Do Ceramic brake pads really work and what do they do exactly ?

That’s a question a lot of people have and the answer is in fact its just a buzz word for an organic brake pad made with less metallic fibers and perhaps man made fibers such as Dupont Kevlar or Twaron. A very good pad that contains some Ceramic particles is the EBC Redstuff which as a low metallic also has the benefit of low dust.

However Ceramic brake pads are generally a term for a group of pads known as NAO or non asbestos organic pads and EBC Brakes was of course the pioneer of this technology back from its early roots 70 years ago when it was part of the BBA group and manufactured products known as Top Dog in the UK.

The organic pads made by reputable suppliers may contain small amounts of Ceramic particles (not fibers) in a granular form but this does nothing more as an additive than the other naturally mined ores that are common in brake pads such as vermiculite or barites crystals that help build a decent brake pad.

Aramid fibers such as Kevlar and Twaron came about when the world changed away from asbestos. The fork in the road gave rise to two distinct choices, organic pads or semi metallic pads. Of course the price minded people went down the semi metallic fork as the steel fibers used cost 10 times less than Kevlar although Kevlar fibers which are 64 times as strong as steel when used in a matrix form and can be used down to as low as 4% content by volume allow a huge number of new interesting ingredients to be blended into brakes.

Brakes are the most safety critical part of any moving vehicle and in the case of cars and motorcycles quite often when brakes are used repetitively and aggressively, standard is just not good enough. EBC Brakes makes brakes specifically for aggressive drivers. The sport street use or track-day and race use of motor vehicles and motorcycles has led to a need for higher performance brakes such as EBC Sport Rotors and EBC Brakes.

So what does high performance mean and how do we measure this performance ? Brake pads which are made of blends of  chemical resins and other ingredients are made to a budget by car builders and are one of the first thing to be changed on a vehicles brakes when users are involved in sport or race use. A high performance brake pad will be one which has good friction level and pedal feel on first application and can hold this level of performance throughout the whole braking cycles. Brakes must not “Fade” or fail under the heat of braking for performance use. Not only must high performance brakes work effectively under heat and load they must have good durability. Additives such as copper are blended into pads used on high performance brake systems to enhance durability.

Brake fluids are also tested in high performance brakes and because most fluids are hygroscopic meaning they absorb moisture, a higher specification fluid is needed and even that will need regular changing and flushing to keep brakes up to par with the target usage.

Finally, the brake rotors themselves must be of a decent quality G3000 Grey iron or better and if possible made from virgin alloy ingot rather than reprocessed irons which are common in 99% of aftermarket brakes. Years ago rotor castings used for automobile brakes were annealed or atmosphere aged to allow the castings to settle after being made. No longer does this happen due to cost restraints on brakes particularly by car builders and so the duty of care falls upon the brake pad to work effectively but not to cause damage to the brake rotor by overheat.

By virtue of the physics involved, brakes work by exchanging kinetic energy or momentum into one of three other energy forms, these being heat light or sound. There are no others. Therefore as it is desirous not to have immense noise from brakes and light would only be obtained by massive over heating of the brake rotor, heat is the method by which the energy exchange in brakes occurs.

This means that brakes can glow orange in high performance use, pads can overheat and fade and rotors could even develop cracks if the brake system is not designed correctly.

In automobile applications cooling of the components within the brakes is usually aided by the ducting of cool air which involves scoops in the front vehicles body work directing cool air as the car is driven onto the brake components. This can reduce overheating of the brakes by 30-40% and prevent caliper seal damage as well as rotor over heat and pad fade.

For help in finding the right High Performance brakes for your vehicle visit www.shopebcbrakes.com

Your guide to buying correct brake fluid or changing fluid for your car and saving yourself a huge repair bill. We recommend using EBC Brake Fluid.

Vehicle brakes use hydraulic brake systems that use brake fluid to transfer the pressure of the braking action from the drivers pedal or lever to the master cylinder and then on to the caliper and brake pads. Sounds simple right?

