I frequently and relentlessly tracked a full weight 2013 Mazdaspeed3 at Sonoma raceway on EBC yellow stuff pads and good fluid with regular bleeding and then drove the car home (and then again -but not as regularly - at Road Atlanta/Barber/AMP when I moved East Coast). I'm not slow or easy on my equipment. I find them to be excellent dual duty pads, but as with any track work, be digilent in your inspections and maintenance.
Tom1200 said:In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :
Forgive me if this was brought up in the original post but Potterfield does custom pads fairly reasonable.
Porterfield made some pads for our Elantra. Total fronts and rears in the R4-E compound was $389 shipped. Very reasonable for an endurance racing pad. Going to pair them with some blanks and they should be good for VIR this December.
We will also have back up EBC yellowstuff as they were extremely cheap and off the shelf. Have two sets just in case something goes wrong.
We normally run HP+ on our Lemons car, maybe #2500 mustang, 120HP, rear drums 3" cooling ducts.
Our last set turned out to be HPS due to a purchasing error. They didn't last as long, didn't handle the two hour stints as well, almost boiled the fluid. That being said we did get two races out of them. I wouldn't be afraid to try them for short runs.
Thanks for the replies. After the disappointing review of the Hawks, I'm inclined to put another set of Stoptech sports on the front and since the Stoptech pad isn't available for the back, put Hawks there. They should still be better than the parts store rear pads it's got now.
EBC makes nothing for this car. A set of Porterfield custom pads, using the 2018 price quote, would be $500 more than OTS pads. I can't swing that. I'll buy the best fluid and some cryo-treated blank rotors and see what they do.
In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :
I had just the opposite experience with the original hps on the old elantra. Great initial bite good fade resistance. I even ran them on the 88 C4
ive been using porterfield r4s on the last couple of cars. This set has lasted an entire season of track days and DD duties without a peep. Plenty of dust but no noise. The caveat with that is im running the same sized brakes as your tall i art on a car that's almost 600lbs lighter. So ymmv and all that but porterfield has repeatedly won my business and they are friendly and easy to deal with.
Any particular reason you won't try the numerous suggestions of Carbotech/GLoc?
Does porterfield not make R4S for your car? I was struggling to figure out the model specifics but it looked like they had pads that lined up with what other places listed as fitting the ralliart. Otherwise, I'd say try some carbotechs. Maybe I've been in the Porsche world for too long, but $600 for custom cut track pads doesn't seem that bad. Plus they'll probably last basically forever.
For whatever it's worth, I bought a Lancer Evo VIII when they first hit the market in 2003 and the brakes were always a disappointment.
Even with stainless lines, good fluid, and race pads there was always some flex/mush in the pedal. On top of that, the calipers turned brown from overheating, even when running street tires with stock suspension and near-stock power levels. I think there's a problem with brake cooling that can't really be overcome with just pad choice.
The Ralliart has some of the same brake issues as the Evo. I don't think you'll ever have a super firm pedal, but stainless lines and the right brake fluid will help. Castrol SRF and Prospeed RS683 are significanty better than other fluids. I have no idea why, but they yield a noticeably firmer pedal.
Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:Thanks for the replies. After the disappointing review of the Hawks, I'm inclined to put another set of Stoptech sports on the front and since the Stoptech pad isn't available for the back, put Hawks there. They should still be better than the parts store rear pads it's got now.
EBC makes nothing for this car. A set of Porterfield custom pads, using the 2018 price quote, would be $500 more than OTS pads. I can't swing that. I'll buy the best fluid and some cryo-treated blank rotors and see what they do.
HPS are-better than normal street pads and should never, has someone who used them, be bought for going on track. (Mostly trying to communicate that back in time to myself) HP+, though, are a solid toe-dipper pad with a much more linear feel and heat tolerance/handling. When I run out the current set of HP+, I'm likely to go with a DTC variant and be done with it.
In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :
Yikes! I think the last time I checked it was $325 for front and rear.
In reply to z31maniac :
Looking at the Carbotech pad choices, it's either the street pads or something labeled as not for track use. It's understandable, anyone who has followed the discussions about brakes on this site has seen the consensus that there's no such thing as a pad that works for everything. Still, I would have thought that their autocross pads would be acceptable for street use.
I can't stand HP+ pads. All the downsides (dust, noise) of a race pad without any of the performance of a race pad. Maybe they're ok on a lightweight, low horsepower car but that's about it. I've always run dedicated race pads and just swapped them out.
On the 996 Turbo I've hit the limit of my Ate TYP200 brake fluid, I'm going too fast for it now. Next spring I plan on flushing out with either the Castrol SRF or Endless 650 (which is apparently what Porsche Motorsport uses now).
In reply to Error404 :
Depends on the platform. I can say this after havinf run street pads all summer long, part of that in time attack.
In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :
Likely silly question; are there upgraded components that bolt on? On my Datsun there are bigger brakes that simply bolt on, as they are all stock components they are dirt cheap and I can get away with running street pads.
The other thought is many vintage racers (production class) have to stick with the standard components, part of their solution is adding brake cooling.
In reply to Tom1200 :
Good question, I sometimes use it as a backup autocross car, so it's got to stay stock for street class.
4x114.3 right? I wonder if any of the Hyundai stuff from that era would work? On the Elantra we could use a Tiburon Caliper with 04 Sonata rotors for the first step. Second step was the 2 piston XG 300 caliper on the same 10.9" frt rotor. The XG caliper has a ton of brake options.
Porterfield shows Front available in all 4 compounds for the 02-07 Lancer for $99-$189. Dont see the rears anywhere though.
https://www.porterfield-brakes.com/Products/?YearSelected=2004&ModelSelected=Lancer&MakeSelected=MITSUBISHI&selectManufacturer=All%20Manufacturers
Following up. The fleet's changed since starting this thread.
I have a 99 sport Miata that I run in E Street, OEM front pads, Hawk HPS on the rear. Typical set up for the class.
More relevant to this thread, my current daily is a 2008 civic coupe, non SI, 1.8/5 speed. I also autocross and track sprint and have done two of the Challenge track days with it.
I tried a set of Hawk HPS pads, and they were pretty good on the street but very difficult to modulate in autocross, going into the ABS/ice mode every turn.
I bought a set of Carbotech AX6 pads and have been very pleased with them. I was planning to switch the Hawks back on between events, but when I pulled them out, the compound had separated from the backing plates. Good thing I replaced them when I did.
I've had the Carbotech pads on the car for about two years now, running them on the street, autocross, track sprints and the April track day at Firm (tough on brakes).
They're not a street pad, and will eat your rotors, but I'm okay with that.
I'm on the second set of front rotors, the front pads are done now and the current set of rotors are still okay. They dust a lot, and I have some damage to the finish on some of the wheels, but they're not noisy.
The second set of fronts are on order, and I'm going to install them with some cryo treated rotors from Tire Rack.
You'll need to log in to post.
