SKCC - Southern Kit Car Club. A Club for kit car owners across Southern England. Kent, Sussex, East Hants, Surrey, Berks, Middlesex, London

I noticed both at Brands Hatch and the EU tour that my brakes on my Elise lose performance when they are given a hard time, not sure if it is what is referred to as 'brake fade'.
The brakes under normal conditions are good as gold, when I give the car stick for prolonged periods I lose faith in them as they are no where near as good (this wasn't the best feeling when coming down mountain hairpins ), it seems to take A LOT of easing off the middle pedal to get them back to how I want them to be.
The guy I bought the car off at one stage had yellow stuff pads on the car (he gave me the old set) but had reverted to standard pads.
My understanding/guess is that the standard pads get too hot and get glazed thus not working?
Any ideas if this is just a brake pad thing, or should I be looking at changing the fluid (this was done at last years service) or brake lines?
I have a track day booked for July so would like to sort by then.
Thanks

If the fluid was changed last year it shouldn’t be an issue, though it’s worth checking what type of fluid used. The types vary mostly with the boiling point. 5.1 being the higher boiling point and fluid of choice for most fast cars

If the fluid is boiling under heavy use then your pedal would go “long” if not then its probably the discs/pads overheating and the brakes losing their bite.

In that case higher temp pads would help such as the EBC range. Worth checking the lotus forum for best choices.

Changing the flexihoses for braided, may give you a firmer pedal though shouldn’t really affect the fade issue imo.

Hope that helps.

Thanks Mike, no the pedal isn't 'long' it is purely the performance of the brakes when being ragged, it seems yellow stuff are the preferred one on SELOC forum so I guess I'll give them a go.

yellows are quite 'hard core'....got reds on the Tiger, albeit is a tad lighter, biut never got anywhere near cooking them. Tried yellows, bit too hard for my liking ...but may work well on the elise

Is there any way of ducting more air to the discs, or is there a back plate on the inside you could remove? Do the top-spec cars have cooling ducts from the grille?

Fury1630 wrote:Is there any way of ducting more air to the discs, or is there a back plate on the inside you could remove? Do the top-spec cars have cooling ducts from the grille?

From what I have seen there aren’t any backplates. The Elise has plastic inner wings which kind of enclose everything and if you have ever looked underneath of one you’d see it’s completely flat due to all the covers, no easy way of venting them in my eyes.

Phil I would recommend Mintex 1144. I had the same problem on a VX220T and a Morgan Roadster and the problem went away and the brakes still work when cold.

I'd second the mintex pads, been using them on my car for several years and had no issues. In fact I've just bought some more for this years alpine fun. Demon Tweets seem to have the best price.

edit: make sure you get the 1144 as they do a range for the Elise

Ive had the peddle go to the floor years ago, as Mike described, boiled the fluid going round Donnington, not a nice feeling ! so changed the fluid to 5.1 synthetic
and never had that problem again

I had 1144 pads in my old M16 calipers, and always had a squeal, that I could never get rid off, so changed to Green stuff pads in the current 4 pot calipers, and never had an issue or noise

steve

The [colour] stuff pads are very good. I’ve had them on various cars over the years in various colours. I’ve got red on my V6 Clio which is a heavy lump and never had a problem. And they work from cold which I understand the more hard core ones need to warm up before they really bite. Also the Elise is quite light so may well be ok with the green/red option.

The added bonus is that they drop less visible brake dust so your wheels stay clean for longer!