In fact it is far from that, vehicle brake hydraulics systems are a carefully balanced and precision system that needs respect for cleanliness when servicing and most important the right type of brake fluid to be used.

There are two basic groups of brake fluid, Glycol fluids and silicone fluids (there are also one or two cars in France using mineral fluids but we leave that aside for the purpose of this article).

Glycol fluids are the most common and used in 99.9% of motor vehicles in various grades. They are named by their DOT (Department of Transport coding) either DOT 3,4 or 5. The higher the letter the higher the brake fluid quality.

Most cars run happily on DOT 3 brake fluid which is a basic fluid that has a low water content. Yes shocked you may be but water is in all Glycol fluids and the scary part is that being hygroscopic the fluids actually ingest water over years of exposure to the elements and water content over 10 years can be as high as 14%. Think about what that does for corrosion inside your brake system and how that reduces the effectiveness of your brakes and promotes brake fade as the water vaporize in extreme brake use when the caliper gets hot.

DOT 4 is basically the same fluid with more water refined out from the brake fluid. DOT 4 will give you a slightly firmer pedal but note, if you leave a can of DOT 4 fluid standing once the seal is broken within a few weeks it will be DOT 3 or worse. For this reason always use brake fluid from a sealed container and buy it in small bottles NOT gallon drums. Some Companies like EBC Brakes refuse to sell brake fluid in anything more than a top up bottle and quite rightly so . As a performance brake supplier selling brake fluid in gallons opens up a whole barrel of worms.

Within the Glycol fluid range some manufacturers have used their own coding because some bright spark years ago started applying the DOT5 code to glycol fluids when the world regard DOT 5 as being a Silicone fluid. One such blend of highly refined brake fluid known as BF307 is worth a look and is a highly refined glycol for sports cars and race use and has a 307 degree boiling point.

Boiling point is important for performance driving, the higher the boiling point the better but it is also worth noting that if any brake caliper itself gets above 250 degrees in temperature you have a problem, not even a Formula one car uses heat paint indicators above 250 degrees C.

Glycol fluids draw water in through the hoses in your vehicle which you will be amazed to hear are also to a tiny degree porous. That’s why it is wise for drivers to flush and replace brake fluid every 5-6 years to refresh those tired old brakes.

There are several other things to note about Glycol brake fluids. First they are toxic so never drink or ingest them and secondly they are very caustic so when working with Glycol brake fluids keep them fluid and contaminated rags or your fingers away from vehicle paintwork. Wash off any spills quickly with soapy water.

Silicone Brake Fluids are another story, they are not toxic (although it is never good sense to drink any such fluids) and not caustic. For this reason some classic car and motorcycle builders use silicon fluids to avoid paintwork and plastic damage. Harley Davidson for example use silicone fluids in some bikes.

Always check the spec of brake fluid on your vehicle master cylinder or in the manufacturers handbook.

Mixing glycol and silicone fluids is definitely not advised, it causes an interface and the pressure transfer does not happen effectively and certain caliper and cylinder hydraulic seals which may be synthetic rubber are designed for one type of fluid and are destroyed by the other.

Once you have flushed and changed your brake fluid you will need to bleed the brakes.

EBC Brakes are 100% made in the UK and the new EBC Yellowstuff light truck pads deliver awesome stropping power and heat fade resistance.

The EBC  Rotors GD series wide aperture slotted rotors also do a great job of hauling down trucks and one recent write up on these products is shown below

Brakes are the most important part of any vehicle.

You can do all the suspension, tire, wheel and engine upgrades to make your  pickup more efficient at whatever tasks you call upon it to perform.

But without good brakes those improvement are all for nothing.
Add a trailer into the mix and your pickup’s braking performance advances to an even higher degree on necessity, especially when  insurance and liability are at stake.

