Switching from power to manual brakes.

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rfoll
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Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by rfoll »

I have a 78 Skylark, (essentially a Nova), that I drag race. It runs high 10s - low 11s at over 120 mph. The braking system is the stock power disc/drum arrangement. I added a vacuum reserve can to compensate for the low vacuum from the big cam, and the car stops fine, even in the occasional street driving. The front tires are MT 26X275 Sportsman, and the rear 26X10 Hoosier slicks. I acquired a complete factory manual system for the disc/drum arrangement and would like to install it to remove some of the hardware from under the hood. What kind of friction materials would be good to make sure this car will stop safely? I'm not sure if I should mix and match front and rear materials.
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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by Keith Morganstein »

I’ve found EBC friction material to be very good.
https://ebcbrakes.com/products/brake-pads/
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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by rfoll »

I actually called them before I posted here. The $200 price tag for the blue stuff front pads is more than I am willing to spend.
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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by mk e »

You should not mix and match materials as a general rule. At temp the difference will be predictable so in roadracing you can heat the brakes on the warmup lap and have a balanced system when the green flag drops....dragracing they need to work right on the first application. But because its dragracing you are only asking for 1 stop from 120 then you have plenty on cool-down time....I wouldn't worry too much about exotic pad material for your application honestly.
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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by rfoll »

There's also the radical difference between front and rear tires.
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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by mk e »

rfoll wrote: Sat Jun 30, 2018 9:04 pm There's also the radical difference between front and rear tires.
Yes....but that's constant so you can adjust for that. I'd suggest adding an adjustable proportioning valve.
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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by MadBill »

Your question seems to imply that the pad material should be specific to power vs. manual brakes, but that's (mostly) not so. As above posts note, the material should be chosen for the operating conditions.
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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by FC-Pilot »

I fully agree that based on drag racing duty you don't need exotic pads if you are going to continue to use your front calipers. My current favorite for OE caliper setups is Wagner OEX pads found at any parts store. They did a good job of managing temps up to the point of fade (which was higher than most others we tested) and after they faded they recovered as well as any of the other pads. We tested them against 20 other pads on the market (and not the $9.99 cheapo jobbies) and even against the OE and they bested all of the OE pads we tested against. I no longer put OE on my own vehicles now that this pad is out in the market.

No I am not a salesman for them, I am one of the three vehicle testers at link that did the testing. I now work for an OEM, but still prefer these pads over OE.
http://www.wagnerbrake.com/products/bra ... r-oex.html

Now if you are using race calipers then things change.

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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by rfoll »

I looked all over their website, and I couldn't find the OEx pads for my application. As a matter of fact, I couldn't find a listing for OEx pads on anything I own.
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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by FC-Pilot »

The two pads that I recommend after the Wagner pads are the Centric Posi-quiet pads. In the testing I did the data showed that the ceramic and the Semi-Metallic performed next to identical. In your application I would probably run the Semi-metallic as I like how they have good bite cold as well as hot. I would look for those next. And after that I would look for PFC (Performance Friction Components) semi metallic. The semi-metallic will eat up your rotors faster, but then again you are just going a quarter mile at a time. Good luck.

If buying Centric, only get the Posi-quiet as that is the one that tested the best for performance. Their premium ceramics were OK (Better than most aftermarket) but the Posi-quiets tested better than OE pads as well as the Wagner pads.

http://www.centricparts.com/products/brake-friction

One last thing, as far as using the same pad compound front to rear, many OEM's don't use the same compound front to rear. So why do we have to?

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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by mk e »

FC-Pilot wrote: Wed Jul 04, 2018 2:29 am
One last thing, as far as using the same pad compound front to rear, many OEM's don't use the same compound front to rear. So why do we have to?

Paul
If you have data that shows the 2 compounds provide similar enough performance cold and hot that front/rear bias will be acceptable cold and hot then you don't need to match compounds. If you don't have that data using matching compounds is the safest option even though there still could be cold/hot differences due to the hot temp not being exactly the same f/r...but its a good guess.
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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by rfoll »

I have been able to find matching Centric posi-quiet components. It looks like a good material to use for all of my other vehicles. One of the local brake specialists sold me some kind of carbon friction materials that turn my gold or white wheels brown. It is eating the clear coat on my wheels. You can't imagine how much I enjoy sitting with a tooth brush cleaning my gold diamond spoke wheels. Thanks for the suggestions, Rick.
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Re: Switching from power to manual brakes.

Post by FC-Pilot »

mk e wrote: Wed Jul 04, 2018 2:48 pm
FC-Pilot wrote: Wed Jul 04, 2018 2:29 am
One last thing, as far as using the same pad compound front to rear, many OEM's don't use the same compound front to rear. So why do we have to?

Paul
If you have data that shows the 2 compounds provide similar enough performance cold and hot that front/rear bias will be acceptable cold and hot then you don't need to match compounds. If you don't have that data using matching compounds is the safest option even though there still could be cold/hot differences due to the hot temp not being exactly the same f/r...but its a good guess.
Good theory. Unfortunately the rears rarely (if ever) get to the same temp as the fronts. The data does show that. Now, to support your theory you can not go wrong with matching compounds as it is a safe way to go. But many combo's work better with differing compounds because of the difference in running temp. The data is the final say.

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question for FC pilot,

Post by tjz450 »

Hi FC, thanks for the info on the Wagner pads. Nice to see a recommendation from actually testing streetable brake pads. My question is: have you ever tested the Satisfied Ceramic pads when they were available? I thought they were a nice pad. But never got them hot enough to fade. Maybe I'm mistaken and they're junk.
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Re: question for FC pilot,

Post by FC-Pilot »

tjz450 wrote: Fri Jul 13, 2018 12:49 pm Hi FC, thanks for the info on the Wagner pads. Nice to see a recommendation from actually testing streetable brake pads. My question is: have you ever tested the Satisfied Ceramic pads when they were available? I thought they were a nice pad. But never got them hot enough to fade. Maybe I'm mistaken and they're junk.
I don’t remember to be honest. I wrote down the top performers from the big aftermarket test I we ran. Many pads did “well” but I did not feel a need to keep info on all of them. One thing I saw was “you get what you pay for”. The dirt cheap pads all performed poorly.

In response to my comments regarding front to rear temp split, today the vehicle I tested had HOTTER running rears than the front. I was not expecting those results, but looking at vehicle details gave me inside as to why that was. Just a useless FYI

Paul
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