987s Brake Pad alternatives

WILLR · Dec 17, 2005

Has anyone had trouble with the standard 987S brake pads, after heavy use?
If so, have you replaced them with something more robust?

Mark_Bennett · Dec 17, 2005

Good grief - what problems are you having?
What sort of heavy use do you mean (I can only assume you mean on track?)
Could you expand a little?

WILLR · Dec 17, 2005

Just returned from a great day at Bedford, which is well known for killing brakes (though never been a problem for me in the past). Inspected the pads and it looks like the few millimeters closest to the disc is toasted!

danofesher · Dec 18, 2005

Do you mean that some paint has discoloured?. That's usual when they get hot. Are the discs cracked?. If no cracks at all then I doubt the pads got excessively hot (even if the discs are cracked it doesn't mean the pads got too hot. I've seen people come in with smoke pouring off all four sets of pads!).

WILLR · Dec 18, 2005

Hi Dan,

No, the discs aren't cracked at all, but pads are discoloured:

The problem was juddering under heavy braking - no significant loss of brake efficiency. I believe the cause of brake judder is normally uneven deposit on the disk due to incorrect pad break-in, but I'd done a lot of miles on the road with quite a few hard stops. Strange thing is, when I tried some reasonably hard stops on the road today there was no judder - which is why I wondered if it is heat-related.

GMS · Dec 19, 2005

Pads should easily cope with more than one track day.I have had my car for 9 months and done 20,000 miles as well as five track days.Have just changed both front and back brake pads.Front disc are quite heavilly scored though.
Managed to change both sets before the wear indicators broke so saved a few quid.Only takes around 1.5 hours to change both sets.
Got a good deal from Design911 on genuine OEM pads.
Next track days Goldtrack on Saturday 14th and Brands fancy coming along.
GMS

WILLR · Dec 20, 2005

Saturday 14th of what? I thought they were doing Brands Indy on 14th Jan.
Will certainly be doing some Goldtrack days next year.

Agree the pads should last more than 1 day - they have - plenty of meat left on them, as above - but the juddering was annoying.

Guest · Dec 20, 2005

I had a similar problem with judder on a track day and figured I had not bedded them in properly prior to the day. There are various pages on the web giving advice on how to bed in brakes but generally it seems to be getting the brakes warm by dragging them as you drive then taking the car up to abou 60mph and braking hard down to 10mph- just before ABS kicks in- and repeating a number of times then driving around without using the brakes to let them cool down. They are then bedded in.

Another reason could be that after finishing some laps the brakes did not get a chance to cool down sufficiently befoer stopping and you have got a small amount of localised distortion due the pad being next to the disc whilst still hot - If this has happened having the disc's skimmined in situ can cure it