Stripped track car / red stuff pads / soft brake pedal - Track day on Saturday!! Help

[philclio172]

I have a Mk2 Ph1 172 stripped track car,

I replaced front (Red Stuff) and rear pads (OMP) at the weekend and bleed the brakes with Dot 5.1 fluid - Job done or so I thought.

On the test run the brake pedal is now alot softer and the ABS kicks in if I brake hard at 40 MPH which is odd and also not very confidence building as high speeds. Now I realise the red stuff pads need heat and under testing they were up to temperature

Any thoughts?

 

[philclio172]

Re: Stripped track car / red stuff pads / soft brake pedal - Track day on Saturday!!

For information I had Mintex pads and brembo disc's, I still have the brembo discs.

 

[maynard]

Re: Stripped track car / red stuff pads / soft brake pedal - Track day on Saturday!!

Whenever I've spoken to EBC through work they've always told me you should replace front and rear at the same time in the same brand, such as Red stuff.

They say it's something to with affecting the ABS imbalance, could be complete rubbish but maybe something worth thinking about.

 

[philclio172]

Re: Stripped track car / red stuff pads / soft brake pedal - Track day on Saturday!!

Could be, althought the reasr do very little on a clio..

I bought the OMP pads because they were quite cheap more than anything

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

Re: Stripped track car / red stuff pads / soft brake pedal - Track day on Saturday!!

Could be a case of buying cheap .. getting cheap ?

Maybe they need to bed in a bit !?

Did you follow the advice on here about doing one corner at a time, and never letting the reservoir run anywhere near the low mark incase it all goes and you spend a weekend arguing the get bubbles out the system.

Hopefully you didn't get any air in the system

 

[Scott S]

Re: Stripped track car / red stuff pads / soft brake pedal - Track day on Saturday!!

I have redstuff pads in my Clio (fronts only) and Brembo HC discs, the pads don't 'need heat' to work, they are fine from cold for me, I have mintex (I think) pads (nothing special, just Mintex cheap ones) and Renault discs on the rear. My car stops fine and brakes feel strong when slowing from any speed.

You may be concentrating too much on the pads and forgetting about the Fluid you changed. You may have air in the system to make the pedal feel soft. If you brake hard at 40mph and the ABS kicks in, then why is that odd? I suppose it depends on your definition of 'hard', but it isn't difficult to get the ABS to kick in at that speed (I tested similar when I changed my brakes).

 

[philclio172]

Re: Stripped track car / red stuff pads / soft brake pedal - Track day on Saturday!!

Thanks for your comments, good to hear that the redstuff pads don't really need heat to work; which does suggest air in the system for the soft pedal.

I think the softness combined with the ABS kicking in causes me to think there are problems. Normally on the mintex pads I hardly noticed the ABS under normal conditions and the pedal was always quite hard?

 

[marinemackay2003]

Re: Stripped track car / red stuff pads / soft brake pedal - Track day on Saturday!!

Maybe the pads need to bed in to the surface of the disc ect

how many miles you covered with them fitted

 

[philclio172]

Re: Stripped track car / red stuff pads / soft brake pedal - Track day on Saturday!!

about 40 miles, but I would expect the pedel to still be fairly hard under braking?

 

[marinemackay2003]

Re: Stripped track car / red stuff pads / soft brake pedal - Track day on Saturday!!

I would try re bleeding and doing a fair few more miles to bed them in fully

 

[philclio172]

Re: Stripped track car / red stuff pads / soft brake pedal - Track day on Saturday!!

Yep, I will have another go tomorrow; and get a second opinon