cars. Pricey, but the modulation is really good

Are the DS2500s really a hard core autocross/mild track pad, and way too much pad (need a bunch of heat, squeal like stuck pigs at stop lights/signs, bad in cold weather, etc.) for exclusively daily street use??

 

[Dialcaliper]

Are the DS2500s really a hard core autocross/mild track pad, and way too much pad (need a bunch of heat, squeal like stuck pigs at stop lights/signs, bad in cold weather, etc.) for exclusively daily street use??

Haven’t tried them personally yet, but planning to try out either the DS2500 or the G-Loc R6 (or even R8) as a street/track pad. (Carbotech XP8 would be another contender)

Supposedly good bite when cold (but maybe not in really cold weather). Can’t speak to squeals, but the main disadvantages to the DS2500 seem to be they are dusty and expensive, especially on our side of the pond. On lighter cars like ours they’ll stand up to some trackday abuse.

The other plus side of the DS2500 is that similar to Carbotech and G-Loc, all the Ferodo performance street/track pads have compatible bedding, so you can bed-in another set of pads and swap them out.

My reason for picking those pads is they have low minimum temperatures (~20-25C) where they have decent friction for cold stops in typical California weather yet are fairly consistent up to 500C+ where street pads basically melt. Both are supposed to have good pedal modulation as well. The GLOC pads stand up to higher temperatures, but I’d expect them to be noisier.

 

[foodtruck]

I'm running EBC Yellows for a few years now; not driving much otherwise so its still the first set, so not sure what formulation is that.

I like them, and the brake dust is easier to clean off than with OEM S pads. They definitely do bite harder when warm than when cold but I didn't find that to be a big issue (but then again I can't say I'm that good at autocrossing )

 

[TyphoonFiST]

Nice. How do they compare to the Carbotechs people liked a few years ago?

You should see my Video i have somewhere of Carbos* that i took off my car and went to EBC yellows...Now onto Blue EBC NDX.

 

[CSM]

Are the DS2500s really a hard core autocross/mild track pad, and way too much pad (need a bunch of heat, squeal like stuck pigs at stop lights/signs, bad in cold weather, etc.) for exclusively daily street use??

Nope. Perfectly fine on the street year round. Wonderful pad

 

[tri-pedaler]

Nope. Perfectly fine on the street year round. Wonderful pad

Thanks all. Im leaning Ferodo since my main goals are to get better at LFB, trail braking, and pedal modulation. Seems like a good pad for this touchy stuff

 

[Intuit]

Had bought a set of cheap kevlar pads some years ago for the motorcycle. Absolutely horrible in frigid or wet weather... down right deadly in frigid and wet weather. They needed so much heat to work I was literally counting as high as seven seconds of brake application before they'd even begin to bite. I procrastinated swapping them out and eventually forgot they had that issue until I set out one frigid, damp early afternoon. As a workaround I started keeping some brake application going as a way of maintaining some heat in them between stops. That reduced the bite time down to maybe four seconds. But these are drilled disc rotors and not a lot of mass so, very quickly they cool. So I got more and more aggressive with brake application; getting well ahead of normal traffic then riding the brakes. Well, next thing I knew my front wheel tucked and I was watching my bike slide way down the road. When the pads finally got hot enough for initial bite, the front wheel instantly locked up and down went Frasier...

Bottom line is, if you experiment with your pads and find that they suck, DO NOT PROCRASTINATE WITH REPLACEMENT. I learned the hard way. 🤦‍♂️

 

[The_Ryan]

I liked the factory S pads OK, but they lack a lot of the modulation from some of the nicer higher end pads. Once you learn how to modulate the brake pedal to induce weight transfer, you quickly learn why pads that act like "On/Off" switches are so bad.

Factory S pads are also dirty as hell - dust like a MFer.

I haven’t really felt like these were on/off pads but I can see why you would feel that way. While there’s definitely more initial bite, I find that there’s still enough modulation. To be honest, I‘m able to manage weight transfer sufficiently with the throttle mostly. Maybe that’s just the autocross facility I run at (Devens) because all the other experienced FiSTs there use lift-off and throttle to transfer weight front/back