Testing Prototype Endless Brake Pads
Jul 25, 2007, 11:46 AM
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Testing Prototype Endless Brake Pads
I've had a long relationship with the gang from Endless USA, having known one of the operators / owners for many years. I ran their 6-piston mini kit on my old 240, ran their pads on my old Civic, Starion and a bunch of other cars and the experience has been very positive.
When I picked up the Evo back in October, my biggest gripe were the brakes. Based on my experience, I personally HATED the Brembo pads because:
- They felt very squishy to me, especially under hard, late braking / panic stops
- Just didn't perform "right"; even if I had my right foot on the brakes full tilt, the brakes just didn't seem to generate enough braking power
- Very dusty; I don't mind this much but cleaning my old stock MR wheels (with all the crevices) was a PITA because the Brembo pad dust seemed to just stick and not want to come out
Based on what I've seen tuning shops run out of Japan (street & track cars; speaking to friends in the industry over there and based on what I read in Hyper Rev), about 3 out of 5 seem to run the Brembo calipers + replacement pads (CyberEvo, for example), while the remainder opt to replace the brakes altogether. So, I believe it's a reasonable to assume that the Brembo calipers are up to snuff but the stock pads are not.
Seeking better braking performance, I threw on Endless SS-S pads. I know others on the forum have had positive experiences with these pads and mine wasn't any different. Definitely better bite when cold, hard braking was no problem and the squishy feel of the stock Brembo pads disappeared. BUT... these pads were noisy.
Just for the sake of comparison, I called up two buddies of mine who also own Evos. One's running Project Mu pads, the other Hawk HPs. The Project Mu's were louder than the Endless pads. The Hawk's were pretty quiet. Mind you, I greased the **** out of the Endless pads when installing. It didn't do any good. The Endless brakeset I had on my 240 didn't squeal at all and I was running the same SS-S pads. I asked the gang over at Endless what the deal was, especially since other manufacturers' pads didn't have this "excessive noise" issue. They pointed to the caliper design for the problem. Now, I am not an expert on automotive caliper design (maybe someone can put their $0.02 regarding this) but I have worked on bicycle brake designs (side-pull and cantilever for Shimano, hydraulic with Magura and disc with Dia-Compe) and I'm personally suspecting it has something to do with the symmetric piston design / lack of a leading edge configuration on the pistons (the partially cut brake shim seems to point in that direction). But this is all conjecture on my part. Anyways...
I was *****ing to them about the noise. To me, pads shouldn't squeal like that unless we're talking full competition compound metallic / carbon pads. For most of us, including myself, brakes that squeal like a pack of rats facing imminent death isn't very attractive.
Well, they recently asked me to test some new prototype brakepads dubbed the "GT-L" (photo above). These were apparently developed with OEM Brembo brake systems in mind, including the squeal that many seemed to face with performance-oriented pads. I went through the usual motion during install. Using Permatex with the shims as usual. I bed them and... no noise. I've been on them for almost 1,000 miles now and there's no noise. Braking seems to be on par with the SS-S pads. So far, so good.
As far as brake dust is concerned, here are some photos taken before and after about 350 miles of driving. The wheels were much easier to clean, probably due to an easier-to-clean design over my stock MR wheels. I just sprayed it with water while washing the car and wiped it clean with a microfiber. No scrubbing required.
One immediate difference I noticed between the SS-S and GT-L pads is... the SS-S pads are chamfered at the edges, whereas the GT-L pads are not. I suspect that this leads to greater surface contact, but psi per square inch is reduced. Whether this translates to a performance difference still remains to be seen.
The gang over at Endless told me SCC is going to be testing these pads as well so I'm sure you'll get a more "scientific" test in that magazine's pages sometime soon. In the meantime, I'll post my conclusions within a week or two.
I hope this has been useful to some of you.
