More EBC Brake Pad Availabilty

[Wing King]

Just today we finally received the "Yellow" range rear pads for Vipers into our USA inventory. The product line is "almost" complete.

As of today, the FULL complement of Green, Red, Yellow, and Blue..... Viper FRONT pads for 1992 through 2001 are in stock and able to be ordered from GreatBrakes.com, or authorized dealers like "The Parts Rack" and various Dodge dealerships across the country. Rears are also now available in Green, Red, and Yellow for 1992 through "2000"..... but not the 2001's quite yet. We ask for your patience on the 2001 Green rears...... it looks like only 2 to 3 more weeks. They will be AIR FREIGHTED to us from England ASAP!

The clean, quiet, and well controlled braking performance of the Kevlar compound "Greenstuff" pads is becoming common knowledge in the Viper community. We've been EXTREMELY happy with the testing and performance of the Yellow and Blue "track" ranges so far, and I'm confident these "competition only" pads are also going to eventually become a respected upgrade in the track community...... and still at remarkably LOW prices versus the competition, just like the Greens.

Our phone order desk at 866-GR8-PADS (toll free)is staffed from
9am to 5pm by Toni, Alex, Irene or Chuck. Steve Pasztor and I are also available at certain times during the day to answer specific technical questions regarding the right pad selection for track use, or other issues, and by e-mail in the evenings. Nancy in shipping is simply AWESOME at getting orders out on time..... and to the right locations. The EBC dealers for Viper pads in the USA are all now VERY knowledgeable about both the proper use and installation of EBC pads. The Kevlar Greens need to be treated differently for installation and break-in procedure than conventional "metallic" pads....... but you'll LOVE the results. In fact, numerous Viper owners with EBC Greens on their cars have become "many time" customers, equipping ALL the other cars in their personal "fleets". We hope you'll give them a try. No, EBC pads do not smell as good as Zaino..... but,they're every BIT as addictive!!!!!

Kingman Hitz
GreatBrakes.com

 

[Wing King]

YES...... and it's VERY important for the Kevlar Greens. The Kelvar "aramid fibers" are not at ALL compatible with the residue and resins left on your used rotors from normal carbon/metallic pads. The scuffing takes care of most of that, but it does take some time to work through that. The "break-in" is just to drive them around in regular stop and go city driving for a while, maybe 100-300 miles. You'll know when they have pretty much seated because of a slightly different pedal feel, and continually reducing amounts of dust. Do NOT go bed in the Kevlar with a bunch of 60 to 10 hard stops, like might be the case for carbon/metallics. It doesn't work, and can extend the time for normal Kevlar performance.

FYI, every now and then, I see some glowing posts about the reduced dust issue, saying they still DO dust a little, but what does get thrown off is MUCH easier to clean off than normal brake dust. Well, they are correct........, and the factory says "minimal dust", but I'm now cruising around on a set of Greens that have about 4,000 miles on them, and there is NO dust on my pure WHITE wheels over the last several hundred miles! It seems like they keep getting better the longer they wear in.

 

[Chuck 97 GTS]

King, I finally installed my Greens this weekend. I scuffed the rotors as recommended but is there a break-in procedure I should follow?

Thanks.

 

[BWoodbury]

Wing Man,

Let's try this question one more time. Do EBC Greens stop better than stock pads or not? Do you or anyone else have ANY information on this?

 

[Wing King]

To the best of MY knowledge, EBC has not tested a Viper's stopping distance with their Green pads versus stock factory pads. At least they have not published those. Have any other Viper pad manufacturers done these kind of tests? I can't locate them if they have. What EBC DOES give us, however, is comparative ratings for friction coefficients. The EBC Kevlar rating equates to approximately 30% more "friction" than for a stock pad (all the other color friction ratings are more similar to a stock pad). All of that technical information IS posted on the GreatBrakes.com website for those who care to read it. Does increased friction always mean a shorter stopping distance? It may or may not..... there are a LOT of other contributing factors. HOWEVER, one of the first things I ever noticed on MY car, the day I first installed the Kevlar pads, was definitely a different "seat of the pants" feel for the brake pedal, and increased "responsiveness". It seemed like I could better modulate the stopping power I needed, and this was even more obvious when the pads were very cold, like when you needed them after cruising at higher speed for a while. I've received many similar comments from other users.

I hope this is enough detail to answer your question. No brake pad alone is going to be a "cure all" for any system shortcomings, Viper or any other car. Frankly, when I went looking for Viper pad alternatives long ago, the extra friction or stopping power thought was not on my mind at all. I was simply "ticked off" with the squeaky noise, the huge amounts of dust, and what I thought were outrageous prices for all the other decent brake pads I had to choose from. EBC has solved ALL of those problems for me, and now hundreds of other Viper owners. For what my opinion might be worth, I'll also honestly tell you I feel a whole lot SAFER on the public highways with the Kevlar pads.

Wing King
GreatBrakes.com

 

[Sean Roe]

Hi Kingman,

I saw the mileage rating for track use with the different compounds on your site. From what you've seen so far, are these about the correct miles the pads will last when used in stock Viper calipers on the track for the different color compounds? If so, your customers could use this as a guide to gauge how many pad sets they may need for the track days they have planned.

Take the number of sessions you'll run in a day, multiply by the time per session, divide by the time it takes to do a lap, yields the number of laps you expect to do. Multiply the number of laps by the track distance per lap and you'll have an approximate track miles number. Divide that by the mileage chart for the color and you should have a figure on how much pad wear to expect. Any number less than 1.00 means you should have pad left over at the end of a day. Any number above 1.00 should be the approximate number of pads you should expect to go through. Pretty nifty if their ratings are accurate.

Also, if you still have your G-Tech Pro, you can use it to do a rough check of the braking G force the different color pads can generate compared to the stock pads, as well as a 60 MPH to 0 MPH test. It's a simple test, but could still produce some useful information for those curious about the differences.

Talk to you later,
Sean

 

[Wing King]

Duh..... Sean, I had not thought about doing the G-Tech thing. Thanks, that's a great idea. I've always used mine for comparative horsepower ratings. As long as I always used the same stretch of road, with similar temp and humidity factors, the G-Tech has seemed to perform very well. I'm going to try to set up some comparison tests, reducing the variables as much as possible, and see what I get. There may be a few logistical problems with the Kevlars though, since a quick pad swap on the same car is a little bit problematic due to the resin incompatability amd break-in. I'll see what I can do.

This again proves that two heads are always better than one! I love this board when things are positive and we're helping each other!