Quote:
Originally Posted by johnung
The front pads for Brembo 340 and Brembo 370 brakes are identical. Same size and same part number. Rear 330 and rear 345 are different. BMW pads are no better than average, no matter which models they are designated for.
You sound pretty particular about your brake pads. I am too and I won't use anything but Hawk 5.0 on the street. Best bite, instant warm up and dust that's both light in volume and light in color. On the coldest mornings I tap them once and they're warmed up. We just had the coldest February in history and we couldn't have been safer with Hawk 5.0 pads.
If your only issue is the hassle of importing them, contact Dave Zeckhausen at Zeckhausen Racing in New Jersey. Dave exports Hawks all of the time. Last time I spoke to him he said that it's only taking 5 days to the UK.
https://www.zeckhausen.com/
Hope this helps! |
Thanks for the link, and I appreciate the recommendation of the Hawk pads. But, you do say you need to tap them once. This is the thing I've got an issue with; I don't use the brakes that often on this car, even on backroads at reasonable speeds. Instead I prefer to flow down the road (having a rag in the Impreza is a very different story). This means that if something jumps out in front of me (a very real issue in Scotland because the deer population isn't kept under control) I want a pad that instantly grabs and slows. To get this I'm willing to deal with a trade off of 130mph+ performance because I don't track it, and fade from hard use because again I don't use the brakes that hard repeatedly. The car just doesn't suit that. My experience with every uprated pad I can think of is that if stock bite from cold is a 5/10, the performance pads are at best 4/10. So no matter that their performance when warm is 7/10 or better, that's no use to me. So are the Hawks more than equal than stock from that first hit of the brakes from 60/70/80mph having not been used in several minutes? If so, then sold, importing aside. If they're 4.5/10 then they're still not going to be for me.
My understanding of BMW OEM pads were that there are three different compounds used across the same pad shape (I was going by the different third party parts catalogues); grey caliper 340mm M Sport, blue caliper 370mm 'plus pack', and then the M spec pads. Is this not right?
Thanks
Alscoob,
Tengocity are you able to jump in? Do the M spec pads bite better from cold?
As to other pads I've used over the years and across a number of reasonably performance cars (there are others I've forgotten about I'm sure);
- EBC Reds (terrible),
- EBC Blues. Fell off a cliff on the Impreza after fifteen minutes of very hard driving in the stock 294mm calipers. Like seriously, they turned into smoking blocks of wood. They weren't great cold either.
- EBC Oranges. The first batch I had in the AP's were amazing, the current batch I have fitted are terrible and are about to be replaced after 1500 miles because they don't work cold and just won't hold their bed in at road temperatures (gentle driving seems to scrub the bed in layer off the disc quite quickly. They used to have a price advantage too (unless you're a millionaire, price always comes into the decision), but not any more.
- Ferodo DS2500. A great all round fast road pad. Not much cold bite but doesn't take much to get them into their window, and they don't seem to be too fussy about gentle driving in between hard thrashes.
- Mintex M1155. Great pad, very similar to the DS2500.
- Mintex M1166. Absolutely outstanding. Good modulation, but needs temperature to work effectively. My set delaminated after 3000 miles so probably wouldn't go back to them tbh!
- CL RC5+. These were absolutely outstanding in the OEM Subaru 4 pot calipers although they did need a few squeezes to get rid of the 'blocks of wood' feeling. Very, very performance stable across all road speeds/driving though with fade a gradual thing rather than cliff edge like the bluestuff's. I swapped away from these when I fitted the AP's as they were something like £270 a set for them, and the package came stock with DS2500's.
Incidentally I can get EBC's cheap at the moment but I'm reluctant to fit them to this car (price has it's limits!) given my poor experience. They've sent me some Blues to try out on the Impreza FOC as a replacement to the Oranges. If they work better on the current braking setup then great, but if not then no loss, and I'll go back to RC5+. But again, my requirements for that car are very different to the BMW!