Bedding brake pads in

[dinkus 10]

Thought yall might be interested in this. Comments?

 

From Nick Adams, Lotus Cars Chief Development Engineer

 

With new pads and discs, or just new pads fitted run the car around for 10-20 miles using the brakes gently as normal to bed the two surfaces together. Once this has been done, check the surfaces of the discs and make sure here are no signs of any scoring or damage. Assuming all looks well take the car to an appropriate piece of quiet and straight, well sighted road and perform half a dozen medium pressure stops from 50 mph down to 20 mph to warm the brakes up. Avoid more than a minute between each stop so that the temperatures do not get a chance to deteriorate too much. Once the brakes are warm and the coast is clear, perform 2 or 3 hard stops from 70mph (where local laws allow!) to 20 mph, braking as hard as you can without locking up. Do not come to a halt between each stop, do them as fast as you can to get the brakes really hot. On the third stop come to a halt and keeping your foot on the brake press the brake pedal down as hard as you can and hold it there for at least a couple of minutes, don't apply the handbrake. This hurts if you are doing it right! This will bed the pistons, shims and pads together and will compress the pad material, giving a hard and repeatable pedal. Once the 2 minutes have passed, release the pedal and go for a short drive, using the brakes as normal to let everything return to normal temperatures. The brakes are now fully bedded in and ready for use in anger. Recompressing the pads once every few thousand miles to the above procedure will help keep the pedal firm, especially if you don't normally use the brakes hard.

[dr_mat 0]

Also known as a good method for warping your disks I would have thought!

[ZippyVR6 0]

Also known as a good method for warping your disks I would have thought!

 

yeh, and where are you gonna stop after a seriously hard brake on a national speed limit road for 2 mins.

 

Seing as Lotus stands for Lots Of Trouble Usualy Serious ill give it a miss. :)

[dinkus 10]

That was what bothered me as well, but I think the theory is that as you've properly heated up the whole disk, you won't warp it. My boss says he used to do it in his Elise and it did make a noticable difference and never warped a disk, but I'm not convinced...

[RW1 0]

Quite agree dr_mat.

 

That reads like a quick bed in before a track circuit drive and components take second place for long life versus instant brakes for the track.

 

Better to apply brakes steadily over a 100 miles and just allow for reduce effect until they settle in.

[dr_mat 0]

Trouble is dinkus, you're sitting there for two minutes allowing 70% of the disk to air cool, while holding hot pads against the other 30%, and preventing any air-flow over them..

[dinkus 10]

Exactly, which is why I can't see how it wouldn't warp the disks.

 

Especially as you're told not to put the handbrake after you've finished giving the brakes some stick on a track day...

[dr_mat 0]

Might have been nice if you'd put your doubts in with the original post, just in case someone came along and read it as gospel ...!

 

In fact the best way to cool the brakes down is to not stop.. Just keep moving slowly, getting air to flow over the whole disk surface..

[dinkus 10]

Original post edited to request comments ;)

[RS VR6 0]

Who would do all that just to seat the brakes? Just be easy on the brakes for the first 200 miles.