Different pads front and rear?

[DILYSI Dave]

On my Civic, I ran HP+ pads up front, with OEM rear brake shoes (coupled with finned aluminum drums...) This got me nice stopping power without the rear trying to lock up prematurely when it was unloaded. Of course, that was on a car that had a right rear corner that only weighed ~300# BEFORE the weight shifted off of it, so the rear tires could only do so much.

Now, building the mustang, I'm wondering if that wisdom carries over at all. I've already got some HP+ pads for up front, but nothing for the rear yet. Do I go matched set, a different performance rear pad, OE rear, shitty autozone rear, or what.

Any wisdom?

EDIT - For those that don't recall, autox car, 315 Hoosier A6's, car weight of ~2900#. Stock brake hardware.

 

[csamsh]

On my Civic, I ran HP+ pads up front, with OEM rear brake shoes (coupled with finned aluminum drums...) This got me nice stopping power without the rear trying to lock up prematurely when it was unloaded. Of course, that was on a car that had a right rear corner that only weighed ~300# BEFORE the weight shifted off of it, so the rear tires could only do so much.

Now, building the mustang, I'm wondering if that wisdom carries over at all. I've already got some HP+ pads for up front, but nothing for the rear yet. Do I go matched set, a different performance rear pad, OE rear, shitty autozone rear, or what.

Any wisdom?

EDIT - For those that don't recall, autox car, 315 Hoosier A6's, car weight of ~2900#. Stock brake hardware.

Ditch it all and get some Carbotech AX6's?

 

[DILYSI Dave]

I've been really pleased with the HP+ in the past. What does the Carbotech do that the Hawk does not. Also, the question still remains if it is worth going with different compounds to affect brake bias.

 

[csamsh]

AX6's need no warmup, and you can swap compounds around on the same pads without changing rotors, and they last forever.

If you already have the HP+'s though, I say use them up.

I don't think we need to mess with different compounds front to rear for autox. Lots of people run a more aggressive pad up front for track purposes though.

 

[Sam Strano]

ABS? I think HP+ is not the right pad, but if you stick with them, you better put something better on the back. The rears do some work on these cars, of course again.. ABS? Because I want to know if your EBD will be active or if you will be running a manual prop. valve.

 

[Roadracer350]

If the car is ABS and he runs the A6s or HP+ what will it mess with?

 

[DILYSI Dave]

The plan is to keep ABS.

Sam - What pad do you prefer? Why?

 

[jayel579]

Match your pads front to rear!!!

I do not understand where guys are recommending a more aggressive pad in the front comes from. Every mustang guy I have met at the track that complains about brake bias issues says this is what I recommended or found on the inter-webz. As soon as I ask what pads they are running, they always have different pads front axle to rear axle. I run Hawk DTC-60s with OE calipers, front and rear and have never had a problem. They are very nice on rotors too compared to many other pads particularly Hawk HT-10s.

 

[Rehagen Racing]

just an FYI - The FR500S, FR500C, Boss 302S, and Boss 302R all have different front to rear pads.

The fronts all use the PFC 01, and the rears all use the PFC 97. This is how we start out most of our cars as well. It does not at all mess with ABS.

We have excellent success with PFC pads and continue to use and recommend them today. There are other good pads out there (and mentioned above), but this is what we prefer for the S197 Mustang.

 

[TheViking]

just an FYI - The FR500S, FR500C, Boss 302S, and Boss 302R all have different front to rear pads.

The fronts all use the PFC 01, and the rears all use the PFC 97. This is how we start out most of our cars as well. It does not at all mess with ABS.

We have excellent success with PFC pads and continue to use and recommend them today. There are other good pads out there (and mentioned above), but this is what we prefer for the S197 Mustang.

Curious, if I am running PFC 08's up front for HPDE's would you also recommend 97's in the rear?

 

[Rehagen Racing]

When running the 08 (which we don't often) we use either the 01 or 97 in the rear.

It's no secret that the S197 Mustang is very front brake heavy. Getting too aggressive in the rear is easy to do.

 

[Gray Ghost GT]

I've used Carbotech XP12/XP10 to provide brake bias on my Corvette and Mustang, but I'm running Wilwood 6 piston/4 piston combo.

Also used the Hawk DTC-70/DTC-60 to achieve similar results to ensure the rear didn't get too aggressive vs. a "squared" pad setup.

Seems to work well for me when entering curves at high speed, e.g., type 1 turns.. balanced and predictable braking lap after lap...

 

[modernbeat]

...I do not understand where guys are recommending a more aggressive pad in the front comes from. Every mustang guy I have met at the track that complains about brake bias issues says this is what I recommended or found on the inter-webz. As soon as I ask what pads they are running, they always have different pads front axle to rear axle. I run Hawk DTC-60s with OE calipers, front and rear and have never had a problem. They are very nice on rotors too compared to many other pads particularly Hawk HT-10s.

