speedform

I posted this write-up on another site but I don't think there's many road course fans there so I thought I'd repost here. Cheers,

Recently I attended a local track event on a local road course to test out a new set of brake pads (well, new to me as I've usually run PFC's or Carbotech's on my old Evo and 350z).

I contacted Essex Parts (essexparts.com) for some insight on what to run. Knowing these cars are not exactly svelte and that the road course I'd be driving is known to chew up brakes (and body panels for that matter), I needed something that would last a minimum 25 minutes of consistent abuse and keep me out of the tirewall. Jeff at Essex suggested I try Ferodo's DS1-11 race compound.

These pads were designed with endurance racing and rally driving in mind so they can take a pounding with minimal fade over extended periods. Or, in my case, when driving one heavy a#s car!

Essex paired the DS1-11's on my Brembo equipped front's with a set of Ferodo DS 2500's for the rear and after a somewhat mild break-in period the day before (always a tough thing to do living in an urban setting) I was ready to hit the track.
First thing I noticed was that these pads require some real heat to work well. I really had to lay into the braking on my warm-up lap but once the track went hot these pads performed very well.

Braking remained consistent throughout the session with decent pedal feel and modularity. I always felt in control and confident the brakes would be there when needed. I was consistently out-braking much smaller and lighter cars and kept pushing further and further into the braking zone, looking for the point at which these pads would start to fade but didn't find it. Surprisingly the OE brake fluid held up well, right until the end of the day when ambient temps were at their hottest. I will however be changing the fluid out before the next track day (ran out of time for this event).

Towards the end of each session I did feel quite a bit of chatter through the steering wheel, which seemed consistent with a warped rotor. But once the session was over and the brakes had time to cool the chatter went away, which leads me to believe the stock rotors can only take so much heat. A brake cooling kit might be my next modification.
So all-in-all a pretty good setup for you weekend track rats out there. These pads ain't cheap but after pulling them off and seeing little wear from new suggests they'll last awhile and won't melt like a mild street/track pad might on track.