Brake Pads for Sud

[Southern75]

After advice as to what brake pads people are using in the race oriented suds.

I have a 33 front end in mine and am using ferodo ds2500 .. which are fine.

What are people using in the rear in the case that i can't get Ferodos?

[Ray Pignataro]

standard pads and a brake bias valve with rears wound off

[Andrew Bose]

I use EBC reds and find them great, I have drum rear end and use a "race material" (It's what the brake shop I use told me) lining bonded on the rear. The rear will lock up until the front pads are warm under track braking but not an issue when warm. The proportioning valve is standard, remember to use a race brake fluid too.
Good Luck.

[Southern75]

I still have a sud rear end in my car ... lighter .. and i don't really like the idea of drum brakes.

I was doing 7 lap sessions with super dot 4 and there was no brake fade whatsoever ... so I'm happy about that.

I think one of the rear pads was breaking down as the brake dust was rather coarse,

I disconnected the lever rod of the rear proportioning valve ... but the brakes felt ... pretty good ... but i think ther needs to be a little more rear than I'm getting ...

I'm going to look into the ebc red, I'm almost happy with the greens in my 75 ... i can buy the ferodo pads from compfriction but they are cut down from a bigger donor pad ... and option that may be worth it.

Any other advice will be gladly accepted

[Evan Bottcher]

I think the pads in the rear of our car are QFMs (http://qfm.com.au/), supplied by Maranello Pur Sang.  I think the material is the 'taxi' grade pad, not quite as extreme as the QFM 750s in the front.  I get f all wear in the rear, it really doesn't do much.  We have an in-line bias valve.

[Southern75]

Evan ... you use a tilton bias valve?

The other silly thing that i have is a hydraulic handbrake, i am haveing a alisghtly doughey pedal.

Has anyone else fitted one before?

[Evan Bottcher]

Evan ... you use a tilton bias valve?

Yep.

I have a handbrake lever.  I also have a ready supply of wheel chocks.

[Southern75]

Well that's what a low gear is for ... but yeah i have wheel chocks too.

I thought your race video were pretty cool btw

[colcol]

Our Sud had a hydraulic handbrake too, it was fitted in 1985, worked all the way up to its demise in 2011, always worked, never leaked, purchased from a motosport place in Melbourne, original ATE handbrake was hopeless, took it to a few Alfa places to fix, they couldn't get the handbrake to last more than a week, interestingly, a hydraulic handbrake is illegal on a road car, due to the fact it could leak when applied for a long time, true, but about a thousand percent better than the German ATE, Colin.

[Southern75]

Hi Colin,

Never had a problem with the original front handbrake on it, Vince at Automoda here in Sydney did some mod to it ... and it always worked well.

I have found a problem which is currently being fixed, but needless to say .. the hydraulic seems good ... I just have to do a bit more work in order to get pedal feel as i'd like it ... but in saying that.. it's acceptable.

Sad thing is ... I don't like acceptable

I bought some TRW pads for the rear .. they were ... reasonably priced, but now i have back plates in order to get a rebonded pad ...

In case you're interested ... I had genuine sud rear pads in it ...they still had the alfa embossing on the back plates

[Evan Bottcher]

I never like the pedal feel with the Sud with the inboard calipers.  I guess the handbrake mechanism pulls the pads back from the discs, but not the same for each pad and not consistently, so the pedal feel is odd and varying.  Same with our 75, but the effect is less direct as the crap calipers are on the rear.  After putting the 33 front end on the Sud with ventilated discs and the single side-pull calipers, the pedal feel is incredibly solid and predictable.  Highly recommended, but you'd need to find an alternate handbrake.

[Southern75]

Ahh Evan,

One step ahead of you there, I have a 33 16v front end already in my sud.

I am running the original rear calipers however I am using a hydraulic rally type handbrake both ends are fitted with braided satinless brake hoses.

I would have thought that the standard rear calipers would be great ... usually  you are struggling to get decent pedal feel with floating calipers.
All of our fast suds here in Sydney are using the standard rear calipers and nobody seems to have any criticisms. Some have changed to a fixed caliper in the front however.

I have been considering the change to the alfa v6 calipers at the front as they bolt striaght on .. but that's later down the path... maybe.

My other reluctance to change the rears are for other reasons as well ... NRG automotive ... who mainly do subarus (and mainly do very fast ones) but do also specialise in newer alfas (owner drives a 147) says that with any of the rex's which use a floating caliper they stop fine but have 'ordinary' pedal feel.

Similarly my 147 is more than adequate in the braking department although after much bleeding the pedal only ever feels ordinary ... and the 2l ones all feel similar. However ...  hop into a gta with the fixed calipers and they don't stop much better but the pedal feel is excellent.

Whilst i will take your suggestions on board, I'm currently overhauling the rear calipers ... probly the front ones too and i may look at rejigging the rear propotioning and perhaps an experiment with pad compounds.

Needless to say my sud is stopping fine, just it's not as comfortable under brakes as i would like.

By the way .. i'm loving the videos you put on youtube... makes me wish i was out there!