Maintenance costs are also affected.  30,000-miles-a-year average is almost twice what the typical vehicle owner logs.
This means the front brake pads on the typical contractor’s pickup are replaced at least once a year (60 percent of braking is done by the front brakes) if not more often.
Multiply those annual costs by 6- to 8 times during the life of the vehicle, and the brake repairs/maintenance adds up.
Improved vehicle safety and a reduction in brake maintenance costs can be reduced over the long-term by upgrading to more efficient, higher-performance disc brake pads and rotors.
Such upgrades are all about controlling heat build-up, which, in turn, reduces brake fade and brake component wear.

About Brake Fade
If you have ever done any trailer towing in steep mountains or in other situations where engine braking isn’t enough to keep the tow vehicle/trailer at a comfortable speed, you know what brake fade feels like.
That soft brake pedal slowly heading to the floor, the smell of hot brakes, and the slowly increasing vehicle speed.

Stock Ford F-250 front brake assembly has vented rotors.
It’s the same feel as you get trying to bring a heavily laden pickup with over-sized tires to a stop in an emergency situation.The brakes and ABS system are trying their best to comply with what your mind and foot are demanding, but the stop is slow in coming. The reason for brake “fade” is so much friction is being generated between the rotor and pad that the heat causes the resin in the pad’s friction material to vaporize. As vaporizing occurs, gas builds up between the face of the brake pad and the rotor. This layer of gas acts as a cushion, and braking resistance is compromised (think tires hydroplaning on water as they lose contact with the pavement).
Brake fade on newer pickups isn’t so much about the vaporizing of the pads against the rotor, it’s boiling the brake fluid, which results in much the same result.With newer brake pad compounds, the pads transfer heat into the calipers once the rotors are too hot, and the brake fluid starts to boil forming bubbles in it, explains Chris Longhurst, author of the Brake Bible.Because air is compressible (brake fluid isn’t) when you step on the brakes, the air bubbles compress instead of the fluid transferring the motion to the brake calipers, says Longhurst.

Voila! Modern brake fade.

The solution to controlling such massive amounts of heat during braking are pads made from higher quality materials, and rotors that feature some combination of holes, grooves, and dimples to help dissipate heat faster and give the vaporized gas someplace to exit.

While grooving the surface may reduce the specific heat capacity of the rotor, its effect is negligible in the grand scheme of things,

says Longhurst.

EBC Sport disc brakes and Yellowstuff pads address contractor stopping needs in full-size pickups.

However, under heavy braking, once everything is hot and the resin is vaporizing, the grooves give the gas somewhere to go, so the pad can continue to contact the rotor, allowing you to stop.

EBC Disc Brake Upgrade
Our 2011 F-250 Super Duty Crew Cab 4×4 has a very good factory disc-brake setup at all four corners.
But as we added more weight to the truck in the form of accessories and equipment, and a much higher rolling mass with the taller, heavier tires and wider wheels, we thought it time to step up to a higher performance rotor/pad combination.
So we turned to EBC, a British company renown for their performance brakes world-wide.
EBC has added heavy-duty pickup applications to their popular Sport Rotors called the GD-Series.
The GD-Series rotors are dimple-drilled so they provide pad degassing without “Through Drilling,” which has been shown to promote rotor cracks.The Sport Rotors’ special slots between the faces draw cool air under the brake pad and rotor interface and help cool the temperatures of the pad contact which can shoot up to well over 1000 degrees at the very heart of the brake pad during heavy braking.

Slots and dimples in EBC rotor face and special vents between faces all contribute to heat dispersion for better braking under heavy use.These “full sweep” slots on the EBC Sport Brake rotor also help remove dirt dust debris and water from the braking area.The biggest benefit is because of their design, the rotors don’t warp, maintaining a flat and parallel pad surface throughout the lifetime of the brake pad set.

Adding Yellowstuff
The other upgrade we made is replacing the factory pads with EBC Yellowstuff.
EBC Yellowstuff pads are made from an aramid fiber compound with a very high heat range, and they work well when the brakes are cold and very well when hot. The EBC Yellowstuff gives you as much bite as you can get from a stock system and in most cases will give a noticeable brake improvement while towing or hauling heavy loads,says James Hallett, Vice President of EBC Brakes USA Inc.

