Brake pads and fluid?

rG-tom

rG-tom

rG-tom

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Afternoon all,

I'm after some high performance brake pads, i'm not bothered if they take a little heat to get up to decent performance but obviously don't want them to be a liability if someone pulls out on me from cold.

I am changing the calipers to the ones found on the e46 330i, which gives me 325mm instead of the stock 300mm discs, as I find the stock brakes woefully inadequate after a few hard stops. This is a very cheap mod to do if i am already changing pads and discs (£100 for a pair of remanufactured calipers) so every little helps :)

I am thinking of going with plain vented brembo discs, and EBC Bluestuff pads as they seem the ideal compromise between cold performance and warm performance, but I can't find them in the right fitment :\ There doesn't seem to be much choice at all for the e46 330i?

I don't really want to spend too much over £100 or so on the pads.

Also, what fluid should I go with?

Thanks,

Tom.
 
Yellowstuff make a good pad for the road, they suffer a bit when really punished on track but cope very well on the street. Excellent friction and only take a couple of applications to get fully up to temp. Cheap too. Quite dusty though and can squeal a little, I didn't fit the supplied shims though.
 
Are you just changing the fronts? Think you might find the rears are a lot harder (handbrake shoes, backplate...)

Don't really get why a road car needs performance brake pads to be honest. You are already going over and above by fitting bigger discs...

Just my personal opinion.
 
Clarkey said:
Yellowstuff make a good pad for the road, they suffer a bit when really punished on track but cope very well on the street. Excellent friction and only take a couple of applications to get fully up to temp. Cheap too. Quite dusty though and can squeal a little, I didn't fit the supplied shims though.
Click to expand...

I had Yellowstuff pads on the MX5 and whilst I never took it on track, they were fantastic for road use. They bit well when cold and were pretty damn ferocious when warmed up.
 
i liked yellows, didnt take much at all to get them going and once you got them hot they were pretty epic

when stone cold you could feel a difference in performance compared to OE, perhaps 10% less response

ive heard blue are great

i would definitely just stick with nice plain discs and not go for pagid from ecp
 
rossk26 said:
Don't really get why a road car needs performance brake pads to be honest. You are already going over and above by fitting bigger discs...
Click to expand...

Surely that depends on how you drive it? When my LCR was "relegated" to being my weekend toy/throwaway vehicle, I only drove it in anger. Having the ability to stop me repeatedly over the course of a spirited drive required the installation of "performance" pads.

I found red-stuffs to be "ok", nothing more, nothing less. Yellows were better, but I couldn't deal with the mess they made, it was a LOT of dust, and mine squealed a lot too.

I found Pagid RS4-2-2s to be the best all round for my Leon, but obviously your usage may vary.
 
I had EBC Yellowstuff on my 350z and found them to be pretty decent. Didn't have any squeal and they were fitted with the shims. What about Ferodo DS2500?
 
rossk26 said:
Are you just changing the fronts? Think you might find the rears are a lot harder (handbrake shoes, backplate...)

Don't really get why a road car needs performance brake pads to be honest. You are already going over and above by fitting bigger discs...

Just my personal opinion.
Click to expand...

surely it depends a) how crap the brakes to begin with and b) how hard you drive the car.

325mm still isn't huge, its not like im fitting 6 pot AP racings here. The stock pads fade within a few miles on a very twisty downhil run that i regularly, and the only car ive had that they havn't faded on was when i had m1144s on my modified mondeo v6 (and even then after 6-7 runs they were starting to go).

this car is a LOT faster than that, and i will be tracking too. Can anyone find somewhere that stocks bluestuffs in my fitment?

I will look at those pagid 4-2-2 now para :)
 
Performance Friction Z pads are meant to be incredibly good with very little dust or fade when given some abuse. Can be had for about £95 a set for the fronts, unsure on the rears. They're my next buy whenever the brakes finally need changing.

E46 330i brakes need 17" wheels or bigger to fit so you sohuld be OK.
 
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Don't get EBC Pads. I've got Yellow Stuffs on the FN2 at the moment, they're not the best. Pedal feel is pretty awful and they squeal

Skeeter and Muffin on here run CL Pads (Carbon Lorraine) RC5+, they like them, and they'll be going on my car soon!

As for fluid, Motul RBF600 gets good reviews, OR if you can afford it.. then buy some Castrol SRF. It's the best fluid going, Excellent Dry&Wet boiling points!
 
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ATe Super blue for me, cheap and really good.

CL are good but they are a proper metal sintered pad hence they kill your discs, make a lot of noise and shower the sides of the car in metallic brake dust. Most drivers don't want that stuff for their road cars.
 
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