Front/Rear brake pad combos for trackday driving

Discussion in 'Track Prep & Tech' started by TomAKL, Dec 11, 2021.

  1. TomAKL

    TomAKL Paid Member Paid Member

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    Hi all, i'm sat on the fence a little about brake pad combos for trackday driving and looking to tap into your experience and opinions ...

    Car is a Mk3 8v GTI, stripped to ~950kg, warmed up to 150bhp and using sticky track rubber (AR-1s at present).
    Currently using EBC pads, Orangestuff in the front and Greenstuff in the rear. With this set up the car stops well however the rear end feels a bit 'light' coming into corners and almost feels like it needs a bit more braking at the rear. Should i be looking at orangestuff pads for the rear as well or to 'stagger' the pad-grip and to use slightly less grippy yellowstuffs? I appreciate the brakes at the rear are much smaller so running less-grippy pads in the rear may well be unnecessary.

    To note: in an ideal world i'd have preferred Pagid or CL pads, however at the time of buying EBC Orangestuffs about 2 years ago the Pagid and CL factories were very slow and i was in a rush. The Greenstuff pads are woeful, but were free in a box of bits from a friend, and as with all things that are naff and you wish would wear out fast, they look like they'll outlive the car. Time to move on to proper rear pads!

    Any advice or opinions appreciated please!
     
  2. PhilRyder

    PhilRyder Paid Member Paid Member

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    Hi,
    I can't answer your question about brakes but I am very interested in how you went about getting 150hp out of your MK3 8v. We have the same and more horses would be great. Any thread on it?
     
  3. copeidge

    copeidge Forum Member

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    I would ditch the greenstuff entirely, they are a worse compound than an oem pad.
    I use DS2500 pads in the front of my golf with some Tarox strada pads in the rear. The benefit of the Stradas is they can take alot more heat than an OE pad but they give a similar bite, which ideal for a FWD car with a light rear end as a lot of track pads can cope with heat but also give more braking force, which you dont want in the rear.

    When I need new front pads I'll be trying the Carbon Lorrains. But I really love the DS2500, coupled with ATE Type 200 fluid, I've never had brake fade on track, even with tarmac temps over 50 degrees c at the Ring.

    I'm interested to know more about when you are saying the rear feels "light" coming into corners? Are you trail braking in and the rear is rotating?
    Ideally you just want to be able to give the max force of braking possible without the car wanting to rotate. If you are getting rotation, theres a few things you can look at. Brake bias is one, does you mk3 have a compensator valve on the rear beam like a mk2? It could be that needs adjusting. On my mk2 I removed the spring completely as the rear was doing too much braking. You could also look at tyre pressures/ adjusting dampening/rebound if the rear is feeling light.

    But it depends what you mean by a light feeling?

    Cheers.
     
  4. Tristan

    Tristan Paid Member Paid Member

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    Hard to beat DS once they get a bit of heat into them, for the money.
     
  5. Toyotec

    Toyotec CGTI Committee - Happy helper at large Admin

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    On a MK3, DS2500 on the front are 'great' only if you cannot push on fast enough.
    150 bhp, does not matter.
    My best track experiences in a MK3, albeit VR6, were with DS3000 pads back was left stock.
    I did overdrive a bit in those days.

    Funny enough, more controlled driving was done in my current MK2 16v, and I would not dare use DS2500 on that for a track.
    CL RC6 for best feel or DS3000 once it is up to temp.
     
  6. Tristan

    Tristan Paid Member Paid Member

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    Interesting you mention rc6. I was wondering about rc5+, for a rally car.
     

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