High performance pads that still cope on the road.

[frayz]

How come the rear m1144 pads are 68% more expensive than the fronts?

More than likely the production cost vs items sold. Simply they probably sell 10x the amount of front pads than they do rears.
I find it equally annoying that a set of front Pagid RS29s of the Clio (which are tiny) are basically the same money as the ones for my Porsche which must be 3x the size!

 

[Kev@KAM]

How come the rear m1144 pads are 68% more expensive than the fronts?

I don’t work for Mintex but I’d imagine production volume

 

[Amos91]

I don’t work for Mintex but I’d imagine production volume

Indeed, but expect you would negotiate pricing with suppliers so would have some insight. I'm sure other brands have low production volumes but they maintain pricing.

 

[Kev@KAM]

Indeed, but expect you would negotiate pricing with suppliers so would have some insight. I'm sure other brands have low production volumes but they maintain pricing.

Maybe if I bulk ordered 200 sets of the part number Mintex might look into some extra discount. However that would be a waste of my cash reserves on unpopular stock. Other brands will have their own pricing structures which MIntex will not be privvy to.
Easier for me to help customers mix and match to better priced items which I do a lot.

 

[Amos91]

Maybe if I bulk ordered 200 sets of the part number Mintex might look into some extra discount. However that would be a waste of my cash reserves on unpopular stock. Other brands will have their own pricing structures which MIntex will not be privvy to.
Easier for me to help customers mix and match to better priced items which I do a lot.

Yes totally agree! Just looks odd from a customer perspective, surprise you list it at all!

 

[frayz]

Pads have landed. Whooo!!

 

[MrBlonde]

What other rear pads apart from a good standard pad are there for fast road use?

I have M1144 front pads,Braided lines all round with Castrol React Performance fluid & standard rear pads,they fell good to be honest with a firm pedal all the time.

I didnt like them at first but now there on the 182 they seem to work better or could be just down to better brake fluid & having rear braided hoses on the 182 than to the cup which just had front braided hoses & pagid fluid

 

[Amos91]

PBS I'd have thought would be a good price point option.

 

[Touring_Rob]

What other rear pads apart from a good standard pad are there for fast road use?

I have M1144 front pads,Braided lines all round with Castrol React Performance fluid & standard rear pads,they fell good to be honest with a firm pedal all the time.

I didnt like them at first but now there on the 182 they seem to work better or could be just down to better brake fluid & having rear braided hoses on the 182 than to the cup which just had front braided hoses & pagid fluid

I've personally stuck with the oem rears - I can't fade the rears - if anyone can then good luck to them! In fact I've only ever faded rear brakes on a RWD by doing silly things - I've had loads of cars with drum rear brakes that I've never faded either. Just the fronts, a lot.

Just ate super blue (which isn't blue anymore ), braided lines, and your choice of front pads. I've gone with 1155's for the front as they seemed to have a good price/performance ratio.

 

[frayz]

I've personally stuck with the oem rears - I can't fade the rears - if anyone can then good luck to them! In fact I've only ever faded rear brakes on a RWD by doing silly things - I've had loads of cars with drum rear brakes that I've never faded either. Just the fronts, a lot.

Just ate super blue (which isn't blue anymore ), braided lines, and your choice of front pads. I've gone with 1155's for the front as they seemed to have a good price/performance ratio.

Genuine question,
If you have a high bite, high friction front pad that’s doing all the work, how would you know what the rears are doing anyway?
How would you know the rears weren’t fading if all the retardation is being done on the front axle?

 

[Usr117063]

Genuine question,
If you have a high bite, high friction front pad that’s doing all the work, how would you know what the rears are doing anyway?
How would you know the rears weren’t fading if all the retardation is being done on the front axle?

 

[Usr117063]

Im hoping there will be strong retardation with this setup. Gotta fix the bleed screw threads first though!

 

[Touring_Rob]

Genuine question,
If you have a high bite, high friction front pad that’s doing all the work, how would you know what the rears are doing anyway?
How would you know the rears weren’t fading if all the retardation is being done on the front axle?

