Service
After several IM conversation w/ Andie W. Lin of Carbotech (andiewlin@yahoo.com), I called him to ordered some Panther Plus pads on monday. He stated he just sold the last set and would have to make some and can overnight it to arrive on Fri. Well, I get home about 1am this morning and what do I find on the front door? Yup, the pads arrived two days early.
I was tired as fug, but went ahead and installed it and went for a break-in session at 2am. After the initial moderate braking to heat them up, I went for some heavy braking action. OMG, the car felt like it was going to do an endo - LOL! I had so much fun driving around, the break-in drive turned into over 1hr of driving around LA

Initial braking impresssion
I will report back here how they hold up after a 2 day session at Willow Springs this weekend.



yoshi - who only got 2 hrs of sleep - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...............

 

Heh, i picked up that last set, must have called about an hour before you on monday

 

huhu, small world

yoshi - whose glad he put in the pads last night b/c it's raining today

 

Yoshi, are you going to use those for street and track use?

 

Carbotech makes great pads coupled with great service.. Once they have your billing info, all you have to do is give Andy your name and what you want in a instant message and he will have it out the door!

Corey - who has some new panther XP pads comming

 

Well... didn't sound like he took them out after breaking them in.

Yoshi -- how's the pedal feel now?
I'd also like to hear more of your impression of that pad (front only?)


[Modified by zygspeed, 11:12 AM 11/29/2001]

 

Flux:
These will be a track only pad.
ART pads for street/autox
Carbotech pads for track events

Ed:
The pedal is still soft, but an odd thing occured. As the pads heated up, the pedal seemed to firm up. But as I drove around more to cool them off, the pedal felt soft again - my imagination? I have one more bottle of Motul600 left so I'm going to try and bleed them again tonite. If that doesn't cure the softness, then it's time for Ford HD. (oh, I only got the front pads for now)

yoshi - who can barely keep his eyes open right now

 

From what I understand, if you have run the motul and try to switch to a different fluid, your MC will go bad because the way the Motul reacts with the seals.. Foo mentioned that in one of his posts, to make sure not to change the fluid type after running Motul..

 

doh, I forgot about that!!!!!
Does anyone know if this is true (not that I don't believe the F00 man)

 

Yup, I read that too!
Sort of has me thinking ... because I just put in a full flush of Motul 300C (and it was BLUE)!

 

That makes two of us

Bryan

 

That sounds like someone was talking about DOT 5 brake fluid, which is silicone-based fluid. Motul makes several different kinds of fluid. Motul RBF 600, which is the kind that most of us use, is NOT silicone-based brake fluid. There should not be any problem changing between Motul and any other DOT 3, DOT 4, or DOT 5.1 fluid, none of which are silicone-based.

 

Thanks Ken.
looks like Ford HD if the final bleeding w/ Motul600 doesn't go well.

yoshi - who drove the Land Bruiser today to let the pads "cure" :D

 

For the ITR, my optimal setups for track use are:

Panther Plus FRONT and Panther REAR
or
Panther XP FRONT and Panther Plus REAR

Basically, on the ITR, since the car is light, you do not want to have too strong a compound in the rear RELATIVE to the front. While you CAN run the Panther Plus in the front with the OEM rear pads, this is not optimal, though certainly not unsafe. What you will find is that with a very aggressive compound in the FRONT and a street compound in the REAR, you will have noticeably more forward brake bias, and the rear of the car will rotate more quickly under trailbraking. For auto-x, this may be desireable depending on your driving style. Likewise, to rotate the rear of the car, you can just firm up your rear suspension.

Andie

 

The only time I have EVER seen this happen is with ATE Superblue or Type 200. Note that I think this is what Roger was switching to/from the Motul. I'd blame the ATE first It's stupid, they make master cylinders for a bunch of cars, and yet sometimes when you use it with those mc's the seals go bad. Check out Audiworld. First sign is a squeaky mc.

Warren

 

My experiences with Carbotech, both their pads and their service, have been top notch. I placed an order for a set of Panther Pluses for the front and Panthers for the rear on Monday, Sept 10th. They didn't have any of the Pluses in stock so they said they would have to make a set for me and ship them out the next day. Needless to say, after all the airports closed on the 11th, they would not be shipping via air anytime soon, so they shipped them ground and they got here by Friday. I had a track event on Saturday, so I too stayed up and installed them and bedded them in at 1 am.

On the track they worked great, but off the drack they were very noisy, so I put the stock pads back on. Then, for the next track event I only put the Pluses on in the front, and ran stock pads in the rear for the weekend. (Those rear brakes are such a pain in the *** to work on. ) The combo seemed to work fine, but maybe I wasn't pushing them hard enough to notice the forward bias.

Anyway, Carbotech gets my !

-Floyd

 

yoshi: are you running these pads on stock calipers? And are you running them for everyday use or did you just put them on to set them in for track event...and you will be putting the stock pads on afterwards?

Also : how much?

 

Really? That's good to know since I'm running ATE Superblue.. but then again.. I have no desire or reason to switch to anything else

 

Najs Yoshi.....the endo part reminds me of the time I was in Ryosuke's MRS right after he got his Endless pads! When he braked hard it felt like we had hit something head on!

 

schweet!! i remember the days when i used to endo, bunny hop, and wheelie on my beach cruiser...sigh...those were the days...

 

How's the Panther Plus compare to Hawk Blue?? in terms of holding up the performance at the track, dustings etc..


[Modified by citanest, 3:59 PM 11/29/2001]

 

has anyone has any experience with regular Panthers in the front on the track or the street, everyone only seems to talk about the Panther Plus's. thanks.

 

After my set of Blues run thin I will try the Panthers.

I have heard....
-a little less inital bite
-dust that does not remove clearcoat
-a little more rotor friendly
-up the operating temp faster
-?

Willis
-who would like to be corrected if wrong

 

Just finished flushing out the Motul600 along w/ tranny fluid & engine oil change.
I'm never using Motul600 again! 4 flushes w/ motul600 in 3 days and pedal was still soft So I flushed it out w/ Valvoline synthetic. After one try, the pedal was 100times firmer

yoshi - who could've been sleeping alreay if it weren't for the chitty brake fluid

 

Yeah, it tends to be a little soft w/ Motul, which is bizarre considering that it's a fluid and really should be insignificantly compressable. Here's the thing though. The brakes are always there. I've learned to live with the long pedal stroke in trade for consistency.

Warren