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Stop that Pony!
When
the brakes are cool, stopping distances are very respectable considering
the car’s wiight. Where you will get into problems is after repeated
panic stops, much like what you would encounter in an autocross or road
racing event. The enemy is heat. Brakes convert kinetic
energy, the momentum of your moving car, into heat. Heat is generated by
the friction of pads against rotors, and must be dissipated into the
surrounding air. If you want to improve the performance of your brakes
you need to think about generating heat, tolerating the heat that has
been generated and then dissipating the heat. The
most significant changes you can make are those that allow it to
tolerate more heat, until the heat can dissipate.
The Cobra’s are known for their improved stopping
abilities compared to its GT sibling due to bigger 13” rotors and 42mm PBR
calipers installed from the factory (GT has 10.8" rotors). This
combo allows this 3600 lb snake stop in 126 ft from 60mph compared to
the advertised 135ft on the GT. The
Bullit claims to stop in 121 and the 2000 Cobra R that came with Brembo
calipers stopped in only 116 ft.
The question is how much can we improve stock
’01 Cobra braking power by just changing brake pads and how
well will they under severe conditions such as open track events.
EBC “Red Stuff” brake pads was the
chosen pad for this test due to its ability to work well in regular
traffic. The pads seem to work better as they get warmer but in
comparison with other performance pads that we have used and they seem
to take less time to come up to temperature. The
pedal effort was very similar to stock and once they are up to
temperature they maintain a linear feel with virtually no brake fade
even under heavy loads of regular traffic.
We decided to to try and make our project car stop closer to the 116
ft by simply upgrading the brake pads.
After several hard stops we first
measured 112ft much better than expected. As the brakes got hotter we
measured an amazing 109ft and no brake fade.
Check out EBC brake pads click
here.
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