New pads.

I'm not sure of the benifit of grooves/drilled discs. Half of what I've read lately seems to say there's not benifit and they may actualy cause problems, it's more for looks. With them being hidden behind the Ellipsoid alloys, looks alone aren't enough to tempt me.

If I had been told my pads were so low a week earlier I probably would have looked into the Axxis pads as my folks were over in the US but they arrive back today :headbang:

I need to see if I can borrow some measuring callipers tomorrow and get a measurement of my brake discs, I may need to go for a complete change all round :|

Looking at BMW parts numbers for the brake discs, it seems they were changed a while ago (for the rears atleast), anyone know why?
 
BTW, the website http://www.ebcbrakesdirect.com/ is not actually EBC, just a reseller. The website for EBC themselves is http://www.ebcbrakesuk.com/.

Unfortunately the official EBC shop doesn't seem to have prices or ordering information, and I have to do everything via the phone :thumbsdown:
 
I think for the majority of applications smooth disks are ideal. For sure the through the wheel look is important on some styles like 108's, but not so on elipsoids.

In terms of benefits I'm sure the jury is out on that and there are hundreds of opinions from the positive to negative.

I take my lead that driled or grooved can't be all bad in that nearly all top manufacturers fit one or the other to their sports cars and even if for look they would not endanger performance
 
I did notice a couple of weeks back in Germany that when braking from say 150 mph that the brakes made a different noise to what I was used to on the 3.0 which had solid disks. Has anyone else noticed that when having drilled disks that you can get "noise" or "feeling" in the pedal that is different?
 
pvr said:
I did notice a couple of weeks back in Germany that when braking from say 150 mph that the brakes made a different noise to what I was used to on the 3.0 which had solid disks. Has anyone else noticed that when having drilled disks that you can get "noise" or "feeling" in the pedal that is different?
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I've noticed that too, but I've had it before on other cars with grooved, drilled, or slotted discs.

The original idea behind grooved discs was to help the hot gasses to escape when pushing on, the grooved & slotted ones were there to keep the disc free of pad material and to keep the disc working well in wet conditions.

There are grooved, slotted & drilled all-in-one discs now, working on the basis that the sum is greater than the parts - however you end up with less friction surface for the pad to grip to, so the braking efficiency is down somewhat and you need/want bigger discs/calipers.

I've found standard discs with fast road pads (when bedded in properly) to be quite good on track - assuming you don't try to be the last of the late brakers and don't do more than about 30 minutes on track at a time, and cool the car (not just the brakes) down properly (5 minutes/2 laps without touching the brakes - which means cruise set to 60mph at Oulton).

I have cooked standard BMW pads on both a big-brake e34 M5 (345mm floating, 4-pot set-up, on a 1750kg car) and a small-brake e34 M5 (315mm, single pot brakes on a 1700kg car) on the road during a fast jaunt, so it's not a matter of the solid vented discs & calipers being useless but rather having a pad made of blancmange which works perfectly for normal road use, and works from cold, in the wet and is cheap to make/replace.
 
Also, most track junkies will tell you to go with slotted as they don't heat up as bad and are durable as opposed to the drilled, which while good, are not as durable.

I've been on the track with plain rotors and Axxis ULT's, and like it was said, plain rotors are pretty good unless you are one who likes to wait until the very last second to get on the brakes. They will last about 30 min or so of track time before you need to be easy on them. Ever since I put in the steel braided lines I could tell almost instantly when the pedal felt soft so I had no problems with overheating.
 
I can only comment on slotted on road use. When I upped to the E46 330mm fronts (same as the facelift in size), switched to slotted and changed pads that, there is a distinctive drone under heavy braking and a different pedal feel.

The combined effect of the larger discs (most of it no doubt) replacing knackered old discs pads and slots, was that I was overbraking from speed to very familiar points and needing to lift to almost roll to where I needed to be. Took a week to get used to.