The GD7319 #GD-Series rotors with Yellowstuff pads are the best combination for pickup owners who do a lot of towing and off-pavement driving,

Hallett says.

If you are a construction worker or contractor who drives a heavy-duty pickup, those conditions should sound quite familiar.

Our Test Results
When we did the first track tests with our F-250 Crew Cab diesel, the 60mph-0 distance on Holiday Raceway’s 1/8th mile asphalt strip was 151 feet, with the subsequent back-to-back braking distance stretching to 168 feet.
With the truck sitting atop 35-inch Mickey Thompson MTZ mud tires, four-inch suspension lift, toolboxes, refuel tank and a number of other upgrades, the base stopping distance extended out to 196 feet.

Ford F-250 front disc brake assembly fitted with EBC Sport rotors and Yellowstuff pads.
The second pass, made without letting the brakes cool down except for the drive back to the starting line, ended at 210 and a lot of soft pedal underfoot. With the EBC pads and rotors, the first pass came in at 171 feet and the hot pass 177.
Brake pedal feel on the second pass was very similar to the first braking run.
Our initial stock-verses-aftermarket comparison shows the EBC Sport rotors and Yellowstuff pads definitely improved our big Ford’s stopping power both cold and hot. We have also seen slightly firmer brake pedal and noticeably improved around-town braking performance during both wet and dry conditions. The truck also tends to stop with a more level attitude than it did with the stock brakes.
Here’s how Truck Supply & Outfitter’s Daniel Parker went about upgrading the front and rear brakes on our 2011 Ford F-250 Crew Cab 4×4 diesel, Project Super Crew….

Article available at http://www.propickupmag.com/disc-brake-upgrade

EBC Brakes High Performance LOWEST DUST rating pads for Prestige imports and faster street driving.

There are two reasons our customers love EBC Redstuff, First because they are the lowest dust pad we have encountered by reducing dust by 60-90%. Plus the minimal dust you see is very easily removed with a simple sponge wash as it contains no steel fiber particles compared to other pads. Second they brake as good as Original pads or better and just get better as they heat up.

This material is a Kevlar® fiber based brake compound enhanced with ceramic particles. If you have previously tried EBC Redstuff (pre-ceramic compound) this material is light years ahead. It lasts longer, it brakes better and is quieter.

Being a hard wearing pad, bed-in times can be as long as 1000 miles and drivers must be patient until the pad takes up the shape of their disc (brake rotor). This is a truly impressive fast road pad for repeated heavy braking. It emits far less dust than semi-metallic pads and has been proven to stop a passenger car/sedan/sport compact/hot hatch 13 meters quicker than OEM pads from 100mph/160kph. Features EBC Brake-In surface coating which conditions rotor surface and accelerates pad bed-in. Nominal friction coefficient 0.5 with approx. 50% dust reduction.

EBC Ultimax is a high friction pad designed for general replacement use on cars, vans and SUV’s (4x4s). Using shimmed, chamfered and slotted technology and incorporating EBC’s unique brake in coating for super quick pad bed-in, (in Europe only certain numbers are shimmed, in USA ALL EBC Ultimax range are shimmed).

EBC Brakes black coded brake pads are a high friction premium quality friction material approved to ECE R90 brake safety regulations and as such are an exact equivalent to original equipment pads fitted to your vehicle from the factory – but for far less money.

Don’t let the lower price point cloud your view of this superb quality product, these pads will stop your vehicle as fast as any original equipment pad and faster than most aftermarket pads. One brilliant feature of EBC R90 pads is their ability to completely eliminate brake judder and these pads will actually COMPENSATE for mild brake judder after 300-400 miles of use. Nominal friction co-efficient 0.46 with minimal rotor damage and similar dust to original parts.

Reduced Rotor Wear
Disc wear is reduced by up to 50% with the EBC material compared to more abrasive semi metallics. It is common to replace the rotor with every pad change on some OE parts but with EBC Brakes it is quite common to see one rotor last two sets of pad lifetimes, offering significant savings. This does NOT mean that the EBC pads wear quickly either.

