Lee, Awesome information! I'm pretty competent that the Brembo/ACT combination should work out well and exceed stock specifications, which was my original goal. What blows my mind is the cost for the parts- overall, a typical "total" brake job runs what, $700? So I ordered a set of Brembo's and ACT pads for both our vehicles and the cost ran like $325 shipped (that also included a set of shoes for the rears on the van). Love those guys at Noble Foreign (www.nobleforeign.com).
I usually do a complete brake fluid flush at the same time (which means running 1-2 full quarts of brake fluid through the whole system). I *once* tried to get a local shop to do a brake fluid flush and they hoisted the car up, went to each bleeder, opened just enough for a few drips to squirt, then called it a day. What they didn't do was the routine involving three brake pedal pumps & hold, open the bleeder for 1/2 second, close it, then repeat (that technique really works great!). -George -----Original Message----- From: Lee & Tracy Grimes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2002 9:57 AM To: George Freeman; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Ceramic brake pads I wouldn' worry about the heat hurting your good Brembo rotors becasue you will probably never get your brakes that real hot. The drilling in rotors and slotting as well is not as much for cooling as it is an opportunity of escape for boundary layer gasses and particles between the turning rotor and pad. If there is no escape opportunity, then it can build up like a pressurized cushion between the surfaces and then there is less actual pad material on the face. So long as you rotors on the font are the vented kind (two wear surfaces seperated by fins) like they all should be then you should be oky. The two primary situations with real performance pads are heat range and how aggressive the compund is. I don't know what ACTs ceramic pad is but high performance pads have an optimum performance heat range where they were made to operate, below or above that range then the performance will fade off. Most street pads are made to operate at a lower sustained tempand give best bite when they are relatively cool (general street driving, first hit it the morning, etc). The higher the working temp, the less good they are when cold. My step dad always talks about his favorite pads from the '60s on his old cars that he had to drag the brakes in the morning down the 1/4 driveway to have heat enough to stop the car at the road when he got there. No heat, no stop. Today's pads are much better and have a wider heat range. The primary thing is that you generally wouldn't want to use a real aggressive race pad (e.g. Hawk Blues) on the street becasue they'd rarely see their design temp nor would you run a good street pad seriously on track (e.g. MetalMasters) becasue they would be over optimum temp range. You might be able to get by with it for a little bit but real use and they'd be gone. The other issue is paed compound. Generally pads have two primary ways to bite. The softer pad material ones will get bite from sacrificing their own material usually at a lower to mid heat range when wearing on the rotor and this typically will be rather dusty as the compund wears away but it will probably also be rather rotor friendly and not wear the rotors too much so you get longer rotor life. The other is an aggressively hard compound that often work in a higher heat range (ceramics were at least traditionally like this) where you'll get better pad wear but their be known as rotor killers and wear the rotor more rapidly. When I used to race the ITA car, I used aggressive, high heat Hawk Blues that were typically rotor eaters and that was at the time the best race set-up. The pads cost $110 per set and they were good for 2-3 weekends and the rotors had to be monitored and might get only 3-4 weekends. I just bought decent but not expensive rotors and just expected that they were both consumables like gas (8-10 mpg) and tires (fronts were 2-3 weekends and rears for a season). By contrast, on the rear you used stock drums and street performance soft brake shoes would last a season or maybe two because they never had real heat or much bite. Once the price of the pad gets high, it might actually get sheaper to feed the car rotors than to feed it pads. Use your ACT and Brembo combination and see how it does. See if you can tell when the pads get their best and worst bite (cold, warm, hot) and keep an eye on the rotors for deep grooving and back cutting in from the outer lip. If they sell these for the street, you'll probably be fine for a good while. So long as they are not high heat range parts that need temps that you car will not attain in most driving, you be fine. That is my experience after spending several grand on pads and rotors over the years. Lee ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Freeman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "CRX Mailing List (E-mail)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 9:25 PM Subject: CRX: Ceramic brake pads > Okay gurus, > > > I ordered a set of ACT ceramic front pads and a new set of Brembo rotors > (from www.nobleforeign.com - great prices!). I heard a rumor about the > ceramic pads causing too much heat and should only be used with drilled > rotors. What's the scoop? Will the Brembo's hold up under my *moderate* > braking? > > > > George > '89 DX-Hybrid-D16Z6, 123k miles > "Seats, Suspension, Engine, MSD, next=dyno" > >