If the rears fade and the fluid boils you still get a soft pedal.

But fair point. For me as long as the pedal feels alright and the car stops I'm happy. Most of the work is certainly being done by the front brakes during a heavy stop - I guess we will see how well the setup works with the Clio, I've done the same with my other cars and it seems to be an economical compromise without dropping performance for me - hard core track driving might well be another story but in a light fwd I doubt it.

I've also got one of those cheap laser temperature guns and while I haven't used it on the Clio, on my M3 which had various brake balance issues I wanted to be sure of what each corner was doing so just measured disk temp after a few hard stops. Also on my RS Turbo (still rear drums) I have a manual brake bias valve - when the fronts are faded badly the rears still luck up if you press hard enough - basically a guaranteed accident.

 

[Touring_Rob]

Im hoping there will be strong retardation with this setup. Gotta fix the bleed screw threads first though!

View attachment 1476888
View attachment 1476889

Should probably pop some pads in too

 

[Touring_Rob]

Genuine question,
If you have a high bite, high friction front pad that’s doing all the work, how would you know what the rears are doing anyway?
How would you know the rears weren’t fading if all the retardation is being done on the front axle?

I've also been concerned with what a higher friction co rear pad really does with hotter front pads. Do you really want the rears doing more than normal while braking very heavily?

I would invest in one of the cheap laser temp guns and have a look at the rear brake temps - if your not getting enough heat into them (because they aren't doing enough) then the expensive pads will give the discs a hard life with no performance benefit. On the other hand if you find they are getting up to temp then its been money well spent on the pads - either way you'll know for next time.

 

[Usr117063]

Should probably pop some pads in too

Will be going for pagid rs4-2, same as what Frayz is using. Im on ds1.11 up fronts with brembos but will see what happens on first test! May or may not want some carbone lorraine for balance. All fun and games this at the end of the day, if it works then great if it doesnt then oh well.

 

[Touring_Rob]

Will be going for pagid rs4-2, same as what Frayz is using. Im on ds1.11 up fronts with brembos but will see what happens on first test! May or may not want some carbone lorraine for balance. All fun and games this at the end of the day, if it works then great if it doesnt then oh well.

Absolutely - I just feel like I've been bummed after buying pads for the Clio though. I get the economies of scale argument but they must be the most non standard pad cost per mm^2 on the planet.

 

[frayz]

I've also been concerned with what a higher friction co rear pad really does with hotter front pads. Do you really want the rears doing more than normal while braking very heavily?

I would invest in one of the cheap laser temp guns and have a look at the rear brake temps - if your not getting enough heat into them (because they aren't doing enough) then the expensive pads will give the discs a hard life with no performance benefit.

I've a Fluke temp gun so can check them out with that.
Fade and boiling fluid im sure you know are 2 different things. Fade the pedal stays hard and the increase in pedal pressure does not translate into increased vehicle retardation. Boiling fluid the pedal goes soft and spongy.

As for upping the performance of rear pads and your concern over it, im not sure how you have arrived at that conclusion?

Do you think OEM pads are different compounds front and rear? They're not, the disc/pad/piston sizes are what denotes the oem brake balance. So if you upgrade all pads equally front and rear, you will have the same brake balance as before, just more performance everywhere.
The issue comes when you have massively differing pad characteristics and the torque ramp differs massively between the axles.
So if you have upgraded pads front and rear, why would you not get enough heat into only the rear axle?

 

[Usr117063]

Absolutely - I just feel like I've been bummed after buying pads for the Clio though. I get the economies of scale argument but they must be the most non standard pad cost per mm^2 on the planet.

Another reason to go 197/225 calipers front and rear!

 

[Touring_Rob]

I've a Fluke temp gun so can check them out with that.
Fade and boiling fluid im sure you know are 2 different things. Fade the pedal stays hard and the increase in pedal pressure does not translate into increased vehicle retardation. Boiling fluid the pedal goes soft and spongy.