All motor vehicle brakes can suffer this at some time in their life and brake vibration can occur for a number of reasons. Some cars have rotors machined to match the car on production lines and any replacement rotor will not run true unless machined once again on that car.

Then there are vehicles which suffer rotor vibration or steering wheel shakes after the car has been curbed, often people find this vibration so difficult to cure they actually sell the car. Again the only way to cure this is to have the rotors turned on the car.

When fitting new rotors it is essential to be meticulous in cleaning the stub axles or rotor hubs from all dirt and rust or scale to make sure the rotor sits perfectly flush with the hub and equally important to check the runout of the rotor after install to make sure it is running true and that disc thickness variation which is the main cause of steering wheel shakes, does not occur at the industry standard 3000-4000 mile point which it always does.

To determine if the brake vibration is from the front or rear of the car there is an easy check. If you experience steering wheel shakes it is obviously the front rotors  are the issue. If the brake vibration can be felt through the brake pedal or the seat/bodywork of the vehicle then it is a rear brake rotor issue.  You only need to solve the problem on the rotors that are causing brake vibration and NOT the other brakes on the vehicle or you could be back to square one with bed in times etc.

There are also other reasons for steering wheel shakes.

There is what is known as a SNUB BRAKE EFFECT which happens when brakes are applied sharply on a system equipped with a tall profile pad such as many European cars. These taller profile pads obviously see different rubbing speeds at the outer edge of the brake rotor compared to the inside and this exhibits itself as a steering wheel shake at speed. As the car slows down from such as 80-100 mph to 60 as traffic slows for example the shake starts but gradually stops as the speed decreases. Inspection would show no rotor runout or distortion at cold. This can only be solved by using a pad with a high thermal transfer coefficient such as EBC Brakes Redstuff or EBC Brakes Yellowstuff, cheap pads often have very low thermal capabilities and EBC Brakes are extremely good at adding conductor elements and removing insulator elements that improve this condition.

 genuine parts at best prices.

EBC Brakes sponsored Scott Temple uses EBC Brakes EBC Green Stuff.

 

“We’ve had a good year so far. We’ve had double headers at Snetterton and Brands Hatch. We’ve been surviving on James Nash’s tires from the Walter Hayes all year so far so obviously grip has been an issue! However we were quick at Snetterton missed out by a few hundredths on pole to Pearson for race one and was pushing him in the race before the gear linkage snapped! Race two he seemed to find some extra pace in qualifying so I was a bit further off him but still second on the grid. For Race two it rained and we’ve got three year old wets so there wasn’t any point in even trying to hold onto Pearson! I got a gap on everyone else and backed off to bring it home in second safely.”

EBC Brakes Greenstuff brake pads are for spirited street driving, the high friction Kevlar based brake pad compound designed to improve stopping power on sport sedans and prestige cars.
EBC Brakes Greenstuff range emits less dust than equivalent semi metallic pads and has been proven in tests to stop a vehicle 20 feet sooner than using stock brake pads.Greenstuff brake pads are fully shimmed chamfered and slotted for silent braking and feature the EBC Brakes Brake-in surface coating to accelerate pad bed in after install.

 

“At Brands Hatch I tried out a new line at Druids suggested to me by Mr Nash and managed to go alot quicker than I have ever been round there before. I qualified second for race one and got hit into the first corner and lost places. The race was then stopped and so I managed to get put back in second for the re-start. I couldn’t hold onto Pearson in the race. Over one lap occasionally I could equal his pace but I want able to do it consistently like he was so he edged away but had both pulled miles away from everyone else so I got second again. Race two I qualified second and got the gap to Pearson down to 3 tenths. In the race we were hopeful and I was hanging onto him a bit better but struggling to keep consistent with seriously old tires! His engine blew after 5 or 6 laps and we had both already got a nice gap so I just had to managed the gap to the end and took the win.”

Thanks,

Scott