Pushed brakes deep into fade, now they work better????

[rpt50]

One of the few things that has irritated me about my FIST since day 1 is the touchy brakes. My previous miata had a nice linear relationship between effort on the pedal and braking force. I have found it difficult to get a smooth transition to braking in the FIST however, as the damn brakes seem to grab the instant you touch the pedal. However, after a spirited drive in the mountains were the pedal got seriously spongy (I pulled over to let things cool), I came to realize that the brakes were working much more to my liking, without that initial ridiculous grab that upsets the chassis. So what happened? Why are they working better (for me at least) now?

BTW, the car had about 17K miles before the mountain drive.

 

[TyphoonFiST]

IF you don't like the Stockers....Carbotech is a more linear option 1521 Bobcat pads...FYI

 

[JDG]

One of the few things that has irritated me about my FIST since day 1 is the touchy brakes. My previous miata had a nice linear relationship between effort on the pedal and braking force. I have found it difficult to get a smooth transition to braking in the FIST however, as the damn brakes seem to grab the instant you touch the pedal. However, after a spirited drive in the mountains were the pedal got seriously spongy (I pulled over to let things cool), I came to realize that the brakes were working much more to my liking, without that initial ridiculous grab that upsets the chassis. So what happened? Why are they working better (for me at least) now?

BTW, the car had about 17K miles before the mountain drive.

You boiled your brake fluid and the result is now some air in the lines. You should upgrade your pads to something like a Hawk HPS and bleed all four corners with Racing Dot 4 fluid like this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LEYJO4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[MauiRoads]

One of the few things that has irritated me about my FIST since day 1 is the touchy brakes. My previous miata had a nice linear relationship between effort on the pedal and braking force. I have found it difficult to get a smooth transition to braking in the FIST however, as the damn brakes seem to grab the instant you touch the pedal. However, after a spirited drive in the mountains were the pedal got seriously spongy (I pulled over to let things cool), I came to realize that the brakes were working much more to my liking, without that initial ridiculous grab that upsets the chassis. So what happened? Why are they working better (for me at least) now?

BTW, the car had about 17K miles before the mountain drive.

I had a similar experience. When I bought my 17 ST used with 30K miles, the brakes were VERY touchy. After a few hard runs down the mountain, they are not as bad now...but still too grabby for me. I'm looking for a performance street upgraded pad. We have some 20 minute runs dropping several thousand feet and brakes get pretty hot, but the ST is my daily driver and I don't want track pads.

I also have an 06 Miata that had a similar problem with the stock pads, and I switched to the Porterfield R4S. They need more initial pressure, and are very linear, allowing slight variations in braking force. I'll look into those for the ST, and check out the Carbotechs and Hawks.

 

[M-Sport fan]

Some on here are using the racing version of those Porterfield pads for open tracking.

 

[ORANGEST]

I got the EBC Redstuff pads and braking is strong but they come on too slow for my liking, I know what you're talking about with initial bite on stock pads as I was running those previously. I got the Redstuff pads because I thought the Orangestuff pads would be too much of a bite, but other than Redstuff having the least brake dust out of any of the EBC pads I wish my brakes were touchier. Maybe a pad feel like this is what you're looking for.

 

[MauiRoads]

Thanks M-Sport fan and ORANGEST. That's helpful feedback. Sounds like maybe the Redstuff compound is too far in the "not too much initial bite" direction. Maybe the Yellow pads are the way to go. My nephew has an MR2 Spyder with the Yellow pads. I'll have to drive that again, and focus on the brakes. The Carbotech 1521 sounds like another possible option, based on other threads. And I like my Porterfield S pads on my Miata...just not sure how they'd be in a front-heavy car like the ST. Sometimes there are too many options

 

[ORANGEST]

From what I read about the yellowstuff pads, apparently they're not good for a daily driver because of something about them needing to get warmed up or wanting to operate at a higher temperature and also having the most noise out of all their pads? Something like that... from what I understand, from most daily-driverish to most-racecar they go Red, Blue, Orange, Yellow