Needed; Uprated front brake pads for a std mk3 td

[nathantheengineer]

Morning all,

I am sure that this must be the right place to ask! Once you have all tuned your idi's you must have found (like me) that the std front pads get a little warm on spirited drives.

I have a lovely twisty last 30 miles on my commute and it makes the pads smoke and I am suffering from brake fade.

I have the std solid front discs and i don't wish to upgrade the parts.

there must be a pad that is better suited to a tuned aaz?

Does anyone have anything or perhaps a recomendation of what type I should try and source.

Thanks in advance

Nathan   

[CRSMP5]

solid rotors really??? do 13" wheels fit?

if so a 10" vented rotor set up  like most mk3 have is a upgrade... 14" wheels required... this is a +1 on  brakes.. ever seen a mk3 with solid rotors though..

+2 on front brakes would be corrado 11" front rotors.. need caliper carriers but same caliper that 10" front brakes use.. requires 15"  frnt wheels in a offset that clears the caliper.. this is cmparabe to say a vr6 mk3 front brake... butt 4x00 vs vr6 5x100.. bolt pattern..

now if thhe stock solid rotor is 9.4".. vented ones will help... but i really think they will still be underpowered on such  heavy car... 

[nathantheengineer]

i am sure that the mk3 is fitted with solid, i will have to check this later, made me doubt myself.

At home we have the td mk3, a 2ltr 16v ABF GTI mk3 and a VR6 Mk3.

Of these the best brakes are definitely the ABF, this is an obdII car and the VR is obdI so has the smaller brakes.

The td doesn't handle, doesn't brake well but is such a laugh to drive because you have to concentrate.  The VR is an accomplished car but on balance the best GTI is the ABF.

I was thinking about moving the entire tuned aaz drivetrain into the VR to create a really sorted daily driver!

[theman53]

If they are solid I would just switch over to vented rotors. It is a huge difference and you can run all the stock stuff if it is like MK2's. Get a decent set of pads. I prefer full ceramic, but if you live in the cold sometimes with the vented rotors it takes a bit of driving before you have really good breaking. The vented stay cool and the ceramic take forever to warm up.

[nathantheengineer]

Thanks for the replies.

I think my question has been a little misunderstood, my fault entirely.

What uprated pads are people running in standard calipers and where did they buy them?

Cheers

nathan   

[theman53]

The calipers are the same for vented and non vented rotors. You buy the pads to match the rotors you have. If you can find a ceramic they will help resist fade, but ultimately the vented rotors will be 100x better.

[8v-of-fury]

Ceramics with cross drilled vented rotors!? never heat up, and thus not as good braking. A good vented rotor is all you need, as the solids don't really fade that badly.

[bajacalal]

Your brakes aren't getting too hot because of the pads, they're getting too hot because of the rotors.

The vented rotors allow the heat to dissipate, and cross drilled rotors allow hot gases to dissipate, both improving braking performance under hard braking. And changing the pads without machining the rotors almost always results in brakes that make noise, wear out quickly and vibrate, in my experience, so you're going to have to pull them off anyway.

I have the used Zimmerman cross drilled rotors and race pads that come as a kit for your car, from germanautoparts.com. The worked well, without being noisy or excessively dirty. I'm not sure what the pad material was.

The last time I bought VW brakes at an auto parts store, they did not have a separate listing for solid vs. vented rotors, which confused me, but they may have discontinued the distinction, to only manufacture one part for all. I thought the only difference was the thickness of the pad material being thinner to accommodate the thicker vented rotors.

[nathantheengineer]

Thanks all,

as the calipers are the same for vented and solid discs i will get some vented and pads to suit.

Cheers all.

[CRSMP5]

need to know size of front rotors still....

most all mk3 ive seen/heard of have 10.1" front rotors... which are vented...

now up to the mk3 they had solid rotors and were smaller in diameter...

the 2 calipers/pads are 100% different.. along with rotors...

[8v-of-fury]

need to know size of front rotors still....

most all mk3 ive seen/heard of have 10.1" front rotors... which are vented...

now up to the mk3 they had solid rotors and were smaller in diameter...

the 2 calipers/pads are 100% different.. along with rotors...

Whoa whoa. Hold up here Nathan. My ETKA shows (I am assuming your car is a mexican built MK3) that ALL North American sold mk3 AAZ equipped came with a solid 239x12 rotor up front (9.4" small one). You will not be able to buy a 256x20 rotor and pads and swap them in, they are a different caliper. You are sadly stuck with 9.4" rotors unless you upgrade calipers and brackets.

[burn_your_money]

That's right. Over here in Canada all our mk3 AAZs came with solid rotors. 9.4s at that. I'm pretty sure you can use the mk2 vented rotors though.

[8v-of-fury]

HAH! I totally forgot about the mk2 having a vented 9.4. Yes that would seem suitable to me.

ETKA approves Tyler, discs that measure this in dimension; 239mm x 20mm with the 4/100 bolt pattern do exist.

[RabbitJockey]

yeah mk1 gti and 8v scirocco had vented 9.4's as well, its a direct swap for cars with solid 9.4" rotors, the only difference is the thickness of the pads, but if u have some slightly worn ones from a solid setup u can probably just swap over.

[8v-of-fury]

The Vented rotors are 8mm thicker.. plus it is never advised to use worn pads on new discs or vice versa. Causes irregular wear patterns.