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MG MGF Technical - Green Stuff heavy wear - alternatives?

Hallo,
I have fitted a pair of green stuffs to the front brakes about 5 months and less than 5000 miles ago - today I was told that I need to get new ones because they're already down to their very last milimeters (a new record??? ;-) OK, I admit some of those miles were done on the Nürburgring...)!!!
I am extremely happy with the performance of the Green Stuffs even on the track, so I wouldn't want anything inferior, but on the other hand I am not happy about the thought that I have to buy new pads twice a year...! Can anybody recommend pads with similar performance but better wear characteristics? Mintex, Pagid etc...?
Thanks,
Nikolaj
Nikolaj

No experience with Pagid pads Nikolaj, but have nothing but praise for the Mintex items that I use now (1177s).

1144s are more readily availbale- and used by both Dave and Steve. To my knowledge these pads wear exceptionally well, so are probably worth considering.

Green stuff pads gone in 5k miles? Yup new record. It took me 10k to wear mine down to a third... what have you been up to? ;o))
Rob Bell

Nikolaj,

As Rob said I have most recently used Mintex 1144s. These have lasted 8000 miles over 10 months of which some 400 miles were track day miles (the last 200 were very heavy track day miles that took a few millimetres off my Bridgestone SO2s aswell!) So on that basis they have not done as well as Rob's but a little better than yours.

Rob, I have noticed that the last 2 or 3 millimetres or so wore down very quickly. I had to replace the rear pads first and at the point that I noticed the lack of material on the rears, the front's still looked to have some left. But, within another 3 or 400 miles this disappeared.

I asked Marvin at TechSpeed if he thought the rears going first was unusual and at first he did think so, but then he qualified this by saying that he had seen heavy rear wear as a result of track miles. He then pondered on the possibility that the rears did more work than was generally thought. However, as I say, I then discovered that the fronts went down to nothing within a short space of time - so who knows!

Dave
Dave

Hi all,
on a lighter note - I rather buy and fit new pads now and then instead of changing my 280 mm disks due to heavy wear and scoring :) Next step up is Red stuff and then there is Black.....

Regards , Carl.
Carl

>>He then pondered on the possibility that the rears did more work than was generally thought.<<

LOL Dave- this is something I've been saying for some time! ;o)
IMO the front brakes DO perform the vast majority of the braking on the 'F, but because of the relative rear-bias of the weight distribution, the rear pads do disproportionately more work than those on a front-engined car.
FWIW I had exactly the same pattern of wear with my EBC pads before changing them for Mintex.
Rob Bell

I use green stuff. Good braking, and the pad wear isn't that bad. The main advantage to me is almost zero wear on the discs with green stuff pads. Longer wearing pads do more damage to the discs, requiring skimming if not replacement of the discs each time the pads wear out. Replacing pads is pretty easy, and the cost savings on the discs more than makes up for the extra cost of the kevlar green stuff pads.
george

I hear good results from Pagid, although haven't tried them myself.

Pad wear is proportional to the work rate and a very major point missed so far is that there is a balance between pad and disc wear. Where there is a bias towards pad wear this usually reflects in less disc wear. However if you then reduce the pad wear by using a harder material, and the useage remains the same you will then transfer that wear into the discs. 6 of one and half a dozen of another.

Rog

Roger Parker

Hi,

I don't know about Green Stuff, but after following many favourable comments on this BBS I fitted EBC Black Stuff pads on my 214, to replace the originals which had reached their limits after 51,000 miles. I wanted a little more grip and less brake dust. Around 12,000 miles later the pads started making alarming grinding noises when braking from 70ish speeds. Eventually I pulled them out at 14k and the inners were worn to 1.5 mm, and the pad material cracked on both of them. The outer pads were 3 to 4 mm. I'm now back on Ferodos.

My driving style and routes haven't changed, except that I've probably become more doddery. I just couldn't believe that the pads wore away over four times more quickly than the originals. I would have been charged with driving a car with defective brakes if I'd been stopped. So I can't recommend those.

Less brake dust? You must be kidding. The front wheels looked as if they were covered in soot.

Regards, Kes.
Kes

when i had my rover 200 cab, the myhneer bbs had only good things to say about pagid brakes. Ive never used them though. Just thought id make a point!!!!
:-)
Chris Glen

Nikolaj,

>some of those miles were done on the Nürburgring...)!!!

Rob
> what have you ben up to ?
Nurburg Ring F1 6km short grandprix course

LOL... Nikolaj, mate you should not brake, but DRIVE there. Was it braking at the Veedol-'S' or Coca Cola curve ? *g*g*g*
Marco flew off at the Mercedes curve the other year. :))))

I recall my first try on the ring (we think on the short fast F1 ring, not the Nordschleife).
http://www.mgf-net.de/dsk/index.htm
Check out the MPEG files.
Standard brakes got 'weak' already after 2 and a half lap.

How was your's in October ? You never talked about it at the german forum.

Now what will you try now ? Mintex, like Rob ?

Gruss,
Regards
Dieter
Dieter Koennecke

Hi Dieter :-) !

>mate you should not brake, but DRIVE there

If the only thing I did all day was to brake I wouldn't have killed my brake pads, don't you think?! ;-)
And yes, I nearly went of in the Mercedes corner, as well, seems it's not made for MG-Fs ... or rather the other way round, the F isn't made for Merc corners *g*!
Seems I even managed to break my left rear wheel bearing there, as well, you know the car really jumps off the curbs sideways in that right hander and that was probably too much... Car is once again undrivable at the moment, but I'll get it sorted on monday! I've got some video footage of my track work, too, maybe you can add the "highlights" to your page?!

On the subject of brake performance on the GP circuit:
The Greenstuffs were an absolute joy to use, once the brakes were warmed up the braking performance was superb and very constant untill about lap 9 to 10, when fading eventually began to set in, but I suspect that was more down to my brake fluid starting to boil, because I had it checked yesterday and the boiling point was way too low at 174 °C. That said I didn't always brake at the 100% latest braking point, it was more like 80% but still later than most of the others...! But still, I was impressed with the Greenstuffs!

Kes, you mentioned Ferodos. I found FCP 613s DS2000 for the MG-F, is that what you use? From what they say on their homepage these pads seem to be very good indeed, they promise a constant friction coefficient of over 0.4 from 200°C right up to 500°C with still very good performance when cold. Seems to be an excellent alternative...! They also say that under extreme race-like conditions, the lifetime of such pads can be reduced to about 400 to 800 km!!!! So now I know what went wrong with my Greenstuffs ;-)

Regards, Nikolaj
Nikolaj

Hi,

Nikolaj, the Ferodos I put on my 214 were standard replacement pads, called Premier, FDB608. They seem to have more bite than the old Black Stuffs. If they go as far as the originals - 50k - then I'll be happy. If I have time I'll have a look at Ferodo's web site and see what they say about them.

Regards, Kes.
Kes

This thread was discussed between 05/12/2001 and 09/12/2001

MG MGF Technical index

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