Alternative to metal kings

[Raynman]

With the change in the bendix pad range it is increasingly difficult to get metal king pads.

Does anyone know of any equivalent pads in a similar price range?

Either that or does anyone know when the speculated return is due?

[Spac]

The old Ferodo Excels were actually pretty good. I know everyone has just cringed and thought "K-mart pad" (you can get 'em at K-Mart, for $SFA...), but apparently there is some story about industrial espionage and crap from the late eighties that says someone else was developing a race pad, but the formula got ripped off by a Ferodo employee. For whatever reason, Ferodo choose to sell 'em off as cookie cutter pads.
So... they work a heap better than you'd imagine. Worse than the old Metal Kings from stone cold, but very close once up to temp.

And, as far as I can tell, Bendix have "down-graded" the Metal Kings recently, in (I'm speculating) an attempt to differentiate their performance from the (not very good) Ultimates.

If oyu're buying them for a race / rally car, spend the money and get some Ferodo DS2500s. Mine cost me $222.20 (!) and are worth every cent. Have only done half an event on 'em, but they still look like new. Performance very similar to Pagid Blues (DS4-2?), but at about half the price...:)

[Kinks]

I had some QFM Special-X compound pads briefly, from what I can tell they didn't have fantastic cold bite (but what performance pad does) but after an application or two they get some heat into them and pull up well. I went for a fang through some twisties to see what they were like and got them warm enough to just start smelling like hot brakes (but a dusty kind of hot not acrid smell like the resins are all flying up your nose). At that stage they were still pulling me up fine. So really they suit performance driving, still adequate for the city as long as you don't expect heaps of bite on a cold application.

They seemed to be good for a fair while after warming up, but if they've been cold for a while eg driving around for hours with no hard braking then they go back to the stage of needing to be warmed up to bite hard.

As for rotor wear, they're supposed to be kind to rotors but I had no chance to evaluate even the pads for wear rate...

[Raynman]

Should have said - they are for the back of my corolla rally car. It's a redrilled volvo disc with XD falcon calliper. I had some ultimates (Funnily I had them smoking on the back but not on the front (79 cressida front struts/brakes)) but an unfortunate failure means they are dead.

The disc literally shattered, tearing off in four inch sections. I managed to retrieve 2 bits, but the rest and the mount and caliper are in the Heathcote forest somewhere.

Pity as apart from a small bend they are still in good nick.




BTW - I have heard the downgrade involves the removal of asbestos from the pads, which is always a good thing

[dbasteve]

Originally posted by Raynman
Should have said - they are for the back of my corolla rally car. It's a redrilled volvo disc with XD falcon calliper. I had some ultimates (Funnily I had them smoking on the back but not on the front (79 cressida front struts/brakes)) but an unfortunate failure means they are dead.

The disc literally shattered, tearing off in four inch sections. I managed to retrieve 2 bits, but the rest and the mount and caliper are in the Heathcote forest somewhere.

Pity as apart from a small bend they are still in good nick.




BTW - I have heard the downgrade involves the removal of asbestos from the pads, which is always a good thing

The old Ultimate's destroying a disc on the rally car trick.
Go for the Ferodo DS2500's.
This Spac man knows what he is talking about....:D

I beleive Bendix are merging the Performax and Metal Kings to make a better product. Haven't seen samples yet.