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New owner. Brakes question


The Shermanator.

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Hi all. I have just taken the plunge and bought a Seven again. 1.6k Supersport

It has standard discs, calipers and pads which just don't feel that great. Is there a better Pad option recommended for brisk Road use that would give them a bit more bite? Or should I be looking to upgrade the calipers?

I had a 1700 supersprint years ago and its brakes also had the same lacklustre feel to them..

Any recommendations would be much appreciated. 

Greg.

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Check for any leaks/weeps or other way air could be entering the system. Dry paper towel/tissue around all the brake pipe joints will find any issues, best done when there's some pressure in the system. Doesn't take much air to spoil the feel.

Mintex 1144s or Ferodo DS2500s a good option, but you might want to match with different rear pads (otherwise the rear can be a bit snatchy which is entertaining if you trail brake).

 

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Hi Greg great work taking the plunge (again) -

I have done tons on my brakes and ended up chasing my tail, honestly you don't need bigger calipers unless running big power, (they DO look pretty though!) I converted mine, then struggle even on the track to get heat into them.

Stick with what the guys above say, pads and fluid all the way, then depending on the results chip away at it. 

One other really good bit of advice that I always ignore and regret!! - Change one thing at a time then test it, brakes are very personal and some of what happens doesn't seem logical but one thing at a time, scientific - thats why proper teams spend so much time testing, best of luck.

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Don't bother with bigger calipers. Race cars up to 310R use the standard calipers and they're more than capable of locking the wheels up. Race master cylinder is very much a personal preference, I hate it as it feels totally wooden to me, but others love it for the lack of pedal movement. If you're not used to non-servo brakes it's going to take a while to get the feel of them in any case.

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Mintex 1144 on mine caused a lot of dust. I cannot be certain but the dust possibly led to a caliper seizing.They also make a horrible squealing noise if not used heavily regularly. The sound is similar to metal on metal and goes away for a while with a bit of heavy braking. I am a light braker so not much point for people like me.

They might mess up an insurance claim as they are not equivalent to the originals and are lightweight track only pads.

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Pretty sure 1144 are approved for road use. Mintex say they are "Regulation 90 approved where required" whatever that means. The 1155s are described as off-road use only.  Are you sure the sound you mention isn't just rust on the disks due to non-use for a short while?

Edit: ECE Regulation 90 appears to be the current EU standard for road-going brake pads.

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Mintex 1144  are defined as road/track by the manufacturer and are generally considered to be an upgrade and therefore are not a direct replacement so fall outside of type approval equivalency regulations. The breaking in requires a session of heavy braking from relatively high speeds so is not a thing that a regular road user would do. The issue is more to do with what Caterham have officially tested rather than what Mintex, a retailer or forum may say.

Regulation 90 is an EU law. Basically meeting it means they can be used on a road car if that car's original pads were to the same or very similar slightly lower spec. This does not help matters as they are fitted to improve braking and not just as a straight swap. Whether or not UK law exactly follows EU regulations I do not know although I would guess that the UK has something similar. Regardless it is very likely that using them is something an insurer should be notified of. The insurer may say no as they could introduce an untested imbalance to the braking system.

During my Mintex period I was covering 6-8,000 miles a year spread across the full 12 months. I am not a polisher and will only wash a car once or twice a year so that may aggravate the dusting problem. Standard pads produce little dust for me but the 1144's gave the wheels a dusting of what looked like soot.

The squeal was embarrassing and similar to having worn away all of the friction material. The squeal could be easily overcome by heavier braking at the next couple of junctions.

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  • Area Representative

When I changed to 1144 on the front (to stop the rears locking first) they squealed a lot when cold. This has been cured by chamfering the edges and slots. MOT just passed with no problem as well.

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I've been using Mintex 1144 for 16 years (c.40,000 miles) for road, track & hillclimbs and have never noticed excessive dust or any squealing but then I did follow the bedding in procedure as recommended by Mintex. I changed from EBC Greenstuff which (from memory) produced a lot more dust.

IMO the bedding in procedure is hardly onerous; 3-4 light applications from 30-0mph and 6-7 steady applications from 70-30mph and leave to cool completely. Then will then work well from cold.

Surely it's a simple case of when buying a product follow the manufacturers guidelines....

 

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I did all the stuff on the leaflet. They worked well apart from the squeal and dust. Perhaps mine were faulty but at least one other person in this thread had a squeal until the pads were modified.

Regular road brakes do not require bedding in. I can't remember exactly what the leaflet said but it did involve driving at increasingly higher speeds and braking harder each time. Driving to a 70 mph dual carriageway on dodgy brakes before braking 70-30 is not a good idea and would have an insurance company refusing any claim.

Perhaps a call by a few Mintex 1144 owners to their insurers with full disclosure could clarify this matter.

Owner: "Hi Mr Insurer, I have a Caterham and I would like to fit brake pads that do not work properly until I have spent 10 minutes bedding them in on my nearest dual carriageway that has a 70 mph speed limit which is 15 miles from where I live. Also the pads are not a standard fitment so will not be type approved and although will most likely improve braking performance I have no way of proving it apart from an advert and what some bloke down the pub says. Is there a problem with any of this?"

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Any new pads will need bedding for full performance, it is just the standard pads from vehicle manufacturers normally come with a "drive carefully for 500 miles until the pads are bedded" or similar statement, whereas performance aftermarket pads normally come with an accelerated bedding procedure to get to full performance faster.

My standard technique for any new brake pads on any vehicle is to plan a visit to a quiet road (usually on an early weekend morning) with good sight lines, after fitting the pads. I then do a brake warm up with a number of gentle stops followed by as many 100 to 10km/h stops as quickly as possible to get the pads to smell, just before brake fade or a soft pedal. Then I drive around at a steady speed avoiding using the brakes or coming to a full stop until they have cooled down. Job done.

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There's a lot of fake Mintex pads around. Maybe you got some of those.

This was my first thought.  Mintex 1144 should be an excellent choice for road use and trackdays on a Caterham. Where did you purchase the pads?

Caterham supply them as an option for Academy cars, which are all road registered.

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