original front calipers

[Rich10000]

hi all,
ok so from what i've heard the original front calipers are prone to fade no matter what pads you have fitted. i don't understand this as (assuming you have some decent pads) any fade would surely depend on whether you have high boiling brake fuid (dot 5.1) or some ropey old stuff thats been in there for a couple of years. why would the calipers make any difference?

just replaced my greenstuff pads with some ferodo ds2500.... big improvement. have to see how i go before considering a real expensive upgrade.

cheers

Rich

[inkitin]

ok so from what i've heard the original front calipers are prone to fade no matter what pads you have fitted.

That's news to me other than when referring to using our cars on track. Are you considering using yours on track?

I have refurbished stock brakes but have upgraded the pads to Pagid Blues on the fronts and Yellowstuffs on the rears. This still doesn't give 2013 braking performance but is good enough for me and I enjoy spirited road driving. I don't track mine and never will.

[theelanman]

i've heard the original front calipers are prone to fade no matter what pads you have fitted.

mmmm.....I'm afraid that fade is due to your pad material not the caliper or brake fluid......
the fluid is non compressible hence why its brake fluid......if you boil your fluid you will have no brakes.....

cheap pads give you a lot of fade....

specialist pads work in a small range/window.....such as if you're on track you'll need a high temp pad that works at high temp.....no good if you're stepping on the brakes tootling round town at 30mph

you will need to assess what you want you car/brakes to do.....if its a bit of everything then the ds2500 is spot on as it gives you very much the middle rage but with a big window of use....

these too will feel odd if, from cold or very hot, theyre asked to decelerate you from say 100mph to 0 mph PDQ
however if theyre 'warm' then they'll do it with ease......

just a thought

[theelanman]

TBH....(and bias)
having tested a lot of pads I don't like fitting anything other than ferodo stuff....
the others I have found are poor materials, poor quality manufacture, inconsistent functionality and poor performance.

but that's just my view

[rip]

Hi Rich,

It is not all about the fluid.
As Elanman mentioned, brakes work at their best within a temperature range. This is why F1 drivers have to warm their brakes during a parade lap.
In a road car, you can't afford the luxury of doing a parade lap before some idiot unexpectedly pulls out in front of you at a junction. Road brakes are therefore designed to work at lower temperatures. The downside of this is that their performance fades at the upper temperature end, but at a lower temperature than racing brakes.

Getting hot is not a side-effect of brakes, it is their function. You cannot just get rid of energy, in this case kinetic (movement) energy: you convert it into something else. The easiest thing to convert it to is heat. You then have to get rid of that heat by conducting it away into the surrounding air.

The stock Elan brakes don't dissipate heat as well as some other designs. If you use them heavily (eg. on track, or to control speed down a long, steep mountain) then they cannot dissipate heat quickly enough so the temperature rises sufficiently to cause their performance to drop off.

Alternative designs (HiSpec, AP, Vectra) dissipate heat more effectively & this keeps the brakes cooler.

[inkitin]

cheap pads give you a lot of fade....

The front pads that were on mine when I bought it were downright dangerous.

[Rich10000]

thanks for all the answers. the points about fade from stock calipers were picked up from this forum.... i guess the point about heat dissipation could be key. i've seen some plates to stick between calipers and pads that are meant to help ...... don't know if anyone has tried them.
don't think its too much of a problem with the ferodo pads.... didn't have much confidence in the greenstuff until they were well hot.... ie you could smell them!

cheers all

Rich

[rip]

EBC have used several different compounds of Greenstuff. Last I heard was that their latest work nicely from cold.
AFAIK, they never marked up each different compound, just silently changed it. Who is to say that you won't get old stock of v4 instead of the latest v7? It doesn't fill me with much confidence.

[andy b]

I run a lotus 30 on the hills and we have done the festival of speed twice and i run padgid the temp range is 25deg to 700 deg there are expensive but i figure cheeper than a shunt. My mate and i both have elans and he had EBC disc and pads. he was complaining about his brakes When cold so i told him to go to the motor factors and get some STD pads which he did now he does not complain about his brakes. I will say normal road use only. You may find EBC were taken over some time ago so things may have changed in that company.Whilst we are on the subject any one know where to get a rebuild kit for STD turbo front calipers am i correct in thinking they are 2litre astra. ANDY B