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03 September 2010, 03:02 PM

#137

popeyedoyle

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Join Date: Feb 2010

Location: KSport Pro Time Attack Impreza

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I'm owner/driver of a two door impreza that runs in Time Attack Club Pro Class. I won the last round of Time Attack Club pro class at Cadwell Park 4 weeks ago.

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Over the last 12 to 18 months I've used Performance Friction PF01, Ferrodo DS2500 & DS3000, Carbone Lorraine & Yellowstuff R compounds.
I had just removed a set of spent Performance Friction 01 pads from my car and needed to fit a set of pads when I saw this thread last week, I emailed Andy and the EBC production team delivered a set of new generation Bluestuff pads within a few days.

My set-up is:

Front: Alcon monoblock 6 piston calipers, 365mm Alcon fully floating discs, new generation EBC Bluestuff pads

Rear: Compbrake 4 pot competition callipers, 330mm Compbrake discs, Performance Friction 01 pads.

Castrol SRF fluid. No servo assist. Full Michelin R18/240 slicks all-round.

I fitted the pads last Friday and headed off for testing at Donnington Saturday lunchtime, I had a friend of mine with me for the day, Time Attack Pro driver Gav Renshaw. We unloaded, set-up the car and was out for our first session at about 2pm.

There is no easy way to bed race car pads in, I did about 7 laps nice and easy and cycled the pads about 40 or 50 times, no dramas with the brakes but obviously we weren't pushing them....... I hate the smell of burning fresh pads!!!

We let the car and the brakes cool down and then Gav headed out in the car for a full pace test; warm-up lap, all good, still a bit of a funny smell from the pads (to be expected)...second lap now full pace, 3rd corner, complete loss of power....Gav dumped the car on the grass and I took a quick look under the bonnet to the marshalls clear displeasure!!.....snapped throttle cable!!! at first I thought that would be our day over but...After a tow back to the pits and a good look at the broken throttle cable I set about making a repair, managed to get a good repair to hold by modifying and fitting a couple of bits and bobs I had packed in our race support vehicle.

By now we only had an hour of tracktime left and had only just run the pads in.....Gav went back out in the car with me riding passenger.....
3 easy laps, cold bite on the pads now good, bite at full temperature not quite there yet, but still breaking in, pedal starting to get nice and firm though under heavy braking (there are 4 heavy braking areas at Donnington, in my car on low boost its typically from 130mph+ down to 40-50mph). Once Gav had full confidence in the pads (I.e. no burning clutch smell and nice firm pedal) then he let rip with a few very quick laps, he is a very smooth driver....the brakes performed flawlessly, no fade, no judder, no fluid boil, no deposits on the disc, fantastic stopping power with the good progressive feel to the brake and an ability to modulate/control the applied braking forces.

I took to the car for the final session of the day, by now the brakes were fully bedded in an were improved again over Gav's session. I have good in car footage from the session and the braking forces are up at 1.3G, bearing in mind the pads had only had around a dozen or so laps at this point I thought this was a solid performance. I done around 8 laps and again experienced no fade or loss of performance. At no point did the tyres lock up so with further testing over the next month and with the new generation Bluestuff compound fitted to the rear of the car we should be able to find the limit of this pad compound/tyre combination.

I raced at AAA saloons at Castle Combe on Bank holiday Monday, however an electrical gremlin caused early retirement in the first race and cost me a podium finish in the second race, nevertheless the braking performance for the entire 13 lap 2nd race was predicable, reliable with a nice firm pedal repeatedly braking heavy from 135+mph and again comparable to the performance of the top spec racing pads I've previously used. I managed a number of overtaking manoeuvres by out braking competitors into corners.

From my experience to date I can say that these new generation Bluestuff pads offer excellent value for money and a performance that is comparable when compared to other top spec race pads out there on the market. I am intending on using these pads for the final round of Time Attack at Snetterton 10th October.

I should also say that I have no affiliations to EBC whatsoever and the above report is an unbiased assessment soley based on the performance of the EBC pads supplied.

See links to the video footage from testing at Donnington last weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieF4vLhjQ6U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOUbZzJrmes

Last edited by popeyedoyle; 03 September 2010 at 07:04 PM.

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