phil916

I own a 98 uk turbo model with 96000 on the clock. When I bought it 5 months ago the brakes were ok but not as good as I thought they should be. On inspection found not a lot of meat left on the front pads ( EBC reds ). So went to replace them, nearly fell over at the price of EBC reds! Having just bought the car money was tight and opted to fit Blue Print pads ( recommended by the seller (obviously!!) but also a Subaru dealer so I thought they must be good. Fitted them no probs then proceeded to bed them in. Not impressed at all really, still no good! Then I had the car serviced by Subaru dealer and asked them to check brakes and put new fluid in. This they did, complete new fluid and bled brakes. I drove off full of excitement......exactly the same!! The brakes on my girlfriends Vectra estate are a lot better!!!
Anyway, what I've found is they are ok for general driving but when I boot it a bit and do a lot of braking they start to fade, to the point when I've thought ' S**t! I'm not gonna stop in time!'.
Could it be the pads? I don't want to shell out another £90 to find no difference. Or does it sound like something else?
Sorry to ramble on and any help would be Much appreciated!!
Ta.
P.S. It has grooved and drilled discs on the front so I expect them to be better then good!?!

Mother Theresa

Fade is due to the pads getting too hot and the surface of the pad vaporises. This puts a layer of gas between pad and disc which stops it working. Grooved or drilled discs are used to stop this. All pads have an operating temperature, race pads are great when hot but rubbish when cold; most ordinary car pads are the other way round and most of us here go for something in the middle.
The other issue is that the servo-assistance on scoobs is not so strong so the driver has more feel and control on what is going on but has to push harder in order to stop quickly. There are some issues with the bulkhead flexing slightly when you push hard on the brakes but I suspect this is not the problem for you.
I had red stuff pads which were down-right scary when really cold and now have Mintex 1144s which are great for daily driving, I have kept the half-worn reds for track day use.

I hope that is of some help.

p1mark

Dont get over excited about standard Subaru classic brakes cause they are crap.

Also - sorry to say it but dont skimp on the pads.

If you do a search on EBC redstuff you will find a lot of conjecture. im not going to comment as i have not used them on a scoob but i can tell you they are **** on a bike.

Go for Ferodo DS2500, Pagid blue, mintex1144. Well proven in all situations and highly rated.

Cauases of fade - as above pads, but also heat transfer into your fluid and the fluid overheating. This could be by having to push excessvely hard too frequently, or even poor heat managment in the engine bay heating up the reservoir and cylinder. Put a dot 5.1 fluid in and check you have a heatshield on your turbo etc...

Old and baggy standard brake flexis, although not casusing fade as such, will give you a spongy pedal feel causing you to stamp even harder and generate more heat. cure for this is braided brake lines but im afraid its all money......... welcome to Subaru ownership.

Palmo

Some good advice there.

I have a MY02 WRX and have uprated the brakes, although I wouldn't say they were completely rubbish to start with - think they are probably better than a standard early classic set-up.

Anyway, I have now got group N grooved & cross drilled discs (I know some don't like cross drilled disc's) on the front, with Ferodo DS2500 all round, with Goodrige Stainless steel hoses and Motul 5.1 brake fluid. This has all transformed the brakes, with a firmer pedal, very good initial cold bite and excellent performace when warmed up fully. Fitted all myself, cost around £400 from memory - but money well spent!

GariYaRally

Really don't know what the big deal is..............try stopping a 300+ bhp 95 STI type RA with the standard brakes, the really crap 2 pots.........

scoobygez

i have a my99 classic with the std 4 pots as found on the later wrx and i have mintex pads and they are great!!

on my 1st scooby though i had the 2 pots (my98) and they were pathetic!!

leecalcars

iTrader: (37)

Just bought some ebc 295mm drilled and grooved discs with ebc red stuff pads fitting them tommorow so will post on effectiveness.

phil916

Many thanks for the replies!
Looks like I'll have to bite the bullet and shell out for some better pads and take it from there!
Cheers!

Mo

Why stick cheap **** pads in a 150mph car

Re fade in a nutshell, if the pedal travel increases it's caused by the fluid overheating, if it's pad fade the pedal will be very hard.

leecalcars

iTrader: (37)

fitted the new front discs and red stuff pads "i can now stop"

excellent pads when warmed up...

Tuts

re the cross drilled and grooved. Why don't people like them?
Am I better off with grooved or drilled and grooved? What are the bad points if any?

Blob wrx with 280\280 soon to be increased...

ozzy

drilled can lead to small cracks in the disc around the holes. Get grooved or plain, but not drilled IMHO.

Stefan

Stuart Knight

iTrader: (2)

I was told to not go for drilled discs if doing track work. A couple of grooves is enough to help deglaze the pads and clear gas build up. The reason behind not cross drilling is that you want as much "meat" as possible in your discs, this leads to a more consistent temperature spread across the disc and therefore less cracking. More consistent temperatures leads to more consistent brakes as well. All this was told to me by a "brake expert", but there again lots of people have different opinions.

Tuts

Dont track the car but they do get hot. Grooved it is then. Cheers guys.

Just need to decided what to upgrade.
If I keep the standard calipers how much difference will I see with just disks and pads and braided lines? Or do I need to swap the calipers to get any real benefit?