I have no doubt they woudl perform better than OEM on track largely due to the increased disc size giving more braking effort, but the grooves do seem to keep everything clean and pristine

Up there with one of the best mods I've done :thumbsup:
 
Hmm, I guess I'll have to weigh up how long I can go before needing to change, with how much I want to spend right now :roll:

You've got some weird morse code style discs don't you Jeeper?
(I think you've driven up the price of 330 calipers too :fuelfire: )
 
well ill post how i get on, as i will defiantly be changing to ebc green stuff pads and ultimax slotted discs in the next month.

found this link, it may help http://www.pembertontyres.co.uk/index.php?pageref=brakes-rotors
 
Herminator said:
Hmm, I guess I'll have to weigh up how long I can go before needing to change, with how much I want to spend right now :roll:

You've got some weird morse code style discs don't you Jeeper?
(I think you've driven up the price of 330 calipers too :fuelfire: )
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Kinda morse code...
They arrived black coated and wear off in a few hours use to leave the irregular grooves black and the disc shiny.

I'm def going to stop any posts on ideas to do as the price does go up once people start shopping. I purchased a slightly damaged clear indicator xenon for £10 once. Try that now :thumbsdown:
 
Yo Herminator, this may be of intrest but i still frequent the 1-series forum and they have some sort of deal with ebcbrakesdirect where you enter this promotional code on your order and you get free delivery and 15% off your total.
Mods if this is inappropriate then please feel free to remove the link from here or alternatively re-name it and make it a sticky as it could be useful for people wanting them.
http://www.babybmw.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3680

On an unrelated note, i passed a shiney black z4 on the A66 heading towards darlo last weds at around 7-8pm, you say your from darlo so was it you? i was in a silver coupe?
 
Thanks, that may be very handy :thumbsup:

Wasn't me on the A66, I'm usualy flying up and down the M1 between Darlo and Newcastle, not normally that late either.
 
its only an extra 5% as you get 10% at the moment on the site anyway, but the quidco will save an extra £12 which overall makes it £400 for me.
 
Are the stock pads extremely dusty or is it just me? Don't get me wrong, the breaks are great, but the amount of dust they produce is like 4 times as much as the pads on my golf GTI.
 
flashmalmö said:
Are the stock pads extremely dusty or is it just me? Don't get me wrong, the breaks are great, but the amount of dust they produce is like 4 times as much as the pads on my golf GTI.
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+1

Seems just one spirited drive can have the wheels looking like 2 weeks of use.
 
Had Greenstuff before, very low dust and easy to clean ... but pads wore down super fast!!! Maybe cause I always try to wait til last second to hit the brakes :P

Had Hawk HP+ ... SUPER DUSTY!!!!! But resistant to fade for sure!!!

If you track the car, don't forget to upgrade your brake fluid as well. Sometimes the fade may not be the pads/rotors, but the fluid instead.

Good luck!
 
I've also heard nothing but good things about Axxis.

Some say slotted rotors help to "cut" the pads to keep them "fresh". But dunno about that. X-drilled look great, but yah, not durable as the hot and cold cause cracking.
 
TO//M said:
Akebono Euro pads. They are ceramic, quiet and stop at least as well as the OEM pads. Plus they are almost dust free which is the main reason I chose them.
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Is there much difference between pads with respect to the amount of wear they inflict on the discs?
 
Robb said:
flashmalmö said:
Are the stock pads extremely dusty or is it just me? Don't get me wrong, the breaks are great, but the amount of dust they produce is like 4 times as much as the pads on my golf GTI.
Click to expand...

+1

Seems just one spirited drive can have the wheels looking like 2 weeks of use.
Click to expand...


Yes the stock pads are extremely dusty. A spirited drive will have them looking like you haven't touched them for 2 weeks. For a while I had just the front pads changed to Axis deluxe pads and after two weeks my rear rims would be charcoal grey while the front ones were still bright silver.
 
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