Topic: Porterfield Pads and Sanding, Deglazing, Cleaning brakes

[kennysabarese]

I was told not to bed them. Earlier in this thread, page 2 I think, I have emails directly from Porterfield on what they told me to do. I listened to their advice and this is what happened. They'll be getting a followup from me tomorrow.

[kennysabarese]

Ok. Talked to Porterfield on the phone. No need to panic.

Things I learned.

* If you can activate ABS at will, you are not glazed. I can do this on my car still.

* Glazing will effect stopping power across the entire range of braking, not just initial bite, which further reinforces the above point. I don't have a complaint with the braking power, I was just curious about the amount of initial bite.

* It's very hard to visually judge if a pad is glazed. He looked at the photo of my pads and said they look great. Nice and smooth and evenly worn.

* When the Porterfield pads get pushed to their top of their heat range they will get a little orange around the edges, and potentially white

* Pad technology has come a long way. It's really hard to glaze pads nowadays. Porterfield says it's more important to take care of rotors because they trust their pads are good. If you heat brand new rotors too much their first time out, you can do way worse damage than you can to a pad on it's first time out.

I'm putting this to rest. Tim from Porterfield was great and very helpful and spent 15 minutes talking to me and explaining everything very thoroughly. The pads just are different. They are optimized for higher temperatures.

Also he said that lower initial bite gives you more linear braking power as you put more pressure on the pedal. Sounds good to me.

Lastly, I've seen some brands of pads where they list the characteristics of the different pads they sell and some have more initial bite than others. So I am quite sure that this is an intentional choice by Porterfield. If I like it or not, well that is personal preference. I am no longer worried that something is wrong with the pads or rotors.

[Critterman]

I don't think you need to worry about heating up the rotors either, they have been there as well

[kennysabarese]

The final verdict on the Porterfields. 

Less initial bite than the stock pads takes a little time to get used to but gives you precise input and very linear braking power. This trait is probably great for autocross. 

These won't hold up on a road course with lots of heavy braking like Watkins Glen. 

[snaponbob]

LESS initial bite ?!?!?! Wow.

[kennysabarese]

Yeah it's on purpose. If all your bite happens right away then you don't get the full travel of the pedal to control the amount of stopping power. So the braking is more linear.

On my father in laws Nissan  for example, you barely touch the pedal and it bites so hard that you can't even brake smoothly at low speeds. Very annoying.

[wspohn]

I got the R4S street pads on DDM's recommendation.

I'd have been tempted to go with the R4-1 material, which works well even on the race track.

[kennysabarese]

When I search for solstice on their site they didn't have any track pads available. Only the R4S

[Uranium-238]

Less initial bite than stock? I understand their point about a linear pedal/brake travel but less bite than stock? I'd think the stock pads set the threshold for the least amount of initial bite that's acceptable.

[kennysabarese]

I don't want it to sound like a negative review cuz I love these pads and the way they behave. They do what you tell them.

Also, it's very hard to make a direct comparison because I didn't go from street driving on one pad to another, and I only drive my car every few weeks. I also had crappy ceramics on for a while after destroying my stock pads at the track. So maybe I can barely remember what the stock pads were like.

The pad stops the car when you want to stop. Maybe initial bite is the wrong way to describe it. What I'm trying to describe is that you get the amount of braking power that you ask for. If you barely touch the pedal, the car barely slows down, compared to most other cars I drive where most braking force is given to you without much force being put into the pedal. This is a horrible trait because you can't dial in the amount of braking you want.


I really like these brake pads, they are not worse than stock. Maybe I don't know what initial bite is. Or maybe I just got used to it. I dunno. Maybe you should ignore me cuz I don't know shit

[Gentleman Jack]

K

I don't want it to sound like a negative review cuz I love these pads and the way they behave. They do what you tell them.

Also, it's very hard to make a direct comparison because I didn't go from street driving on one pad to another, and I only drive my car every few weeks. I also had crappy ceramics on for a while after destroying my stock pads at the track. So maybe I can barely remember what the stock pads were like.

The pad stops the car when you want to stop. Maybe initial bite is the wrong way to describe it. What I'm trying to describe is that you get the amount of braking power that you ask for. If you barely touch the pedal, the car barely slows down, compared to most other cars I drive where most braking force is given to you without much force being put into the pedal. This is a horrible trait because you can't dial in the amount of braking you want.


I really like these brake pads, they are not worse than stock. Maybe I don't know what initial bite is. Or maybe I just got used to it. I dunno. Maybe you should ignore me cuz I don't know shit

I think Kenny is drunk.  He always gets emotional when he drinks....

[Critterman]

Let me do a little PR work for you Kenny:

The pads provide a very smooth and controllable amount of braking directly related to the pressure applied to the pedal.

Does that help?

[kennysabarese]

K

I think Kenny is drunk.  He always gets emotional when he drinks....

Haha.

I think my lack of brake evaluation skills can be blamed on my mother...

[kennysabarese]

Let me do a little PR work for you Kenny:

The pads provide a very smooth and controllable amount of braking directly related to the pressure applied to the pedal.

Does that help?

Yes thank you

[wspohn]

The pads provide a very smooth and controllable amount of braking directly related to the pressure applied to the pedal.

And the critical part for competition pads, they do it again and again and don't fade!

Choosing pads for slalom is always a trade off. If you want race pads, no problem, they get up to temperature in one lap and you can use the pedal to do that on the pace lap.

I always used Ferodo DS-11 pads on my race cars - best pads available in the 1970s - and they were a bear to warm up. I routinely slid through the downhill hairpin corner at our local track on the first lap, considering it a win if my rear end stayed on the track, and then it was all set for as long as you wanted to race.  We should count our blessings that modern compounds are much, much better on those first applications than the old asbestos based compounds were.

I think you have the right approach - try the street competition pads first and if they aren't up to it, switch to the next level. That way you won't have to deal with slightly lower cold performance needlessly.

[NormSky]

If there is a material not made for our car ask the manufacturer if you send in backing plates from used pads if they'll put a certain material on them. Things are slow this time of year and they might just do it for you.

[kennysabarese]

I already purchased the CarboTechs oops.

[wspohn]

If there is a material not made for our car ask the manufacturer if you send in backing plates from used pads if they'll put a certain material on them. Things are slow this time of year and they might just do it for you.

Good suggestion, Norm. They get the material in oversize sheet form and can cut it and bond it to any sort of backing plate.  We have to do that in some of the vintage racers that don't have ready pad availability.

Unfortunately one of the cars I race can't do that because there is no backing plate (well, there is a sheet metal disc glued to the back to engage a pull-off post in the caliper) and the pad material is about double the normal thickness.  I had to have some backing plates machined up to suit.