I have the article as a PDF, unfortunately I think its tool big to e-mail. It was in last year's Elaborare magazine.

They tested a variety of 'performance' pads (including the Roesch carbon fibre pads and ETF - who supply Mistubishi racing team) on an Evo 8 on both road and track. The EBC's were Redstuff and the Ferodo's were DS2500s. Roughly translated the results were:

COLD

BRAKES

Light braking / Heavy braking / Controlability under hard braking

EBC excellent / excellent / excellent

ETFs good / good / good

Ferodo Fair / good / adequate

ROESCH good / good / good

HOT

BRAKES

EBC Good / Excellent / Excellent

ETFs Good / Excellent / Good

Ferodo Good / Excellent / Adequate

ROESCH excellent / good / fair

This is an interesting read. I was another one who didn't realise about this approval and the 2500s not meeting the regs.

Also, I don't mind hosting that article for you; drop me a PM.

Steve

I think some of the bad press on the EBC was from previous compounds, but also that the EBC red stuff ceramic are *not* a race pad for regular use on track cars.

They work fine on the road and occasional light track use, but if you use them all the time they will fail.

From the EBC range, if you want track pads you go for yellow stuff.

I'm confident the DS2500 are good pads, and I'm trying to find out about R90 as so far I can only find it being compulsory on light and heavy good vehicles, although if anyone has a link, I'd much appreciate it.

i dont really carew aboout people comparing fade of pads really. itrs the pics of pads that have crumbled that scares me. and i havce seen a fair amount of pics showing EBC pads crumbling under hard use.

mucjipup, how do the hawk pads compare reghulation wise, i know the yanks rate the hawk HP+as good as the DS2500 performance wise if not better

I thought ECE R90 applied to all vehicles under 3.5 tonnes rather than light goods vehicles from what I understood , Cheezemonkhai. I thought this was a useful article although it didn't address your point: Eurotuner

Si, the HP+ are still sitting in my garage as I haven't had a chance to fit them but I can't find anything anywhere talking about them and R90 approval or not. I may still fit them as the general consensus seems to be 'dusty but great'

I can vouch for the fact (from working in the motor industry) that Reg 90 DOES apply to cars. It is technically illegal to fit non-Reg 90 pads to a car used on the public roads. For a big company like Ferodo not to have Reg-90 approval for the DS2500 (think of the extra sales it would generate) then I would think that those past must fall down in some respect.

I can vouch for the fact (from working in the motor industry) that Reg 90 DOES apply to cars. It is technically illegal to fit non-Reg 90 pads to a car used on the public roads. For a big company like Ferodo not to have Reg-90 approval for the DS2500 (think of the extra sales it would generate) then I would think that those past must fall down in some respect.

That's cool and your answer makes a lot of sense and is based on obvious inside knowledge of the things.

It's much appreciated.

i dont really carew aboout people comparing fade of pads really. itrs the pics of pads that have crumbled that scares me. and i havce seen a fair amount of pics showing EBC pads crumbling under hard use.

What pads were those though?

- Greens (are sh*te for any car with any weight or heavy use)

- Reds (old compound)

- Reds (ceramic v3 that have been heavily used on track)

- Reds (ceramic v3 that have been not used on track)

- Yellows

- Others.

The thing is if they pass R90, they can't be that bad as they would have failed during the R90 tests.

I'll accept that any of the first three could have cracked up, mainly because the greens are not IMHO great,. I don't know the old reds and the new ones are not designed for track use.

Mine are Red ceramic v3 on OEM discs, they have probably covered 50k miles, are not worn out yet and have also not crumbled either. They have had mostly fast road use, with a bit of Autobahn use including some very high speed emergency stops and I think 2 track/airfield days.

Edited 17 March, 201016 yr by cheezemonkhai

Id be wary of a Pad that is listed as fast road/light track use cracking up on the track. Just what you want as your braking into a corner, or even worse emergency stop on the motorway driving home

Id be wary of a Pad that is listed as fast road/light track use cracking up on the track. Just what you want as your braking into a corner, or even worse emergency stop on the motorway driving home

I've used mine hard and they have not cracked up. Like I said I think it's only the old compounds that had the issue.

If you use the reds for lots of track day use they are going to overheat a lot and in that case I'd go for the yellows, which was why the next set was a case of yellow vs DS2500 on my other thread.

If that R90 thing is an issue (which is sounds like it could be) then it would be Yellow vs DS performance which isn't such an easy choice.

I have run DS 2500 on the last few cars without problems.

I declare all mods & have declared them to the Insurance companies without any comment.

