Looking for brake pad brand recommendations

[SWAMPMODULAR]

I have Centric directional rotors and there ceramic pads on mine, I have only put about 1000 miles on them but so far they seem to be very nice and no break dust like some others I have used... HAWK.... Centric BTW is the mother company for Stop tech and powerslots....And for 375 shipped to my door im very pleased!!

 

[cobracide]

Don't the 03-04 Cobras come with SS braided lines already or am I wrong? :shrug: If not then is it worth getting front and rears? I was looking at a set made by Russell part#693270. Since you road race a lot Jimmy maybe you can shed some light on this for me.

Stock lines are rubber. Just had these installed, 693270 Russelll SS brake lines. With good pads, the car stops better. More than enough for the street.

 

[Blk03CobraVenom]

Stock lines are rubber. Just had these installed, 693270 Russelll SS brake lines. With good pads, the car stops better. More than enough for the street.

Oh really?! Great. I know of a local place that sells these sets. Guess I will be ordering them. Do you recommend any special/fancy brake fluid like motul or ATE super blue? Or is standard ok? Don't want to waste money if there's no noticeable difference. I will autocross the car sometimes and possibly dabble in a road race event this season for the first time.

 

[Crackerballer]

I will be doing my Hawk HPS pads at the same time as some new Brembo blanks as well as these:
Speed Concepts - SShoses9904 - Stainless Steel (Front) Braided Hoses with Banjo Bolts for 1999-2004 Mustang GT/V6/Cobra/Mach1

A bit cheaper than the Russells as well as MMs, and the site is owned by a vendor on here, 006, who has sold them to many people and many Cobras with great success.

 

[Blk03CobraVenom]

I will be doing my Hawk HPS pads at the same time as some new Brembo blanks as well as these:
Speed Concepts - SShoses9904 - Stainless Steel (Front) Braided Hoses with Banjo Bolts for 1999-2004 Mustang GT/V6/Cobra/Mach1

A bit cheaper than the Russells as well as MMs, and the site is owned by a vendor on here, 006, who has sold them to many people and many Cobras with great success.

Not bad, but that's only for the front. The Russell kit includes the rears as well.

So here's another question. Are the rears worth upgrading with SS braided lines? If not then I can save $ and just get the speed concepts kit.

 

[cobracide]

Oh really?! Great. I know of a local place that sells these sets. Guess I will be ordering them. Do you recommend any special/fancy brake fluid like motul or ATE super blue? Or is standard ok? Don't want to waste money if there's no noticeable difference. I will autocross the car sometimes and possibly dabble in a road race event this season for the first time.

Series 500 High-Performance DOT 3 Brake Fluid

 

[cobracide]

Not bad, but that's only for the front. The Russell kit includes the rears as well.

So here's another question. Are the rears worth upgrading with SS braided lines? If not then I can save $ and just get the speed concepts kit.

Your call but every bit helps. Most all of the braking power comes from the front brakes.

 

[Blk03CobraVenom]

Series 500 High-Performance DOT 3 Brake Fluid

Thanks!

Your call but every bit helps. Most all of the braking power comes from the front brakes.

Hmm decisions decisions!:??: I can save around $75 if I just get that front kit as opposed to the Russell kit.

 

[cobracide]

Thanks!



Hmm decisions decisions!:??: I can save around $75 if I just get that front kit as opposed to the Russell kit.

I would still do all the brake lines SS as the additional flex from the rubber rear brake hoses will still be there when you do just the front brake lines SS. The whole point of SS lines is to get rid of all that flex to get a solid braking feel.

 

[TheFleshRocket]

I just called Carbotech and spoke to Mike Jr. He's knowledgeable and easy to talk to. I ordered the Bobcat 1521 front pads for my Cobra and my wife's 300C as they sound like they will fit the bill--stopping power should be an improvement over stock and dust and noise should be minimal to non-existent. I told Mike that I'd read good things about the Carbotech pads at SVTP and he said that Carbotech gives a discount to SVTP members, so that saved me a little bit on each set. The discount isn't huge--I'd say about 7% or so doing some quick math in my head, but it was money that I saved that I didn't expect to, so it's certainly appreciated.

He said the pads will ship out today and that the ETA is two days, so I should have the pads on Friday. If they show up, I'll get them installed and have some impressions this weekend.

Something else worth mentioning. The website lists the break-in procedure as this:

4. What’s the proper way to bed pads & shoes?

Proper bedding instructions for the Bobcat 1521 Compound :

1. Brake from 60mph down to 30mph about 4-6 times.
2. Then let your brakes cool for about 2-3 minutes while driving.
3. Repeat step # 1.
4. Allow the brake pads and discs to cool down to ambient temperature (about 30 minutes or more).

NOTE: Proper bedding of pads & rotors will result in greater performance and longer pad & rotor wear.

Mike said that since the 300 and the Cobra are heavier cars and should get the brakes warmed up pretty quickly, the breakin procedure doesn't need to be done twice, a la step 3. He also said "you don't need to get the brakes smoking hot to break them in".

I asked him about resurfacing the rotors and he said that 5 minutes with a power sander and 80 grit sandpaper should be enough to prepare the rotors. I don't have a power sander--I was gonna just put some elbow grease into it, but I think I might just have the rotors cut instead.

