FTO AUSTRALIA

Hi there,

I would like some help/suggestions please. My front pads (and rear i assume) are almost gone and im wondering if i should replace them with genuine pads or should i upgrade? What would be the cost and performance difference? Could you suggest the names of superior pads?

any help is much appreciated

p.s- i dont want a pad thats going to require an upgrade in discs too. im in Sydney

thanks again

Well i've got "Endless" all round, & they stop much better then the standard pads! But they also a bit pricey ranging from $320-$450 a pair!

which endless? you didnt get the one for the track did ya? the last pair i bought only cost about $250, i would get them just for the colour (blue)

Taken from the information section of this site:

http://www.ftoaustralia.com/modules.php ... age&pid=14

M@

Got EBC Green stuff on mine, but did this when changed to DBA slotted rotors.
Much better braking, but dunno if it is the pads or the disks. Bit of both I assume.
Old disks were gettin hot and fading, maqnaged to warp em by doin it too often.
Only about $600 to do pads and disks, i think... and the pads cost a couple of hundred on their own.
Wpould definately go for a better quality pad at bare minimum if you do any aggressive driving.

A friend of mine had those EBC Green pads on his VT Commodore. He wasn't happy with them at all as they chewed the discs badly and vibrated. This is a much heavier car though and may well be more suited to lighter cars. He has now put Harrop calipers and rotors on. Fantastic!!

The ebc are a dustless pad and so smell funny after a good run, thats the only complaint I have.
Did you mate fit them to standard disks? They are a very hard, fast street/race pad and would probably chew up standard disks that had been softened by heat.

Elmo,
Yes they were on std discs

just a quick question.. what duz the term "warped discs
actually mean? like what happens to your brakes and how can u tel..

Generally the term warped discs means that the discs, when you spin them around, wobble in and out thus giving a pulsing coming back thru the brake pedal. They would have probably got too hot at one stage in there life. You can have them remachined so that they are "true" again but attention has to be paid to the minimum thickness to be legal.

Warped discs basically means that the disc surface has become uneven, therefore the brake pads don't maintain full contact on the rotor at all times.

Physical symptoms are vibrations under braking . . . especially during heavy/emergency braking.

It's fairly dangerous to have warped discs if you're asking a lot from your braking system.

Also, you can tell if you have warped discs if you heat up your rotors after some very vigorous braking and you start seeing different coloured spots on the rotor.

It's usually caused by the rotors cooling unevenly (ie, splashing water on them when they are hot)

Only way to fix them is to machine them. However, every time you do this, you lose some thickness. Remeber that rotors are a consumable item on a car.

ah okay thanks dude (s) so then fto brakes are kinda crappy or its just coz their old yeh? i read on here somewhere that slotted brakes are better.. how much is it to upgrade your brakes and all that anywayz? hope its not too much..

I wouldn't think that they are crappy, its just they wear out after maybe 50 - 100 K. Slotted discs are very good in that the slots allow the build up of hot gases between the pad and the rotor, to escape thus giving better performance of the brakes. The slots also give you some initial "bite" when you first apply the brakes. Some good pads and slotted rotors would be the GO.
Discs are about $150 aprox each but pads can vary anywhere between $50 to $500 for fronts only.
Driving style also helps to look after your brakes!

Nah, FTO rotors are crappy if you're doing anything above daily driving (Which i think every FTO owner would be doing as it is a sports coupe =P)

They seem to warp very easily, that's what's the concensus is with most FTO owners and reviewers.

Anyways, I'm going for slotted brakes soon, I've almost at minimum thickness for my fronts.

Mad FTO said it...
Disk spins out of true and has different coloured high spot on surface. It also pulses back through the pedal. Didn't bother with machining because they fade too much anyway.
Std brakes are good for daily driving but not good for serious revheads.
Anyone with Std disks try goin to 180k braking hard to stop then repeat twice more. The third time you will overshoot by about 5m.
Now this is not casual driving but to me, any brake fade is a bad fade....
(Elmo is using this as an example, recommend doin it on private property if you must try, else don't blame me if you get caught/ kill someone)

When i got my discs replaced, i ordered some DBA golds and Bendix Metal's .. theyre not bad combo. bendix are cheap and stand up pretty well to the greenstuff i use to have, but bendix does produce a bit of dust...bendix also needs a bit of heat before they work at all...