R1 Concepts Brakes and Rotors

[clive goodridge]

I lost my VX's abs when I fitted a new set of drilled and slotted rotors which I bought from the US, can't remember the supplier's name though.
It wasn't the rotors fault but the pads they supplied with the rotors and my mechanic who chose to ignore my instructions to fit a pair at a time and fitted all 4 at once.
Everybody had their own thoughts as to why the brakes had gone 'soft' and no abs, they were so bad as to be dangerous as no matter how hard I stood on the pedal it would take far too long to stop, but I suggested fitting 1 pair of the old pads to a front brake to see and suddenly the brakes started to come back!
After fitting the old front pads and a set of new rear standard pads everything was fine again and still is 2 years later.
The supplier, whose name I shall post when I find it, denied this could happen suggesting that we had done something wrong but wanted me to return the new pads to the manufacturer in the US as it was his problem not theirs!
As I'm in the UK shipping costs and no guarantee of a refund prohibited this.
Anyone else experienced 'bad' pads?
I never have in 30+ years of car dealing, racing included.

[nfpgasmask]

I lost my VX's abs when I fitted a new set of drilled and slotted rotors which I bought from the US, can't remember the supplier's name though.
It wasn't the rotors fault but the pads they supplied with the rotors and my mechanic who chose to ignore my instructions to fit a pair at a time and fitted all 4 at once.
Everybody had their own thoughts as to why the brakes had gone 'soft' and no abs, they were so bad as to be dangerous as no matter how hard I stood on the pedal it would take far too long to stop, but I suggested fitting 1 pair of the old pads to a front brake to see and suddenly the brakes started to come back!
After fitting the old front pads and a set of new rear standard pads everything was fine again and still is 2 years later.
The supplier, whose name I shall post when I find it, denied this could happen suggesting that we had done something wrong but wanted me to return the new pads to the manufacturer in the US as it was his problem not theirs!
As I'm in the UK shipping costs and no guarantee of a refund prohibited this.
Anyone else experienced 'bad' pads?
I never have in 30+ years of car dealing, racing included.

Clive, I think is a common problem aftermarket brake suppliers should be aware of. My symptoms were the same with the R1 Concepts brake pads. Simply put, stopping power was gone, resulting in MANY scary situations were my VX did not want to stop. All those problems are gone now with stock pads. Kenny said he found out that it was the thickness of the aftermarket pads.

Bart

[MSHardeman]

Clive,

It sounds like you've solved your problem, but not too long ago I replace all four rotors (SP Performance drilled and slotted), all four sets of brake pads (OEM's), and installed the stainless lines. The brake system drained itself dry (due to my stupidity of not plugging the open hard lines) and I had a bear of a time getting them bled. I finally caved and brought it to a local mechanic who did some research and found out that in order to bleed our brakes properly the engine has to be running during the process.

We got a lot of the air out of the lines, and the VX stops on a dime now, but once stopped if I push on the pedel hard it will go all the way to the floor. I think I just need to bleed the brakes again to make sure all of the air is out of the lines. I spoke with Tone and he said that he went through a LOT of fluid when he did the same thing. So to all I would say; bleed the brakes a few more time to see if that helps stopping power.

[clive goodridge]

Clive, I think is a common problem aftermarket brake suppliers should be aware of. My symptoms were the same with the R1 Concepts brake pads. Simply put, stopping power was gone, resulting in MANY scary situations were my VX did not want to stop. All those problems are gone now with stock pads. Kenny said he found out that it was the thickness of the aftermarket pads.

Bart

The pad thickness was fine it must've been the material-too hard or 'cold'.

Re brake bleeding and pedal travel we've found that the pedal can be made harder and shorter by adjusting the rear calipers. A couple of my VXs had horrible feeling long pedals and this cured the problem.

Thanks for your replies, Clive.

[etlsport]

I'm not sure exactly what my mechanic did to my brakes but when I had him replace the rear pads (oem) and rotors (aftermarket, flat vented).. afterwards my brake pedal barely even makes it to the level of the gas pedal, its nice, tight, predictable, even perfect braking!

[twistedsymphony]

I can honestly say that I've never heard of the thickness of pads causing ABS issues...

Brakes are really f-ing simple... you have a big cylinder attacked to the pedal then a bunch of hoses that connect that cylinder to a whole bunch of little cylinders which clamp the pads to the discs.

abs is pretty much completely separate, there are sensors in the drive line that monitor wheel speed, that gets fed to a computer module and when it detects that a wheel has "locked up" based on it's speed then it controls a valve in the brake line to pulse the brakes on and off...

I can't possibly imagine a scenario where changing the rotor (or any other part of the brake system) would set off the ABS light. Theoretically you could completely remove all of your calipers and the BMC too and the ABS would be honkey-dorey as long as the sensors and computer module were ok.

thinner pads could make the brakes squishy... but they would have to be REALLY thin... are these R1 concepts rotors thinner than OEM as well? because that would help.

Upgrading to a larger Brake Master Cylinder (or just adjusting the factory BMC if it's possible) would probably solve the squishy brake issue... or just rebuilding the calipers, or upgrading to better fluid... lots of things and improve brake pedal response. In my experience the pads and rotors have little to do with the firmness of the pedal unless they're both REALLY bad to the point where you're exhausting the capacity of the BMC.

[Kenny]

Clive, I think is a common problem aftermarket brake suppliers should be aware of. My symptoms were the same with the R1 Concepts brake pads. Simply put, stopping power was gone, resulting in MANY scary situations were my VX did not want to stop. All those problems are gone now with stock pads. Kenny said he found out that it was the thickness of the aftermarket pads.

Bart

I found the new pads and rotors substantially decreased pedal travel. I’ve had no issues with ABS.

Although the ABS light did come on when I blew a fuse playing around with my speedo cluster. Replaced the fuse and the light went off.