Isaac Acks takes FIRST Place in his EVO with EBC Bluestuff

Posted by admin

October 22, 2010

Just like the description says, bed in time is pretty minimal. They’re bedded and ready within 4 or 5 braking stints. After that, the feel is pretty consistent. Cold bite is almost as good as when they’re heated up. The limit on what these Bluestuff brake pads can help accomplish though is highly dependent on tires.

On street tires (Dunlop Direza Z1 Star Specs 245/40-18) you can break loose the wheels if you slam the brakes hard. This in turn makes the car harder to turn or maneuver into whatever course obstacle you’re trying to get around. What it means is you need to pretend like you have ABS and use smoother control and modulation. It’s not hard to do, but it can hurt you time wise if you’re really into very late threshold braking. I still definitely prefer these over the Yellowstuff brake pads.

On race tires (Hoosier A6 285/30-18) they work fantastic. The bite and stopping power of the pads combined with the grip of the slicks allow solid braking without the worry of tires coming loose like on street tires. The feel of the pads is also smooth and consistent even with a high amount of runs. I tested these pads with the Golden Gate Lotus Club which has an average of 12 runs per a person and the brakes never faded on me. I also managed to take 1st place in the Open Class that event.

Other factors I like about these pads are the low noise and low rotor wear. The noise is little to none on these Bluestuff brake pads which is fantastic for a track level pad. The rotor wear appears good too. The wear appears smooth and I’m not killing them with harsh metal on metal style contact like with the PFC97. I remember on those I could shoot sparks on cold pads.

In comparison, I find these pads much better than the Ferodo DS3000 but slightly worse than the PFC97 or 01 pads. Those brake pads have a higher bite when warmed up. The difference is very small though. I would definitely recommend these pads over the PFCs or others. The performance, sound, and price point makes these great pads to own, and I will replace them with blues again when the time comes.

I don’t have track data yet to compare with, but I should have some later this year. I plan on returning to Laguna Seca later this year, and I’ll let you know how they feel. Based on the auto-x data though, I’m definitely expecting to drop some time down with the ability to brake faster.

The auto-x pics you can see within this blog were taken by friends and are from the past couple events and have the EBC Brakes magnets. I need to get some better ones though. The Laguna Seca pics were taken by Blue Milk and are from when I smoked the Yellowstuff brake pads. I also have vids at http://www.youtube.com/user/DarkCSE