changing to different Brake pads and oil?

[Lmayer]

I am a new owner of Caterham 7-480 (2013)in the US.   I'm driving it as a hobby car on the street and several club visits to Road America per year.  What replacement brake pads have people found to work reliably at the track and functional on the street?

What oil works well with this Hobby street use and occassional track use as stated above?  Has anyone used any of AMSOil's high performance synthetics?  
Thanks in advance for your time and advice   LM

[Jonathan Kay]

Welcome.

Do you have an Assembly Guide and Handbook? If not let me know and I'll email them.

Jonathan

[john milner]

By most the car is considered to be over braked at the rear so as a general rule no upgrades at the back unless the front is done to an even higher spec. The usual advice is Mintex 1144 on the front and Caterham supplied uprated pads on the back. However in the UK this can potentially cause problems as the Mintex pads are not street legal and any upgrade from OEM (that includes a Caterham supplied street legal upgrade) would need to be notified to the insurer. Also the Mintex pads can squeal a lot until fully bedded in, have a breaking in procedure that involves braking rapidly from 50-70mph and they give off a lot of dust.

Personally I have EBC Ultimax2 at the front and Caterham standard pads at the back. The Ultimax2 pads are considered to be OEM but claim to perform at the top end of the OEM standards. If I didn't have to tell my insurer I would have gone for EBC Greenstuff which are a street legal and low dust upgrade. I do not know for certain if any of this is wise or I am a victim of marketing hype.

Plenty of people race with standard brakes so it might be waste of time upgrading unless you really need more braking performance.

Amsoil products are quite rare in the UK. Very expensive and few retailers so don't expect many replies.

[tomwood]

Can you get hold of any of the Fuchs product line over in the states? (Formerly Silkolene I believe). If so, lots of us are running the proper Ester synthetic Fuchs Titan Pro S 5w-40 with this engine with good experiences.

to be fair though, there's nothing particularly special about the Ford engines so you could run any good make available to you as long as it meets the right specification. Amsoil are recognised to be good so I see no reason not to use them provided you can get one to the right spec.

[Simon.Rogers]

I am just about to ship some DS2500 to Calgary for the AP 4 pots.

Total cost excluding VAT but incl shipping with FedEx is £133.00

I disagree completely about the rear being over braked and have been upping the pad strength on the rear for many customers with great success.

 

[john milner]

Happy to have someone disagree over the braking bias as I have not noticed it myself but nearly anyone that comments on this says the rear is over braked and that 1144 at front helps to improve the balance. There are plenty of posts that are against using 1144 at both ends which would also support this. Also consider the likely bias from late 1960s Triumph front brakes from a lightweight car and 1980s rear Ford's from a saloon car.

[7 wonders of the world]

The origin of the components have no the bearing on the performance providing there in working condition.

Disc radius, Co efficient of friction, Caliper and m/cyl piston diameters are the main considerations.

 

[john milner]

I think the origin of brake components must at least give a hint to how they will perform. The relatively lightweight master cylinder probably takes away some of the potential power from the rear brakes or the balance would be off the scale. There are numerous posts on a rear bias and some owners even feel the need to fit bias valves to sort it out. If by default the rears lock first my assumption would be that either the standard front is under braked or the rear is over braked. It will be nigh on impossible to get perfect balance without a valve that is frequently adjusted but there will be a pad combination that achieves almost perfection under most conditions.

From what I have read in other posts my point is still valid that the rears should not be upgraded without doing the fronts although a front only upgrade may be better than leaving things as standard.

https://www.lotus7.club/forum/techtalk/rear-brakes-7

https://www.lotus7.club/forum/rear-brakes-locking-first

https://www.lotus7.club/forum/techtalk/are-my-standard-brakes-working-alright

https://www.lotus7.club/forum/techtalk/brake-pads-different-friction-coefficient-update

[7 wonders of the world]

John,

Lightweight master cylinder in what respect? - the key feature here is bore size which directly affects the hydraulic ratio.

Same with the calipers total piston area is the important factor.

Variation on piston sizes, differential set ups etc, can affect pad wear in certain applications, though aside from the weight of cast iron calipers theres nothing wrong with there performance irrespective of origin.

Were looking at a light car here and vehicle loading plays quite a part -

We run without the aid of pressure limiting or load sensing valves so the brakes are subject to the same line pressures irrespective of load, so the rears may appear more sensitive when theres only a 60kg driver onboard - compared with two up both weighing 100kg each also consider the proximity of driver and passengers to the rear axle and the difference in wheel loading this has. Naturally fuel load and luggage also impact o this too.

Car set up, corner weights, tyre pressures, tyre age & size and driver skill etc are also contributory factors in getting effective controlled retardation.