 

[TheFleshRocket]

On motorcycles, I've never bothered to upgrade the rear brake to steel because the rear brake (just like in cars) provides only a small percentage of the overall stopping power. However, unlike cars, bikes have completely separate front and rear brakes. The shared reservoir in a car means that theoretically having rubber lines in back could have an effect on pedal feel. That said, if you read Jimmy's link above in which a Ford engineer (I think) talks about the effect of steel lines on our cars, he basically states that the overall change in pedal travel with steel lines was something like a few hundredths or thousandths of an inch. So if you assume that 80% of the braking is done by the front brakes, changing out the front lines with steel and leaving the rears as rubber would be pretty much indistinguishable from having steel all around.

My recommendation? If you are on a budget, just do the fronts. If you have the money to spend and feel inclined, then do all of them.

 

[Blk03CobraVenom]

Great! Thanks for the info.:beer: I will keep this in mind and most likely just get the fronts to save money.

 

[Jimmysidecarr]

Jimmy, I've got a couple more questions after reading your most recent post. You reference slow breakin and fast breakin. I'm assuming fast breakin is the "do x number of hard braking from x mph to x mph". Is slow breakin just using the brakes "normally" or "gently" for a few hundred miles?

Yes, you would delay the application of the heavy portion of the bed in until after the new pads have had about 100 miles of light/normal driving. This is not going to be recommended by any pad company because the outcomes are not predictable.

And what is skimming? Is that just sanding off a small amount of the pad
surface?
This would still be performed on a brake lathe, on the rotor, but overseen by yourself asking the tech to not take the standard minimum cut of I think .010, and instead take about .005 or less if possible, since we are only wanting to take off the transfered pad molecules and they will not be all that deep.

Thanks!

My answers in blue

Don't the 03-04 Cobras come with SS braided lines already or am I wrong? :shrug: If not then is it worth getting front and rears? I was looking at a set made by Russell part#693270. Since you road race a lot Jimmy maybe you can shed some light on this for me.

No. However all 99-04 Cobra Mustangs have a greatly improved OE brake hose, that can be used in Open track and Road Racing with great reliability.
I bought a complete set of Russel stainless before I knew of this. I assumed that if tracks were requiring 96-98 Cobras/Mustangs to change to stainless(teflon) brake hoses for safety, then I should do this on my 04 also.
That was before I learned about Rob Eaton(founder and creator of Vintage Venom) and his work as the SVT brake engineer, and the changes he made.
This thread on the Corral has some great info on this topic. Any time this guy posts on anything it will be worth the read. This is true about very few individuals. Are braided stainless brake hoses stiffer than stock? - Ford Mustang Forums : Corral.net Mustang Forum

I have Centric directional rotors and there ceramic pads on mine, I have only put about 1000 miles on them but so far they seem to be very nice and no break dust like some others I have used... HAWK.... Centric BTW is the mother company for Stop tech and powerslots....And for 375 shipped to my door im very pleased!!

Centric and Stop Tech are both excellent companies and make great stuff.

 

[cobracide]

Good reference Jimmy!

 

[nooner]

This is good stuff. Shouldn't this thread be a sticky?

 

[mmustangsrus]

This is good stuff. Shouldn't this thread be a sticky?

i agree !!!!

 

[PushinTheLimit]

Jimmy, not sure if you have heard the latest from Carbotech... but they are making a new race compound that is what they call the XP20's. I just ordered a set for my vette and they are in gold backing plates (good as gold comes to mind). Haven't had a chance to test them out yet, but they are claiming "last twice as long as XP12's and more bite than the XP16's."

 

[sonic cobra]

My experience is almost identical to Jimmies. I started with hawk HP and HPS. When I changed to carbotech for the track, I liked them so much I bought Bobcats for the street, Since then I've never seen the need to use any other brand. On the street the Bobcats are quiet as stock and dust is about the same or less than stock front and rear but they grab way better. Most important to me, as Jimmie stated, the dust is non corrosive, doesn't rust onto the wheels when it gets wet and washes off easily. I use the XP12/10's on the track and they work very well for me and they are very friendly on the rotors.

If I have one complaint its the half used 8's 10's and 12's I have in my tool box with the paint burned completely off them so I can't tell which are which. I have to be more careful how I store them between events

 

[sonic cobra]

As far as brake lines go, I installed MM SS lines years ago when I did the Cobra R Brembos. At that time the MM kit was made by stop-tech. While the rears are not necessary, I'll be installing MM rear braided lines this spring. After 8 years I figure its time to replace the stock rubber hoses there as well,

 

[TheFleshRocket]

Jimmy, I'm interested in your impressions of the Carbontech race pads. I did a track day at Putnam
Park on Saturday and my stock pads, which had about 1/3 of the pad material left, were done after two sessions totaling about 45 minutes. They also faded noticeably and took a couple of gentle laps before braking performance was mostly restored. (the ~130mph front straight braking to ~70mph was what really cooked them.)

I ended up buying a set of $60 "premium" semi metallic pads from the local O Reilly so I could get back on the track and those pads seemed to do at least as well as stock (though I started braking earlier on the front straight to prevent fade). My rotors were borderline for being cut (with only 22k on them) so I slapped them back on without being cut.

If/when I do another track day with the Cobra, I'll leave the O Reilly pads on but bring a new set of rotors and some Carbontech track pads and change them at the track after the existing pads give out.

I also need to change my rear pads. Did you say that you run the 1521 pads on the street and track as well?

Lastly, what brake fluid do you use/recommend? I'm pretty sure mine boiled, so its gotta go.