brake pedal feel

The Oily Bits S1 Specific Topics
1

I drove my (newly acquired) S1 today and the brake pedal doesn’t have to my mind any real “feel”. There is next to no slack or movement, you press it and the car does actually stop, and that’s regardless of whether in normal traffic or from slightly more adventurous driving, so that’s good but its a bit wooden. I’ve not driven an S1 (Elise or otherwise) for a couple of years so cant really compare or remember.

(The roads were filthy today and the poor girl is in storage at local council garages for a month - so not the most glamorous first picture!)

The records for the car are meticulous and it had a brake upgrade and refresh of fluids etc quite recently whilst having its service so its in order, I just wonder what others experience and if any adjustment exists? I need to spend more time with the car clearly as all new and exciting but I was struggling to feel the braking progression. :question:

2

Lovely looking car, what colour is it? Mine was similar brake feel wise, totally dead but it did seem to stop ok. It has 2 piece disks on all round then Hawk pads. I replaced those pads with Pagid RS14 front and RS 42 rear. OK for a while, but then also dead feeling after 6k miles. Recently I fitted plain std discs (EBC) and Carbon Lorraine RC5+ pads, and bled the hydraulics. OH MY, it has AMAZING feel and braking performance. Jobs a guddun!

Cheers,
Kurt

3

yeah I’d give the fluid a change if you don’t know when it was last done, and try a more aggressive compound if you want more initial bite

1 Like
4

Sounds just like mine when I first got it…the ebc green stuff pads went straight in the bin.

Might be worth running through a bedding in procedure first though before trying a decent set of pads.

The peddle is quite hard especially if regularly driving a servo’ed car, just takes a bit of getting used too.

5

Big thumbs up for CL5+ and some high temp fluid like Motul RBF600. :slight_smile:

6

Everyone sincere thanks for the replies. Being honest, knowing its not unique to my car is REALLY reassuring. I will look through the paperwork later to see what disks and pads in now has and get some further feedback, will work towards improving the feel. Its wonderful to drive so visceral on all the senses.

(Oh and its Colbalt blue - The light/dirt mix didn’t do it much justice today though)

7

You might find this thread useful :

http://www.exiges.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17752

8

Thanks Benja will read through it. Appreciated.

9

The brakes on my S1 went horrid with no bite, no travel but they did work. I took the pads out and they looked corroded, swollen with some cracking at the edges. I changed them to Pagid Blue and the brakes feel like an s1 should (better than an s2).

I do not think it was anything to do with the make of pads, it was just that somehow rot had got into the old ones. Easy check.

10

Are the Exige S1 brakes the same as on the Elise S1? If a brakepad is listed as Elise S1, does it fit for the Exige?

11

They are exactly the same.

12

Thanks!

1 Like
13

Yes.

14

I’ve now put CL5+ on the Exige after having great experience with them on the Elise. Hard to tell what came off it, Pagids of some type. There was plenty of material but relatively wooden feel. Back to having the pad clatter, but worth it for the braking experience. :slight_smile:

15

thanks!

16

Personally, I wouldn’t touch CL pads after seeing some of the failure pictures of these pads on SELOC. :open_mouth:

I have no personal experience, but just don’t see the need to risk it when there are other good alternatives out there that people have not experienced such dramatic failures with… such as Performance Friction or Pagid.

17

Having seen CL pad delamination on Steve’s Clio they will never go on my car, occasionaly all performance brake pads can have failures, there just have been way too many CL pads failed in comparrison to PF or Pagid, my money always goes to PF even though I know what it can do to wheels…