I recommend different pads front and rear because I've taken brake temps on cars and want both the front and rear to come into their range at the same time. The fronts and rears build different amounts of heat, and often stabilize at different temps. Because of that, I put different pads front and rear.

But, that is on the track where braking is mainly used to slow down the car for a corner.

In autocross braking is often used to steer (rotate) the car and different pads are used in classes where normal brake bias changes are not allowed, so we resort to pad differences to get it done.

Dave, when I'm looking for big bias on an autocross car I usually use something like an AX6 on the grippy end and a ceramic on the neutered end. I'm a fan of Performance Friction and Pagid pads, but I understand that most people are scared by the costs. The Carbotech pads are a nice compromise between "best possible" pad and cost.

 

[2008 V6]

Ditch it all and get some Carbotech AX6's?

Very good street pad - high dust - will last 3/4 to 1 lap on most tracks.
I use them on the rear of my mustang - willwood 14" 6pistons up front with BP10s for steet too.

Tack day fun - rear XP8 - front BP-20 both do not last long but are very rotor frendly
Track day serious Rear XP10 front BP30 - much haarder on rotors but don't have to change as often.

 

[JAJ]

I'm with Jason M on the Pagid/PFC thing - give me pads I trust!

You have to balance your brakes based on feel or temperatures or both. For instance, I put a set of Stoptech 14" 6-piston brakes on the front of my 2014 GT500 so I could run 18" SVT rims at the track. I tried a couple of pad combo's and while the car handled ok, I found that Pagid RS29's on the front and PFC97's at the back are pretty much the sweet spot. Matching rotor temps and clean trail-braking performance.

In my view, after doing track days for a decade, you just have to be prepared to spend the time and money to get the car where you want it so you can forget about how it's working mechanically and just focus on driving it.

 

[Sam Strano]

The plan is to keep ABS.

Sam - What pad do you prefer? Why?

I prefer Ferodo DS2500 because they are very linear and strong when you stand on them, but not on/off when you just brush them. They work stone cold, in fact I drove them all last winter on my FR-S. I had them on the 5.0 in front too.... and they finally came out with rears for the S197 too which weren't around when I had my 5.0. Anyway the sum total of the reasons I prefer those pads are:

Really good bite at all temps from 0 to 1000 degrees.

Temp vs Torque curve is very flat and linear they don't get more grabby as they heat up.

Application torque is very linear. Lots of power when you stand on them (not the most powerful pad but around what an HP+ is), but when you roll off the power drops which makes them nice to drive when trail braking, etc.

And because they aren't sticky they don't jack with the ABS.

HP+ are very "sticky" pads, to the point that the ABS can cycle but the pads just don't release which causes funky things. I tried them most recently on my Z06, and it was locking a rear wheel. No ABS Fault, no issues on OEM or HPS pads. The ABS would cycle, I could feel it but the rear wheels wouldn't cleanly modulate and as a result I often found myself playing Nicky Hayden and backing the car into corners. Which looks cool, but isn't fast.

 

[DILYSI Dave]

Hmm - the sticky thing makes sense. I actually liked that on the Civic because if anything I'm too timid on the brakes, so that hard initial bite worked well with my particular quirk, but that was not an ABS car. Having had ice mode play havoc with me in Jason's car, I'm on board with anything that will give the ABS it's best fighting chance.

 

[Lgs SGT]

I prefer Ferodo DS2500 because they are very linear and strong when you stand on them, but not on/off when you just brush them. They work stone cold, in fact I drove them all last winter on my FR-S. I had them on the 5.0 in front too.... and they finally came out with rears for the S197 too which weren't around when I had my 5.0. Anyway the sum total of the reasons I prefer those pads are:

Really good bite at all temps from 0 to 1000 degrees.

Temp vs Torque curve is very flat and linear they don't get more grabby as they heat up.

Application torque is very linear. Lots of power when you stand on them (not the most powerful pad but around what an HP+ is), but when you roll off the power drops which makes them nice to drive when trail braking, etc.

And because they aren't sticky they don't jack with the ABS.

HP+ are very "sticky" pads, to the point that the ABS can cycle but the pads just don't release which causes funky things. I tried them most recently on my Z06, and it was locking a rear wheel. No ABS Fault, no issues on OEM or HPS pads. The ABS would cycle, I could feel it but the rear wheels wouldn't cleanly modulate and as a result I often found myself playing Nicky Hayden and backing the car into corners. Which looks cool, but isn't fast.

I'm just a novice but based on Sam's advice a couple of years back, I'm running the Ferodo DS2500 up front and the HPS in the rear with zero issues. As he says, they are super consistent cold or hot always the same braking results.