I posted on another thread that there was an Italian magazine test (equivalent of Autocar etc) where they did a 'blind test' of performance pads on a couple of Mitsubishi Evo's with race drivers at the wheel. The top scorer was the EBC Redstuff, which beat the DS2500 and Pagid race pads. The DS2500's came third. The downside was greater wear rate of the EBC's but in all other catagories they were better than the DS2500's and drivers liked them better. They measured the frictional coefficients of the pads after some track work and the Reds and DS2500's came out with the same figure (0.50).

That's now available to view/download HERE

Cheers,

Steve

That's now available to view/download HERE

Cheers,

Steve

That looks a very good article, it's a shame it's in Italian. I've read may article testing tyres but never brakes. I am a fan of EBC and used them on several of our cars.

I have a feeling that the reason why Mintex Extream pads were discontinued was because they did not comply with this Regulation 90.

Edited 18 March, 201016 yr by Jim H

I have run DS 2500 on the last few cars without problems.

I declare all mods & have declared them to the Insurance companies without any comment.

I'm going to give my insurance co a call and check, because I have "brake modifications" listed.

I can understand you would have to use R90 pads without telling your insurance, but I must admit I'm still surprised that DS2500 are no go on the road at all.

Especially as some performance cars come with these on as new.

I have a feeling that the reason why Mintex Extream pads were discontinued was because they did not comply with this Regulation 90.

Yes, that is correct. I understand that they were damaging discs.

That's now available to view/download HERE

Cheers,

Steve

Thanks for hosting that Steve - Italian isn't one of my strong points but it is still possible to see the results and stats for breaking coefficients etc.

I am looking at the Redstuff pads in a different way although my initial post was intended to suss out what this 'track day only' stuff was all about. This thread has certainly provided a lot of very useful information!!

I don't think for one second that DS2500s are a bad pad; there is too much positive talk and subjective testing to think otherwise (even if the more formal testing in the article doesn't really rate them any better than Redstuff). However, I am very cynical of insurance companies even with all my mods declared and I just know how my luck works - the day I put non-R90 approved pads on is the day that someone will go hammering in to me! If push really comes to shove, say in a court with an insurance company where the brakes are called into question (rightly or wrongly!), I think it would be unlikely that anyone would win with non-R90 pads.

If ECE R90 is European legislation, for the sake of argument, put yourself in the position of the judge, what's he/she going to do? Legislation is there for a reason and opinions may become irrelevent if the car was effectively being driven illegally on a public road. For that matter, the acceptance of the insurance company to have uprated pads as a noted mod on the policy may also be irrelevent if they didn't know they were non-R90 (sorry, I can't see the call to the insurance company going 'do you mind if I put these very good but illegal pads on my car for road use?' 'Certainly sir, that won't be a problem!' ).

For this reason and knowing how my luck works (and the fact that they are about £100 more expensive when fitting all 4 corners than Redstuff ), I'm going to pass on fitting DS2500s but respect that others may have a different take on this.

Edited 18 March, 201016 yr by muckipup

I respect your views & stick with what you are happy with.

Having had a car pull across in front of me with 150 on the clock in Germany & somehow shedding about 80mph when I thought it was certain accident I will keep my faith with the Ferrodos & take a chance on the Insurance.

As its all declared I would hope I had a reosnable case if it ever got sticky

Edited 18 March, 201016 yr by Stuart_J

Mine were bedded in within oh about 10 miles of them being fitted, and that was only because the motorway was 5 away from the garage.

I followed the stop tech approach and they stop very very well.

I've been having a DS2500 vs Yellow toss up for the next set, but the R90 stuff is a bit of an interesting one yet again.

Cheezemonkhai, I followed your advice and fitted the Redstuff pads front and back yesterday and took them out for a run to use the Stoptech approach. As you say, it took about 10 minutes but the pads were absolutely cooking by the time I got back with ceramic smelling smoke billowing from all four :S . I was worried that I had overdone it and am still suspicious that the Stoptech approach is too agressive over EBC's recommendations. However, they are working great and stopping notably better than OEM so far although haven't tried then in the wet or for high speed emergency braking (where the OEM's performance was what prompted me to swap them).

The only niggle is that, despite breaking in and the Redstuff having a backing film and still plenty using plenty of copper grease, they are squeeling today - not bad but still noticeable. On saying that, I guess need to give them a bit more than 24 hours to fully bed in.

I was looking at putting the DS2500 on mine at sometime. At no point with the many quotes I have asked for did any of the suppliers mention that they were Illegal for road use. This Is the first that I new about the R90 regulation & I bet some of the suppliers don't know about It either.

Wasn't this discovered by bengie a couple of years back?

Anyway. Anyone tried Pagid blue or Orange? Their EC90 approved. http://www.pagid-brake-pads.co.uk/products/rs42-blue-carbon-based.php http://www.pagid-brake-pads.co.uk/material-specifications.php