As for upping the performance of rear pads and your concern over it, im not sure how you have arrived at that conclusion?

Do you think OEM pads are different compounds front and rear? They're not, they disc/pad/piston sizes are what denotes the oem brake balance. So if you upgrade all pads equally front and rear, you will have the same brake balance as before, just more performance everywhere.
The issue comes when you have massively differing pad characteristics and the torque ramp differs massively between the axles.
So if you have upgraded pads front and rear, why would you not get enough heat into only the rear axle?

I've always though of them as being pretty significantly linked. When the fronts fade you feel it through the pedal, if your familiar with the car you should be able to use your spider senses to detect an issue with the rear. Unless your on posh fluid fade is almost certainly followed by boiling fluid in my experience. But I've never had a dedicated track car with a track only brake setup.

However your original question was specifically about a brake setup that would work on track and on the road - I can't see how hard compound rear pads will get up to temp on the road. The fronts I can sympathise with for sure. By your later logic front and rears should be smoking after a heavy fade inducing stop and I never see that, only ever the fronts? Same with glowing disks, its nearly always the fronts that glow - if both front and rears were arranged to be at broadly the same temperature with the same pad material, the balancing being done with pad/disc/piston sizing then all four would glow together no? (argggg I can feel several hours of google ahead of me thank to this haha).

Increasing the performance of the rear brakes line was just a passing thought I've often had. If the standard biasing arrangement is in place are you not concerned that you've increased the chance of a rear lock up? I know I had to adjust the escort bias after fitting better front pads due to rear lock up which I didn't have on the dog shite front pads I had in them first time round - I guess under heavy braking more weight was being transferred to the front axle than before - although that did obviously have a fixed bias setup.

Im sure some oem pads do indeed have different compounds front to rear. But take your point and had not considered that well.

 

[Touring_Rob]

Ahhh you've got me thinking about this way too much now. I get your point here:

So if you have upgraded pads front and rear, why would you not get enough heat into only the rear axle?

But it bugs me that I can go out to any car, do a moderate stop. Be able to touch the rear brakes and not the front.

Its bugging me because what you've said is totally logical. In that obviously the front brakes do the majority of the work, (ignoring pressure bias for the min) if both front and rear brakes had the same calipers, disk size, pad material and swept area of course the rears would never get up to temp. However the rear pads are smaller, the disks are smaller blah. So if they were perfectly arranged the rears would be at the same temp as the front... but they never are in practice.

But then, if there was zero dynamic weight transfer the argument would stand. With any weight transfer comes the need to bias the braking effort more towards the front, car manufacturers seem to have a pathological fear of rear brake lock up so likely overly favor front bias. As more weight is transferred to the front axle the rear brake pressure is progressively lowered with respect to the front and the further away from your ideal matched temp setup you get - its not a constant 70/30 FR split.

I guess thats why rear brake temperature is often lower (can be significantly lower) than the front and why I (without much prior thought) don't believe rear brake fade in a small fwd car like the Clio is likely to be an issue for a road/track car....

More than happy to be schooled on this because I think its dead interesting!

 

[frayz]

@Touring_Rob

I'm not educated enough to go into finite details of how it all works with regards to friction coefficients, moments of torque, inertia blah blah.
My main gripe is this (in my opinion) misconception that the rear brakes are doing nothing and therefore crap pads are more than adequate. This belief that the rear axle doesn't do anything, and my argument being that if you have race pads in front and budget ECP crap in the rear, of course the rear isn't going to do anything.
You're 100% right in saying the front is doing the lions share as the weigh transfer puts most of the vehicles mass over the front axle, therefore these are obviously larger and sized to suit. My belief is the rear does a good amount at providing a lot of additional stability and stopping power if its upgraded correctly to match the front. The stability here is the most significant gain in providing the driver with additional confidence in the vehicles behaviour under hard braking.
Feeling the rear of the car bite up equally well as the front i think makes the car feel far better, and obviously we are talking tarmac driving and not gravel rallying here.

So providing you have a rear pad that is still inside its operating window, and providing equal torque characteristics as that in the front axle, then i see no issue.

