Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

As per title, what type of brake pads are racers using?

I'm preparing my car for some racing in CSCC championship next year and have recently completed a shake down trackday. Upon inspection I was surprised to see the front pads only have about 5mm of meat left on them.

I have wilwood power lite calipers with ferodo ds2500 pads on the front of my car. I can only assume that these are too soft but I had no problems with fade or judder so I'm a bit confused by their wear rate after what was probably a total of 40 minutes track time.

Any views or recommendations gratefully received.

Hi Paul,
We have been using Pagid RS15 pads for 2 seasons now in our lightweight race Elan after trying various others including Ferodo DS2500. The bite is excellent hot and cold with very good modulation. I highly recommend them.
I believe the part number may have changed to RST3 according to Kelsport's website.
cheers Alan P

Hi
I use Pagid blue RS pads both front and rear

Regards
Steve

I use Hawk Blue front pads and TTR racing rear pads

The Hawk pads are gentle on the disks but give good life and brake performance in terms of bite, modulation and wear. But they are a race only pad as they are very abrasive on the disks when cold due to the film transfer technology they use that puts a layer on the disks that comes from the pads when hot and the pads are designed to work with this layer that wears and is constantly replaced from the pads hence the low wear on the disks when run hot but high wear if you use them on the road normally

The TTR pads at the rear are a lower coefficient of friction and more conventional race technology and this help achieve the right front to rear balance needed when braking hard on sticky modern tyres.

cheers
Rohan

Thanks guys.

Doesn't look like the pagid or hawk blue are available for my calipers.

Hawk do a different compound (DTC30) for the wilwoods though so might give them a try.

why not try one of the wilwood polymatrix pads? they cover a range of operating temps and coefficient of friction

if you can find them Id recommend ...Ferodo DS11.....although I think the remake of the original material has give rise to a new number....think its DS1.11

The original DS11 was a great pad and the best of its era. Unfortunately asbestos in pads is no longer allowed !!!!! Their coefficient of friction was substantially less than some of the modern pads and they required more pedal effort when i used them about 30 years ago before they where banned. I have not tried the DS1.11 but it must be a totally different technology so the the name must be more of a marketing tool than any real relationship to the original.

cheers
Rohan

the DS1.11 has been designed to recreate the exact same qualities and performance as the DS11

We tried all sorts of pads in out race car (most of the Hawk range, EBC rubbish, Ds2500 and DS3000) and ended up using Carbon loraine rc6 pads. There Very good if a bit expensive.

In my experience DS2500's are road pads, they work ok on the track but ideally you should be using DS3000's which are more track orientated.

Thanks Grizzly, I've heard very good things about Carbone Lorraine, a friend had them on his Clio track car.

Which supplier do you use?

I actually buy mine through work but they come from a company called Fortuna Moto Ltd uk

Be sat down when you get a price though (Not cheap)

Cheers Grizzly.

Found the RC6 pad at Murray Motorsport for ?125 inc vat in the wilwood fitting I need. Cheaper than TTR and Kelsport are doing the Pagids....

That sounds a good price, i think i paid some thing like ?220 for both ends (not sure if that was +vat or Inc as it was through work as i say)