NC Brake Pads

sloopercat · Post by **sloopercat** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:46 am

I am not surprised by the 4K life, it's either the pads or rotors, I would rather have the pads sacrifice themselves. Only concern is that there is no nanny squeal tabs, so you have to pay attention to the wear. I would not use these again for my mixed driving, they dust like no other, my wheels look like gun metal wheels after just a few stops.

miataman · Post by **miataman** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:05 am

I don't mind the dust or the squeeking, but I want maximum stopping power.
I planned on trying another brand to see any differences, but since only the fronts are due for a change, I will probably be installing the same pads.

miataman · Post by **miataman** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 1:55 pm

I was on our local track today. One thing that really suprised me was the brakes.
On the previous trackday, there were bubles in the fluid because the Mazda tech didn't do a proper brake flush with new Motul RBF fluid.

Today the brakes were really awesome!!!
Even after a lot of hard braking, the pads would still bite and the pedal remained firm.
Braking power was superb! I could brake a lot later than everyone else (an S2000 and a Z4 3.0 among others) and the control was perfect!
Although the pads are not so excellent at lower temps, I will sure be opting for Carbotech pads (perhaps one step up - XP8s) when the time comes (which is very soon...

)

P.S. The Toyo R888 (what Toyo offers instead of the RA-1 out of the USA) are simply crap after not many laps.
They become greasy and wear a lot.

miataman · Post by **miataman** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:56 pm

The new pads arrived today and I got them installed.
They are Carbotech XP8's for the front axle only.
At the rear, I still have the 4K old Carbotech Panther Plus pads.

What amazed me was the old pads' wear.
They wore much more on the outside and especially at the left side.
At the right side, again they wore more on the outside, but the difference wasn't that large.
What could have caused that? Any ideas?

I got the pads bedded in today and they seem to be working very nicely!
More aggresive initial bite than the Panther Plus pads and very good pedal feel, but modulating the pedal to brake in traffic takes some getting used to.