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Ferodo is a good pad, as are PFC, Pagid and a few others. Carbotech offers a lot of choices and I like their price/performance ratio the best.

I went through a lot of Hawk and Porterfield pads on our Mustangs before we got around to trying Carbotech. They have a lot of pad compounds to choose from. We've used the AX6 (great for autocross) and the various XP compounds from XP8 to XP20.


Braking this 3800 pound car from 155+ mph at Miller had just a tick of orange glow up front.

We tend to run one or two compounds harder up front on a typical 14" front/11.5" rear disc Mustang. We will start folks doing track events on an XP10/XP8 set-up and move all the way to an XP20/XP16 when the speeds, grip levels and weight demands it.

I am not a fan of Hawk pads. I've used too many sets over the years, with HPS, HP+ and all of the DTC compounds. They either melt or crumble and fall apart when you get abuse them on track. For an autocross car this shouldn't be an issue, but they wear too fast and crumble when they get hot. Yet if you are a late braker, it can still bite you in a parking lot...



Another issue we had with the Hawks was when we were at a Pro Solo in 2011. A set of HP+ pads were used all around but the car kept going into "ice mode" under heavy braking, with both me and Costas driving. It sounds a lot like what Sam described - the ABS was cycling but the pads were sticking? All I know is the brakes weren't working, and I blew a lot of corners when ice mode hit. As we later saw, the fronts were shooting sparks like mad. The whole event was blown, thanks to these crappy pads.

My advice for brake pads is always the same: you get what you pay for. The cheaper the pad, the more "filler material" it has, and the less braking it will do over its life + the cheaper pads will likely fall apart before the pads material is worn out.

Cheers,

 

[SoundGuyDave]

Terry,

Interesting! I, like you, have used several different brake pad compounds searching for that "magic bullet" compound mix... While I haven't strayed beyond the Carbotech and Hawk lines, my experiences were completely different than what you found. Bottom line for me was that the Hawk DTC series was the "best bang for the buck" overall, although I did prefer the bite and release characteristics of the Carbotech XP series by a small margin. My big problem with the XP was that it just wore far too quickly. My experiences showed that the XP was VERY "rotor-friendly," but it seemed that they were engineered to sacrifice the pad material in favor of low rotor wear. The Hawk DTC series, though, lasted considerably longer, although with an increase in both rotor wear and metal content in the brake dust. In the end, I wound up doing a cost analysis and it basically boiled down to lower season-long expense to replace the rotors a bit more frequently and the pads less frequently.

Also, unlike you, I found the best brake balance with split compounds (XP12/10 or DTC-60/HT-10) with the stock 13" PBR setup, and square compounds (DTC-60) with the 14" Brembo setup. I'm wondering if some of the differences in our experiences are in braking or driving style as well as chassis weight. I will admit, I don't make anywhere NEAR the power levels you do (313rwhp), although I do carry similar weights (started at 3719, as low as 3250, currently 3308, all with driver and fuel). Also, I've never experienced "ice mode" in my 2006. Given the difference between the PCMs in the 4.6 and 5.0 cars, I'm wondering if there's some interaction in the DSC programming that accounts for that.

As for having the Hawks come apart, I've only seen that once, and not on my car. Last September, I put fresh DTC-60 pads on the car front and rear, and then: Hit a random track day for shakedown, four 20-minute sessions. Ran an Enduro (5hrs total track time, 30 minute practics, 4.5 hours race-time), 20 minute practice and 10 minute qual sessions the following day, plus a 40-minute and 20-minute sprint race plus two TT sessions. On Sunday ran a 20-minute practice, a 20-minute sprint, and a 10-minute TT session, before the pads finally wore enough to allow excess heat transfer, boiling the fluid in the calipers. Essentially, that equates to 540 minutes of "advanced level" driving, call it 9 hours total time on the set.

Now, I will grant that the Enduro pacing wasn't as hard on the brakes as the sprint stuff was, but we (3-driver team) were still driving it pretty hard, and essentially non-stop for literally HOURS on end. Also, while we didn't do temps for that race, I have seen numbers as high as 1200*F (~650*C) pulling into pit lane after repeated hard laps, so I don't think it's a case of "pussy footing" around on the whoa pedal. Also, FWIW, in the Enduro there were two in-class cars that did consistently out-brake me, but both retired prior to the end of the race, one with a cracked caliper...

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the DTC-60. I could wish for a bit more initial bite, and as you have observed, the release isn't 100% linear through the temp range, but they handle the heat and, last long enough to do some serious racing. The only time that I feel like I'm running too much rear pad is when trail-braking with a very low fuel load, the tail gets a tick unstable. I've had a couple of people recommend the PF-01 to try. Do you have any thoughts on that compound, how the behaviour compares to the Hawk or Carbotech lines?