Performance/track day brake pad

[cheba]

I am up for an overhaul of the front brakes on my WRC. The car is a road car but since I do the occasional track day (1-2 times per year), I'm after a performance pad that won't fade away completely after a couple of laps.

I've been peeking around in different forums and there seem to be many that like the Ferodo DS2500 for track use. However since they are not road legal, they are out.

A well known road legal pad is the Brembo HP2000. This was the pad that I was using previously and I liked it, it held up better on the track than the factory Jurid pads. However while I was driving on the road recently, my brake pedal unexpectedly almost went to the floor when braking. It turned out that on one of the Brembo pads, the entire friction material had fallen off while driving, leaving only the steel backing plate in the brake caliper. I drove carefully home and then installed my old factory pads, which I thankfully didn't throw away a couple of years back when installing the Brembos. Because of this incident, the Brembo HP2000 are also out.

One alternative that I have been looking at is the EBC Yellowstuff. I have never used EBC pads and I have read mixed opinions about them, but I get the impression that those that complain about them are often people that tried them 10-15 years ago. Their dust rating is "medium", of course I'd like as little dust as possible but if there is no better alternative, I will have to live with higher dust.

Now I'm turning to this forum to ask for other alternatives regarding pads for these cars. Although there are tons of discussions of brake pads on other forums, they are often about pads for M3s and Boxsters and whatnot, which is of little relevance when discussing pads for PQ25 cars.

I will also be replacing the rotors since they are worn (still far from minimum thickness but they have a bit of a "wear lip" along the edge and the surface is a bit "striped" and uneven). At the moment I'm considering Zimmermann plain rotors. Although I have at some point considered a slotted rotor like the ATE Powerdisc (since I think a slotted disc can improve initial bite in wet weather, something that is really pad on my Polo, even with the factory pads), I am not really interested in having to replace rotors prematurely because of cracking.

[amer6R]

Dixcel pads, slotted rotors dont crack, drilled ones do. Ate great quality, also is Zimmerman and TRW they dont bend.

[iichel]

Ebc yellow stuff with some decent rotors would be go to setup

[cheba]

Dixcel pads, slotted rotors dont crack, drilled ones do. Ate great quality, also is Zimmerman and TRW they dont bend.

I must say I had never heard of Dixcel. I tried looking them up on the web and though I don't doubt they are good, it seems that not many sell them in Europe, especially for non-Japanese cars. Also it seems they are not road legal in Europe. Of course, one can use non-ECE pads and hope that no one checks (and over time, pads tend to become unidentifiable anyways thanks to heat cycling and corrosion), but then the Ferodo DS2500 seems to be much easier to get hold off.

As for cracking rotors, I know this is worst with drilled ones. However I've seen plenty of pictures of cracked slotted rotors. Though it may be that unlike drilled rotors where the holes facilitate the forming of cracks, slotted rotors crack in a seemingly random spot, in the same way as a plain, non-drilled, non-slotted rotor can crack if they are of bad quality.

I'm not ruling out going for slotted rotors, probably ATE Powerdisc in that case. On another forum I often read, plain Zimmermann Coat-Z rotors get a lot of praise. Sadly Zimmermann only have plain and drilled ones, not slotted.

Ebc yellow stuff with some decent rotors would be go to setup

Yeah, Yellowstuff seems like the top candidate for pads at the moment.

[amer6R]

Then go with Stoptech. Apex Nurburing runs them on their cars, and they never had a problem with warping, cracking and similar.

[cheba]

I found an interesting matching chart (in German): https://www.at-rs.de/bremsen_beratung-nach-mass.html

I wonder what they are basing the recommendation on. Perhaps the hardness of the pads versus the rotors?

Interstingly, when it comes to the Yellowstuff pads it seems to be quite a difficult pad to match with a rotor according to the chart. It is "not recommended" in combination with a lot of rotors, including the rotors from ATE, Brembo, Stoptech or Zimmermann (neither plain OEM replacement rotors nor performance rotors). Yellowstuff with EBC's own rotors is OK though, as well as Tarox rotors and a couple of others, more uncommon ones.

[amer6R]

Simple stuff aggressive pad ( yellowstuff) will wear the rotor faster than a standard pad.

[Dink]

i'm running yellowstuff all round on my 6c GTI with brembo HC discs upfront (brembo 4 pot calipers) and pagid discs on the rear (256mm vented) and have no problems with them at all.

[amer6R]

And why would you have any problems. If you could run stock discs for 80 000 km, with aggressive pads you would get 65-70 000 km. + Light car and big brakes, there is no big stress on them.
The issue with race pads is when they dont have heat in them they dont bite as hard

[Dink]

if was more reference to the chart (although i didn't understand the german) saying you shouldn't use brembo discs with the yellow stuff pads.

that's why yellowstuff are R90 compliant so do work from cold

[cheba]

Simple stuff aggressive pad ( yellowstuff) will wear the rotor faster than a standard pad.

Yeah, that was my thought too.

The funny thing is, on countless forums it is stated that Cosworth Streetmaster pads are made by EBC (may well be true). It is also assumed by many that they are just rebranded Yellowstuff pads, I've even seen claims that if you scrape the black paint of Cosworth pads, they are painted yellow underneath... but the chart above has a very different recommendation of rotors for the Cosworths versus the Yellowstuff.

Interestingly, Yellowstuff can be had for about 125€ while the Cosworth Streetmaster costs about 50€ from their official seller (Part-Box). Might be because they are old stock, since Cosworth pads have officially been rebranded as C-S Pro back in 2018. I'm thinking about picking up a set of the Cossies to try out. I don't really mind if they aren't as hardcore as the Yellowstuff, since in the end only a tiny minority (like <2%) of the time they will be used on the track.