 

[Touring_Rob]

Sounds good - if your up for it take some temp readings when you have the brakes fitted and share them here, I plan on doing the same when mine is back together as I think its an interesting topic that will either help people to avoid spending money on unnecessary items or convince them of the value.

PS - I would be far more inclined to agree with you also if the Clio had any sort of front anti dive setup up which I don't think it does. I've got a big silly old Jag XJR, the front subframe is mounted on huge rubbers to achieve some form of anti dive specifically to reduce weight transfer (like the f**king titanic) so the rear brakes can 'do more'. On this the rear disks are the same size as the front with pretty much identical pad area.

 

[McGherkin]

The problem with uprating the brakes equally is as you achieve more G under deceleration, the weight transfer becomes more pronounced and the rear axle can take less braking effort.

Obviously suspension changes to reduce the weight transfer mitigate that, but if all else is the same, increasing brake effort without changing the balance gives the rear wheels a harder time. And increasing rear brake effort destabilises the car, even without locking the wheels.

Not saying that it’s not worth uprating the rear pads, just something to be aware of.

 

[gambit]

Not sure if anyone here have heard of Forza FP3 but i'm using them on the clio and they have great initial bite after one brake cycle and perfect for road use with very little to no dust.

 

[Crazylegs]

I've had PBS on my last Teg DC5 and they were crap, really not impressed with them and poor from cold.

The only fast road pad I've experienced again in a DC5 is Hawk HP+ and they are brilliant even from cold. They do kick off tonnes of dust though but they give off so much confidence and braking feel is brilliant, can't rate them enough tbh. Not cheap though, about £250 just for the fronts from Cambridge Motorsport.

I'll probably go with them again for the Clio eventually or Pagid RS-4--2 as they seem to get good reviews for the Clio. Don't scrimp on brakes imo, same as tyres. Such an important part for a car and also aides the driving experience.

 

[frayz]

Just to update this.

Pads have been fitted and bedded in to the letter of Pagids bedding procedure. I haven’t run shims in the Calipers almost since new so they weren’t present to remove. As usual with Pagids, you have to dust off the paint from the ends of the pads to allow them to move freely and expand without binding.

I have always done this when using Pagids RS pads and although a bit of faff, well worth it and I’ve never had an issue. The next morning I re-bled the system as the initial bedding is pretty aggressive on the system.
The pretty yellow paint doesn’t last long against a proper thermal cycle either lol.

Obviously they haven’t been on circuit yet but initial impressions are everything I expected. Huge bite, solid pedal and loads of feel. Easily enough to activate the ABS even with R888s.

They inspire the confidence you need when pressing on and the car is absolutely rock solid under braking, tracks arrow straight and despite the obvious weight transfer up front, the whole car hunkers down and pulls up evenly.
Heaps of Initial dust but zero squeal.
So far, very pleased with my purchase.

 

[Usr117063]

@frayz But the rears dont do anything

 

[frayz]

@frayz But the rears dont do anything

Yeah, I might take them of and throw them away. Because weight saving bro!

 

[Usr117063]

Yeah, I might take them of and throw them away. Because weight saving bro!

Decent paper weights I hear

 

[Touring_Rob]

@frayz But the rears dont do anything

Who said they don't do anything?

 

[JackJack]

Who said they don't do anything?

Loads of people on this forum for ages

 

[-Jamie-]

Mega pad choice @frayz I've ran the same in the Megane but ended up with RST3 up front and 29s on the back, The 42s absolutely annihilated my discs and wheels on the rear when used on the road but the track performance was mega. Even more so with the RST compound on the front axle

 

[frayz]

Mega pad choice @frayz I've ran the same in the Megane but ended up with RST3 up front and 29s on the back, The 42s absolutely annihilated my discs and wheels on the rear when used on the road but the track performance was mega. Even more so with the RST compound on the front axle

I’ll see how I go, Pagid said they wouldn’t be horrific for what I wanted. But if I find they’re eating discs and wheels, perhaps I’ll swap to 29s on the rear too. The 29s are easily my favourite pad that I’ve ever used for performance, disc life and non corrosive dust.

