I know quite a few Furby owners have upgraded thier front discs to Audi TT/Octy vRS 312mm inc. calipers/pads but I'm just curious what other options are available to improve braking and which is better??

Would std. 288mm discs with special pads e.g. green stuff or Ferodo provide better stopping power than the 312mm using std. pads for TT/Octy vRS?

I know there is the costly Brembo 4 pot route but I fear this is too extreme an upgrade for now and funds are certainly tight :(

Are there disadvantages to using special pads?

Reason I ask is that when my car was in at Jabba for remap, I ended up talking to a guy who was on his 3rd set of discs for his Leon. He blamed it on the EBC pads warping 2 sets of uprated discs :eek: He has since changed over to Ferodo pads and has not had problems since!

I have driven Fabias with the following brake set ups

Std

312 std

312 uprated

Brembo

And out of al lof them id certainly go for a set of Golfturbo's 312mm sets, practically brand new and simple enough to fit. To the untrained eye look std enough and will stop the car on a 10p piece.

If tracking the car add DS2500 pads.

I can't see uprated bits on a 288mm setup being any better than the standard 312 setup, even with the oem discs and oem pads (which are pretty good anyway)

I can only compare to uprated pads and fluid on a 256mm system, and the 312s are just awesome in comparison. Good value for money upgrade IMO. (well, it wasn't so much for me, but is for a vRS)

it would be nice to look through those alloys and see brembo though, but at a grand i dont think i'll be doing it!

I'm sure I remember on one thread that someone here had the 312 upgrade and wasn't happy with it so put original discs back on with special pads and said it was better!

Can't find it now.

Also Nick from Jabba also said that I would get better braking from uprated pads than doing the 312mm route with std. pads.

Does anyone have any experience of just changing pads?? Does it make a huge difference??

Pads can only do so much but better braking usually requires bigger discs.

For feel and heat dissappation/reduction of fade get the fluid upgraded....Castrol Response Dot 4.1 is good enough.

Standard Octy RS brakes aren't bad but fade resistance and feel weren't great. I've good grooved discs and DS2500 pads...differences is like chalk and cheese...just need to get fluid change...I've got it in the boot...and then I'm sorted.

I always thought it was the pads that caused fading not fluid. I learn something every day!

Hmmm....may be I've confused myself...easily done.

Perhaps fluid is more feel related....higher boiling point means less bubbles mean less give in the peedle....must be feel then.

Fade would then be down the heat dissappation which is generated between pad and disc....with groove discs the heat is taken away and better pads will handle the heat better....and of course not transmitt it to the fluid.

Tons of brake threads to confirm.....I perhaps got it right in one of those.

I'd say theres no way to state for a fact which setups will be better unless they are properly tested against each other, and I can't see that happenning somehow.

Personally, I would say to try uprated pads and brake fluid first. The main problem I found with the Fabia's brakes was they faded fairly easily with hard driving, and lacked feel. Better fluid and pads should theoretically help with that... as would the 312 setup, however, the 288 setup as the advantage of still being standard to all intents and purposes, less unsprung weight (so it doesnt slow your car down), and importantly a bit cheaper too.

Edit: In fact after reading what SkodRS was saying, it might be worth looking into doing a fluid upgrade before anything else.

Hmmm....may be I've confused myself...easily done.

Perhaps fluid is more feel related....higher boiling point means less bubbles mean less give in the peedle....must be feel then.

Fade would then be down the heat dissappation which is generated between pad and disc....with groove discs the heat is taken away and better pads will handle the heat better....and of course not transmitt it to the fluid.

Tons of brake threads to confirm.....I perhaps got it right in one of those.

Hi

Not too sure about pedal feel being a result of fluid boiling (or not). Once the fluid boils it will generally cause major brake failure. I always went for braided hoses to improve brake feel. They dont "give" like standard ones, so you get a more direct / linear pedal feel.

