Guys,

What brake pads have you upgraded to ? ( apart from stock ). I want pads that are sharper than stock, ain't worried about brake dust but do NOT want any squealing. I'm looking at ECB but am not sure which type - Redstuff, green, yellow or ultimax. Any experiences would be most appreciated.

 

ECB Green or Hawk HPS, just make sure you bed them properly. Progressive heating and cooling are key. Do it properly and they are quite, not very dusty, bite better as they get hotter and don't seem to fade.

 

OEM brakes are excellent...no squealing and low wear, if you switch to Hawk or any other brand, be prepared to replace your rotors more often
they bite into your rotors a lot more and will cost you more $$$$$

 

That depends more on how you drive and what rotors you are using.

 

Had my HPS for near 40k with no rotor concerns in daily use or track time every month. Stock pads do fade in a couple of hard laps; Hawks never did. I don't think the stock brakes stopped much further than HPS but they did after a couple of fast laps..

 

I'd disagree on the OEM brakes being all that great. They are quiet for sure, but that's about where it ends. They do not have a good stopping distance. (for example, My ridgeline takes 6 feet more to stop and it weighs LITERALLY one ton (2000lbs) more than the fit. My Integra was 12' less but weighed 150lbs more.) The Fit takes 134' to stop from 60. For comparison, the Fiesta does it in 119' but it does have 195 width tires. - either way, 134 is not good, especially for a vehicle of this size.

I had AEM Ceramic brake Pads in my Integra and they gripped really pretty well and were very quiet. no squeaking at all. If you are looking at upgrading your brake pads, consider also that where the vehicle meets the road (tires) are the most important part of braking. your pads will only work as hard as your tires will allow them to. (If your tires slide easily, putting great pads on will only initiate that skidding sooner.) grippy pads need Grippy tires.

~SB

 

The problem with the OEM pads is the Dunslop tire that's standard. Switch to a better tire and the braking improves a great deal. Still not as good as it could be with good aftermarket but much better than 'showroom'. Try putting the cheap Dunslops on your Acura and see what happens.

 

im sure the rear drum brakes add to the braking problem, but hey......the car only has 1 weakness, and i don't think the braking is that big of a deal.
the car has so many benefits....it's still the top car in this segment.

 

The OEM Bridgestones aren't too bad but aren't the greatest either. My Integra (GS-R) had worse than the Dunlops. it had the Michelin XGT-V4 tires which were AWFUL. I upgraded them once they wore out to Yokohamas and after that a set of Dunlop Direzza DZ101's. they were great tires for the price. the Direzzas and the AEM Brake pads made that car stop on a dime.

The drums have possibly a little to do with the braking distance but probably not a whole lot. If the car had a 50/50 (or even close to that) weight distribution, the rear brakes would have more to do with stopping but since the car is extremely nose heavy, the front brakes & Tires have more work put on them.

~SB

 

The first set of pads i installed was ATE pads... They've done a great job with no noise at all a lot less dusty than OEM and good life span... This summer i'm upgrading to Ferodo DS2500 as i want the car to stop on a dime

 

^^^ agree!

I'm up to 73,000 miles on my GE and the original pads are still good!

 

By good, are you referring to the fact that they don't need to be changed? The OEM brake system takes too long to stop the FIT. It should be 120'-125' to stop the fit, not the 134'+.

I'll be upgrading when I need new "summer" tires so that the capability of the brakes will match the capability of new tires.

~SB

 

Bingo.

And lets dispell this rumor about Hawk/EBC pads by default eating your rotors faster... they will only bite as hard as you push on the frickin pedal.

On older cars I have had the same pair of Hawk HPS pads last me years, with several track sessions on them.

Yet people seem to trash their pads in less than 40k on cars that never leave the street or even legal road speeds.

It's all in how you use them. If you are running through pads and rotors, it might be time for a driver mod... or roller blades.

Because that tells me you are braking hard and late. Usually the ones complaining about wear and tear with aggressive pads are the folks who pay the least attention to what they are doing on the road, the ones that have no idea how to conserve momentum. Or soccer moms with stock running gear who have blackened their front wheels in brake dust while the wheels on the back axle remain OE silver because they are looking at the damn iPhone instead of traffic while tailgating.

If you wear through your brakes quickly, odds are good that you are the problem and not the hardware.

 

Yeah by "good" I mean not grinding the rotors. I am amazed that I haven't done anything to the Fit except oil/filters/tires in 70k miles. Not even the wiper blades have been swapped!

 

I'll have to look at the aftermarket pads when mine finally wear out. Especially since my Fit is wearing some 205/50/16s that weigh more than stock.

 

only thing with the hawks is the dust... i went with ATE premium one the first time and loved them... slow wear and zero dust! i just wanted something more track worthy

 

read up on this thread from NASIOC. it's very interesting.

This is going to get a lot of you bent out of shape. RE: Brake upgrades - NASIOC

 

And it is all true, you can get the same information from the Techs over at StopTech, Wilwood, Baer, Brembo, etc.

But if you have sticky tires, then your pads and rotors become the weak link.

When you have the tires, pads and rotors.. then you fluid becomes the weak link. To make any further improvement on this you would then need a larger rotor, a wider tire and a lighter or shorter wheel.

All of the above will significantly cut down your stopping distance.

Then all that is left is your reaction time.

And if you weren't paying attention in the first place, none of the above does you any good anyways.

 

So more than a year later and i'm reviving this thread...

About time for me to get some pads, has anything changed? Better offerings for the GE or is Hawk HPS and EBC still the go-to?

I've had both HPS and EBC Green in the past and to my suprise I actually preferred the EBCs. Will get for the Fit unless there's a super-awesome pad that's come out recently.

I agree with what was said last year (lol) that the braking in the Fit is pretty terrible in stock form, hoping pads will help.

 

I've been running my ProjectMu HC+ pads front and rear since owning the car (Jan '10), it has seen 6 track days (damn that sounds too little), uncountable touge runs plus daily driving in the Tokyo grind, still on original stock rotors as well and I'm one of the latest, hardest brakers I know when out on circuit and the car still brakes wonderfully. Though I am contemplating going with the J's/Seido-Ya 6 piston front setup in the near future. Pads are dusty and squeal, but that is to be expected as they are true all around pad with a temp range of 0-800*C (1472*F). Have yet to feel any fade and in fact my master cylinder heated up and induced a bit of mush at the end of one session and not the pads losing bite at all and it wasn't the fluid as I was running a 5.1 fluid at the time installed just 10 days prior to that event. This I'm also going to be working on with J's and Seido-Ya about a new master cylinder setup. Umehara-San of J's and Sakamoto-San of Seido-Ya already have something in the pipeline to correct this deficiency.

Granted if you are not out pounding on the car, this is of real no benefit to you. Also the stock brake system is not really the underlying issue, the stock tires are.