You think the stock FD rotors are of better quality that Brembos? On Maxcooper's website he said he got brembo fronts for $60/each.

 

dunno if they are better than the flat face brembos, but since i track my car a lot i might shy away from the drilled/slotted brembos...also i have seen a few posts that the stock rotors have some kind of better inner fin design.

 

Ready to buy my extra set of Blues?

Rebuilding calipers is easy and a kit costs about $35 from mazdaformance.com. Might be smart to do it just in case. (Since you have done *everything* else. I would help out, but I don't have the time.)

If you do end up rebuilding, pick me up a rebuild kit too, I'll give you $$ for it when you pick up the impact screwdriver. Seems like a good idea to have a spare kit in the garage, just in case...

 

sorry, ordered ebc greens already based on some things i read from sleepr1, .. nbot gonna rebuild calipers yet, gonna see if the pad/rotor change helps things, trying to remove things from the equation to identify the prob.

 

I had this problem with two of my cars.. except the 7.. but my experience with it and one way to find out is to see if your pistons are locking is to see if one wheel is hotter than other.. In this case, I think its both sides??
I After normal driving on the road, your wheels should feel warm.. not HOT.. if its hot then your piston is pushin the pad constantly and not retracting.. I ended up re-building my calipers myself.. usually as it ages, build up occurs.. I just pushed the pistons out and clean the inside with 600 sand paper.. gently removing build up and polishing the piston.. Now, it works fine..

Hope this is the problem.. Good luck!

PHIL

 

hey phil, dunno if you read furhter up but already ruled out piston sticking cuz i ran track saturday with hawk hps pads and it wore even.... i think the stock pads just blew up, that was the deal...however i did move the pistons in/out before puttin the hawks in so it may have unsiezed a stuck piston... they all moved fine when i was putting the hawks in

 

sorry.. I just kind of scan thru the thread.. Glad to hear that all worked out..

PHIL

 

yeah, we shall see in a few weeks at teh big track BIR, ill have new rotors and ebc greens, .... (crossing fingers)

 

Damian, the reason I was so certain that you merely overheated the pads and that it was not a stuck piston was because of your pics. A stuck piston will wear uneven that is true, but the pad area itself will still look "normal" if that is the case. Your pictures show the pad material scorching at the edges and breaking off in large chunks across the face. This catastrophic failing is clearly an extreme overheat issue, NOT a stuck piston problem.

Glad to hear the HPS did it for you.

 

agreed... stock pads = failed huge

 

Why are you switching from the Hawk HPS to the ebc greens???

 

just to see the difference between them, it seems my hawks take a lot of pressure to bite...

 

You won't be sorry... Greens Rock

They work when cold, and appear easier on Rotors too..

And just get better and better as they get hammered...

I love them

 

I was changing out my wheels, so I thought I'd check my project mu bforce pads to see how they held up after the north course at VIR and a couple months of street driving. They don't dust much at all and I still got 1cm left. btw, they performed great at the track.

Here are a couple pics...
project mu bforce measured

project mu bforce

 

I drive an FC racecar in SCCA Nationals. I also own a '93 FD3. With both cars, I get pad wear similar to this.
The uneven wear is due to the drag of the rotor on the pad during hard braking. The pad backing plate is not on the same plane as the pad surface. This offset causes the pad to be torqued toward the leading edge, causing the uneven wear. The higher the pad coefficient of friction, the more this tends to occur.
One solution is the previously-mentioned calipers with different sized or offset pistons. Another somewhat effective cheap fix is to grind, machine, or cut off the pad material at the pad trailing edge. How much you have to cut off to even up the wear is a matter of trial and error.

 

Dave, what does your FC look like and what class do you run in? I attended the event in San Diego. Don't tell me you own one of those 500hp demon FC's! I think I remember an FC putting down the fastest time of the day aside from those little 125cc karts (damn those things are fast!)

 

Oh yeah! Green Stuffs are great with my Type RS rotors and calipers (Fr/Rr). Highly recommended to any FD enthusiast who tracks, autocrosses, and uses his/her FD as a daily driver. You don't have to swap pads for track, and on the road, the Green Stuffs dust so little it's hard to tell after two weeks if you've used your brakes LOL Cold stopping power is just fine, and they are very easy on brake rotors. I've found the Green Stuffs to perform comparably to the stock Sumitomo Type RS pads, and the Greens and Sumitomos can probably be used @ either end of the car without much drama (or trauma). On the track, braking from high speed, the Green Stuffs have excellent bite and only require medium pedal pressure. It's easy to get into the ABS with too much pedal pressure. Obviously the Green Stuffs will dust heavily at an open track event, but the clean up is easy. Just spray the wheels down @ the power washer bay. The brake dust is nothing like the nasty Hawk Blue dust that pretty much powder coats your wheels black after a good rain and more heavy braking LOL (stay away from Hawk Blues...they're just nasty!)...

 

Chronos, actually, my "FC" is a "Citation 95SF" formula car - looks a bit like a Champ Car, but costs a lot less. It has a Ford 2-L motor (restricted) and wings. It was built by Indianapolis Competition Products in Indianapolis, IN.
It races in the "Formula Continental" class (FC), one of 24 SCCA National classes.
I've been racing SCCA Nationals and the Valvoline Runoffs for 35 years.

 

Your pads are looks exactly like mine after use on the track. Extreme uneven wear and pad material breaking apart in chunks. The uneven wear was caused by a stuck piston, and the pad material breaking apart was form overheating. A rebuild of the front rotors solved the piston problem. Cost was in the order of $20 a few years ago. I now use Hawk Blues on the track and work great at high temps.

Mark

 

EBC Greens are great for cold bite and High Temp Range (work COLD and HOT) but they WEAR OUT FAST they last abt 1/3 as long as Hawk HPS or HP+ and cost more. a NEW Greens were 85% gone in less than 2 hrs (4- 25 min sessions) at the track (Streets of Willow Springs) on my fd.

 

wow, that's definately something to consider...anyone have anything to say about the Endless CCX? They truly do seem to be the best pad I've come across for street/track.

 

This has not been experience. I've run Mid Ohio weekend, and 3 Putnam Park Open Lapping evenings. I have about 50% left now, and will probably use them up this Friday night.

Please note I have Type RS/RZ calipers and rotors. The larger rotors dissipate heat more efficiently than the US spec brake rotors.

 

Manny:
My experience w/ ebc's are limited to that one event (I went back to HPS/HP+ after that) back in NOV 01, maybe ebc has changed compounds since then? also my fd is a touring automatic w/out any thing removed so I am running at a full 2900+lbs.