As for grooved or drilled disks, these dont dissipate heat any better than standard disks. The resistance to fade comes from the grooves or crossdrilling allowing the fade gases to escape from between the face of the pad and the disk.

Chris

star furbie now sports a set of brembos on the front.they aint half huge :eek: and there is no room between the alloy and the pad.there was another furbie there,silver one, which had drilled brembos front and rear.

Nice! I assume you mean alloy and caliper? They're damn close for sure. What wheels are they? I think I see the Audi 4 rings embossed on them.

Nice! I assume you mean alloy and caliper? They're damn close for sure. What wheels are they? I think I see the Audi 4 rings embossed on them.

yea didnt know how to spell caliper not sure what the wheels came from.

Pads can only do so much but better braking usually requires bigger discs.

For feel and heat dissappation/reduction of fade get the fluid upgraded....Castrol Response Dot 4.1 is good enough.

Standard Octy RS brakes aren't bad but fade resistance and feel weren't great. I've good grooved discs and DS2500 pads...differences is like chalk and cheese...just need to get fluid change...I've got it in the boot...and then I'm sorted.

I've standard discs but with fast road (Pagid) pads and racing fluid on my Octy vRS. I was very happy with them yesterday at the Knockhill trackday - I need to be more confident in them, though! Despite serious abuse, there was no sign of fade. When I came in after my first six or so laps, there was a lot of smoke from them though!! I even got the back brakes (which are standard) quite hot.

My old octy vRS must be the only one that now has nearly 51K miles on the clock and still be on the original pads from the factory, and the original disks and OEM fluid. This despite doing quiet a few laps at Bruntingthorpe airfield last year and about 90-100 laps of the nurburgring. The only thing I have had happen to them is plenty of smoke and a horrid smell, they still worked the same despite this, and have plenty of meat left.

The Boxster has cross drilled disks front/rear, but the problem with these is the holes keep getting clogged up with brake dust. They then need to have a pressure washer on them to clear them out again.

Nice! I assume you mean alloy and caliper? They're damn close for sure. What wheels are they? I think I see the Audi 4 rings embossed on them.

S3 repaired and painted a 1 off colour.

I'm also the one that changed back from 312 to standard brakes, the 312's were terrible on the track under 16" wheels totally toasted them in 4 laps.

Standard worked for about 12 laps. Big difference IMHO under 16" wheels, on the road you wouldn't put the brakes under such strain so go with whatever you can afford, me I'd give the 312's a go but with 2 part disks.

not sure what the wheels came from.

They look like S4 alloys to me, with an anthracite coating? Thought they would need wider tyres than 204/40/17 though :confused:

They look genuine Audi alloys so I'm not really sure now

Steve

Thanks to Ross, I've experienced three setups (apart from standard)

312mm with Ferodo DS2500 pads

323mm 4pot (brembo GT) with EBC greenstuff

323mm with DS2500

The worst setup by far was with the greenstuff pads. Whilst they gave initial bite, going round MK roundabouts, by the time you hit the third one, you have no stopping power left. Pressing the pedal as hard as you can and you will come to a moderate deceleration rate. Shockingly bad and scary.

312mm with ds2500 is imho the best value for money setup. It's vastly superior to standard setup - and I'm sure it's the pads more than the increase in disc diameter that gives the improvement.

323mm 4pots with ds2500 is just as good, if not better than 312 with ds2500, but somehow, I almost prefered the 312mm setup. But I'll want to review that once I get round to changing the fluid. Right now, with this setup, I'm on dot 5.1 fluid which is over a year old whereas my 312mm with ds2500 experience was with fresh super dot 4.

Best value for money has to be 312mm, especially with what golfturbo is offering. JMTPW

Put it this way: if I get the choice between

They look like S4 alloys to me' date=' with an anthracite coating? Thought they would need wider tyres than 204/40/17 though :confused:

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Deffo as stated S3 wheels. (just about the same as S4 ones) but 5 x 100 not 5 x 112 like the S4.