I bought these front pads for £16 ish a while ago and have now fitted them with budget discs. After a couple of hundred miles of bedding in they are excellent with more feel than the OEM item. They were originally fitted to get rid of a chatter in the front brakes. The extra feel is just a bonus. About £18 now…
Apart from track work how often do you routinely apply brakes at maximum? I’m all for a good feel on the pedal rather than some extra inches of stopping distance. Of my three cars the TT is the worst and the best is a Volvo V60. The Mx has just got better.
If the pads were ■■■■ at £18 I would just have dropped them and gone expensive. It was worth the experiment for peanuts.
No idea, my point is they have a nice feel. They may well be 10% less efficient( or not) I’m light on brakes as I still prefer the gearbox to slow down. Just like steering feel, brake feel is a huge part of driver enjoyment. I’m very fond of my TT but the brakes feel dead. If I hadn’t bought the Mx5 I would probably have spent far too much on addressing that issue.
Just to say these are now just over £14 on the bay. Interesting that some consumable like pads change in price. On these that is a 25% fluctuation of price in a few weeks.
Be nice if that worked for expensive coilovers too🙂
Had a couple of hard stops, one on a Sunday was no surprise. Not into activating the ABS, but still impressed.
Next windmill to be pushed at is some stainless brake lines that cost £80 rather than the usual £120. Came with a proviso they were only for racing. What’s that all about? If I was racing( no speed limit and max braking as standard) I would expect higher standards, not lower.
Matt Lewis Racing was the provider at the time.
Normal brake line kits need to be type approved for road use ( costs to get type approval )
Others may build to the same standard but do not pay for the type approval so they claim “off road only” or “for racing use only”
Thanks for that. I expected as much. The tricky stuff comes when insurance companies try to dump claims because of legal niceties rather than realities. It’s a very valid point.
I’m inclined to think they won’t be too arsed on cheap trash like us🙂
I’ve had a conversation with these guys regarding these hoses.
They are sold as their own , however I was told by themselves they are manufactured by H*L but aren’t allowed to advertise this.
Good to see that the brake lines are fine, it’s just some technicality makes them useless. It has to be addressed if some accident assessor notices, but at least I know I’m safe fitting them.
Great input, thanks!
Various brands of Goodrich hoses are known for being too short, falling part. Factory parts are better. Brake stoppers mean none of the factory fittings are interfered with.
The Goodrich hosing (these things are hand assembled from kits) can fray and tear into the rubber hose underneath. In general, they have a shorter service life than OE, and require more frequent inspection.
If your brake hoses are swelling under hard braking, you probably need new brake hoses not so-called stainless steel brake hoses (which aran;t actually stainless steel, they are steel rubber, but now with a braided cover).
Savagegeese sums it up
Yeah, if you 90% track the car, maybe, because on a car like that, you probably have the brakes apart every few weeks.
New SS lines will of course feel better than 20-25 year old rubber. But so will new rubber lines. I have just renewed my front brake hoses with Pagid items. The originals were 28 years old, 270k kms, no leaks. Precautionary change along with a couple of calipers.
My car has a Brake Stopper built into the shock tower brace. Basically, its a bolt which you load up against the brake master cylinder (with a Delrin head), to prevent movement under hard breaking. On the NA and NB at least, if you smash on the brake pedal hard, you will see the master cylinder move back and forth as the firewall flexes. This movement translates into lost efficiency, at least a little (the first time I tried this out was on a cheap strut brace with some ironmongery. A few laps on a little track showed my bodge looking a bit bent, demonstrating the movement going on.
Beatrush Brake Stopper for the NC, about £100;
This video shows the movement in the NC master cylinder
Thanks for the videos. I’m not sure you are less likely to get debris damage to rubber lines on road cars but otherwise Savagegeese stuff is always worth a look.
I bought mine with the idea of changing possibly eighteen year old rubber with a possibility of better brake feel. The front look fine but I probably won’t fit the rears as the angle just after the calipers looks too sharp compared with standard.
Bought the S/S stuff just after changing brake fluid ()
Brake stopper? Nowhere near as s@xy or conspicuous but maybe just as effective?
Interesting stuff.
Just to add to the brake line thoughts. The Goodridge ones were rubbish, without the correct mounting brackets. Get the IL Motorsport ones which fit great and do improve pedal feel. Pictures on MX5 parts clearly show the differences. Yes they are more expensive but do you really want to cable tie your lines when a proper mounting has already been provided?.
Cheers, Marc
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