Best Mustang brakes by EBC lasted much longer than expected for Jan Gerber

Posted by admin

February 25, 2011

I am using them on a 1997 Mustang GT that has Corvette C4 (same as Cobra) front brakes with some basic air ducting. The car has suspension mods but no engine mods and retains its’ full factory interior. My car only has 215 hp so I’m not going warp speed into braking zones, but it does weigh close to 3600 lbs with me in it!

When I received the Yellowstuff brake pads instead of the Bluestuff brake pads, I was slightly disappointed as I was really looking for pads to use for track days. I didn’t think the Yellowstuff brake pads would be enough pad for my heavy Mustang in the Instructor groups that I run in. I had been using Hawk HT-10. Last July, I put them on in my garage and bedded them in out on the highway and then went to the track day the next weekend at my home track, Midamerica Motorplex. I noticed that the drive to the track the brakes didn’t seem much different to the Hawk HPS pads that I normally used for street use. My first laps with the Yellowstuff brake pads supported my fears as they didn’t have the initial bite of the Hawk HT-10. The pads had a smooth initial bite but slowed the car nicely. The brakes were consistant for the whole session with no fall off like I was expecting. I ran them hard all weekend with four or five sessions of 20-30 minutes each day and I never had any fade or any other braking issues. Looking at the pads thru the wheels I could see that they were not wearing down too badly and I was quite surprised that they held up so well over a very hot July weekend. I was also surprised that my wheels weren’t nearly as covered in brake dust as what I normally was used to.

I got the car home, unloaded, and planned on swapping back to the street pads later that week. Before I could, I had to run an errand in the Mustang. While out running around town I realized that the car was acting like it had regular street pads on it. No noises, no grinding, and decent stopping distances even on cold brakes. I decided to leave the Yellowstuff pads on hoping they wouldn’t trash my old rotors like some of the older Hawk products (Blues) can do when driven on the street.

During this time we were preparing to go to Road America with the BMW club. Both my wife were slated to instruct for a day and we needed to drive two cars to the event. I wasn’t relishing the thought of having to do brake swaps on two cars once we got up there so I decided to just keep the Yellowstuff pads on my Mustang and drive it from Omaha to Wisconsin. I figured that Road America would eat the Yellowstuff brake pads up so I brought my old HT-10′s as spares and also my street HPS for the drive home. The drive up was completely uneventful from a brake stand point. The Yellowstuff pads acted just like a regular street pad. We competed in an AutoX while up there as well… again, no brake issues. The track day arrives and I go out on the same Yellowstuff pads I drove up there on. Now that I know what the pads feel like, I’m comfortable on how they work and how to use them. The sessions go by and I again have no braking issues, just smooth consistent brakes for each and every session.

After changing tires and brakes on my wifes car at the end of the day, I figured the Yellowstuff pads were done and would need to come off of the Mustang. When I took off the track tires I was amazed to find the Yellowstuff pads still had over 50% material remaining! They looked a little cooked/melted at the edges, but they were still there and had been performing fine all the way around Road America. The rotors looked great as well. I left them on and drove home to Omaha on them. Again, no problems.

Over the next few months I kept them on the Mustang. I did another easy track day, a couple of AutoX events, as well as light daily driving duties. When I decided to park the car for the winter I finally took the pads off. The fronts still are around 50% and the rears are more than that. They do show some cracks around the edges of the pad material and have lost some material due breaking away and melting. I didn’t take any pics of them but if you would like to see them I can and send them to you.

For what I do with my Mustang, (track day instructor, autoX, and occasional daily driver) I’ve found the Yellowstuff pad to be an excellent choice. I can put them on and leave them and also not have any real dusting problem. I’ve always thought that no pad would be able to pull double duty of handling street use AND track use… but I think the Yellowstuff can. I feel that if I was racing, I would want a more aggressive pad, but the Yellowstuff brake pads is a wonderful choice for a person like myself.

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