When I picked up the Evo back in October, my biggest gripe were the brakes. Based on my experience, I personally HATED the Brembo pads because:
- They felt very squishy to me, especially under hard, late braking / panic stops
- Just didn't perform "right"; even if I had my right foot on the brakes full tilt, the brakes just didn't seem to generate enough braking power
- Very dusty; I don't mind this much but cleaning my old stock MR wheels (with all the crevices) was a PITA because the Brembo pad dust seemed to just stick and not want to come out
Based on what I've seen tuning shops run out of Japan (street & track cars; speaking to friends in the industry over there and based on what I read in Hyper Rev), about 3 out of 5 seem to run the Brembo calipers + replacement pads (CyberEvo, for example), while the remainder opt to replace the brakes altogether. So, I believe it's a reasonable to assume that the Brembo calipers are up to snuff but the stock pads are not.
Seeking better braking performance, I threw on Endless SS-S pads. I know others on the forum have had positive experiences with these pads and mine wasn't any different. Definitely better bite when cold, hard braking was no problem and the squishy feel of the stock Brembo pads disappeared. BUT... these pads were noisy.
Just for the sake of comparison, I called up two buddies of mine who also own Evos. One's running Project Mu pads, the other Hawk HPs. The Project Mu's were louder than the Endless pads. The Hawk's were pretty quiet. Mind you, I greased the **** out of the Endless pads when installing. It didn't do any good. The Endless brakeset I had on my 240 didn't squeal at all and I was running the same SS-S pads. I asked the gang over at Endless what the deal was, especially since other manufacturers' pads didn't have this "excessive noise" issue. They pointed to the caliper design for the problem. Now, I am not an expert on automotive caliper design (maybe someone can put their $0.02 regarding this) but I have worked on bicycle brake designs (side-pull and cantilever for Shimano, hydraulic with Magura and disc with Dia-Compe) and I'm personally suspecting it has something to do with the symmetric piston design / lack of a leading edge configuration on the pistons (the partially cut brake shim seems to point in that direction). But this is all conjecture on my part. Anyways...
I was *****ing to them about the noise. To me, pads shouldn't squeal like that unless we're talking full competition compound metallic / carbon pads. For most of us, including myself, brakes that squeal like a pack of rats facing imminent death isn't very attractive.
Well, they recently asked me to test some new prototype brakepads dubbed the "GT-L" (photo above). These were apparently developed with OEM Brembo brake systems in mind, including the squeal that many seemed to face with performance-oriented pads. I went through the usual motion during install. Using Permatex with the shims as usual. I bed them and... no noise. I've been on them for almost 1,000 miles now and there's no noise. Braking seems to be on par with the SS-S pads. So far, so good.
As far as brake dust is concerned, here are some photos taken before and after about 350 miles of driving. The wheels were much easier to clean, probably due to an easier-to-clean design over my stock MR wheels. I just sprayed it with water while washing the car and wiped it clean with a microfiber. No scrubbing required.
One immediate difference I noticed between the SS-S and GT-L pads is... the SS-S pads are chamfered at the edges, whereas the GT-L pads are not. I suspect that this leads to greater surface contact, but psi per square inch is reduced. Whether this translates to a performance difference still remains to be seen.
The gang over at Endless told me SCC is going to be testing these pads as well so I'm sure you'll get a more "scientific" test in that magazine's pages sometime soon. In the meantime, I'll post my conclusions within a week or two.
I hope this has been useful to some of you.
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Aug 2, 2007, 05:51 PM
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I see it does leave some break dust, but what are your thoughts compared to say the Hawk HPS which hardly leaves any dust at all? I still have my stock pads and will be in the market for a new set, hoping these will be my choose.
Aug 3, 2007, 03:31 PM
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Personally, brake dust isn't a huge issue for me since I wash my car once a week. I'm focused on how well the brakes work, how they feel and the noise generation that happens with some pads. At the end of the day, everything's a compromise. Considering the performance of the GT-L pads, the improvement they made over the stock Brembos and even the SS-S pads and no noise generation makes them my pick.
Nov 30, 2007, 01:24 AM
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The pads are now available. UrbanRacer did a little write-up on em ---> http://www.urbanracer.com/articles/a...sp?a=2783&z=21