 

[-Jamie-]

I’ll see how I go, Pagid said they wouldn’t be horrific for what I wanted. But if I find they’re eating discs and wheels, perhaps I’ll swap to 29s on the rear too. The 29s are easily my favourite pad that I’ve ever used for performance, disc life and non corrosive dust.

Don't get me wrong, it was probably the best setup I used on the car coupled with the aggressive RST pads in terms of balance and braking power/modulation but they just wore too much when not upto temps


29s are a superb pad, been around a long long time, Got them on the APs on the front of my E92 and not sure what to go with next. Used btcc pads are pennies but I may try the RSL1 next, simialr life but a bit more bite and power which I found the 29s lacked sometimes

 

[frayz]

Don't get me wrong, it was probably the best setup I used on the car coupled with the aggressive RST pads in terms of balance and braking power/modulation but they just wore too much when not upto temps


29s are a superb pad, been around a long long time, Got them on the APs on the front of my E92 and not sure what to go with next. Used btcc pads are pennies but I may try the RSL1 next, simialr life but a bit more bite and power which I found the 29s lacked sometimes

I find 29s go off if they’re not being used hard enough often enough and take a bit of a pasting before they come back again.

I know what you mean though, they don’t have that instant axle snapping of a Carbon Metallic pad. But I prefer the feel having slightly less grab. Probably because I find it easier to use aggressively.
When I swapped to PF01s I had to completely change my braking style as they were probably too aggressive for my style...
But if you want ultimate power, they’re mega!
I’ve got 29s front and rear in my Cayman R and in that, I couldn’t want for any more.

 

[-Jamie-]

Yeah I guess it's very personal as I find some pads that others rave about a bit lacklustre


Yeah load of guys run the same 29s all round on these as well.

I went cheap PFZ rears for now as it only had stock last time it was on track and wasn't ideal. Will see how the PF go first but they were like 70 quid vs 250 for 29s [emoji23]

 

[frayz]

Yeah I guess it's very personal as I find some pads that others rave about a bit lacklustre


Yeah load of guys run the same 29s all round on these as well.

I went cheap PFZ rears for now as it only had stock last time it was on track and wasn't ideal. Will see how the PF go first but they were like 70 quid vs 250 for 29s [emoji23]

PFZ I found were nothing like any of their other compounds and were kind of their way of offering a road useable compound. They’re okay for the money but not comparable to their other pads in terms of performance.
I too have used them as a rear pad in the Impreza, fine on the road but was left wanting more. Judging from what you say you’ve used previously, I think you’ll be wanting more too.

 

[-Jamie-]

PFZ I found were nothing like any of their other compounds and were kind of their way of offering a road useable compound. They’re okay for the money but not comparable to their other pads in terms of performance.
I too have used them as a rear pad in the Impreza, fine on the road but was left wanting more. Judging from what you say you’ve used previously, I think you’ll be wanting more too.

Yeah for sure, load of the Megane guys rave about them for track, I ran them on the road and thiught they were poor and wouldn't even of thought of using them as a front axle compound, so I guess those that like them are just slow [emoji23]


Yeah im not expecting amazing performance really, But they should be better than the OE mismatched pads that were in the rear anyway, May end up doing a rear brake change on it anyway to some different calipers so didn't want to chuck expensive pads in the bin

 

[Touring_Rob]

Don't get me wrong, it was probably the best setup I used on the car coupled with the aggressive RST pads in terms of balance and braking power/modulation but they just wore too much when not upto temps


29s are a superb pad, been around a long long time, Got them on the APs on the front of my E92 and not sure what to go with next. Used btcc pads are pennies but I may try the RSL1 next, simialr life but a bit more bite and power which I found the 29s lacked sometimes

I really liked the PFC's I had on my E46 last, warmed up dead quick and loads of bite, I swapped to DS2500 at next change due to general online recommendations but won't be using them next time round.