A quick Alcon brake review (glass half full for Dan) ;-)

[northernjim]

Originally Posted by titan

Initial assessment is that they have all the stopping power you need, certainly (it was dry) I was seeing some ABS action on hard braking (conti sport tyres). I think a quote from someone else sums it up "King of the Late Brakers"

However longevity, feel and noise/vibration is an issue. After a few laps I was getting slight wobble in the wheel, moreso under braking, the pedal didn't feel as rock solid and braking produced that droning, rumbling noise.

Quick inspection of the discs and they show a "smearing" in sections and the surface is lined rather than a smooth finish.

Driving the car home and its pretty bad now. Now I'm no brake guru, so I'm open to suggestions here, but this seems to be exactly what happened on my brothers R26R when we used an incorrect pad compound. The pad can't deal with the heat and starts to break down, putting deposits onto the disc and generally its all a bit crap.

I am using RS29's. One suggestion offered up was to try RS19s.

As I say, I've experienced this before and to a lesser degree on the evo using carbotech pads - the fix was to simply move up a compound.

I think I'll have a go at cleaning up the discs (unlikely that they are warped)

I think that this may be your problem Titan - In my experience pagid pads need some road miles to bed them in before being used on track, if your pads look like they have melted then just remove the glazed material with a file and then do a few miles to re-align the surfaces and they'll be fine...

Originally Posted by shimmy

RS29 are superb so not the cause so dont bother replacing them. They are hard as can be and you certainly dont want harder metal based pads and all that entails.

give them a clean and see what happens.

Most likely cause is that you have not bedded them in properly (assuming they were fitted new). Did you do the full sickeningh bedding in process?

Spot on shimmy

[titan]

Originally Posted by glendog74

Isn't it somewhat ironic that you are now getting issues with your Alcons - especially as you pretty much rubbished APs in another thread

This is simply a pad or bedding in issue, not an issue with the alcons as such. All I was getting at is that there seem to be lots of complaints on the AP gear, do the searches for APs and cracked discs on this forum and others, thats where I'm coming from...

Could well be bedding in issues as one of the discs was replaced (a disc got carved up on the blue M3 ding).

Good to hear that RS29s get the thumbs up. I may still try the carbotechs purely cos of the relationship I have with them, the convenience on only stocking one pad for two cars etc. Plus they just work! and are quite disc friendly.

Won't be doing anything for a week or so since the car has no steering wheel - off for a retrim

[shane@mbtech]

My view on brake kits for the CSL.

The Alcons where good, but for me lacked the agressiveness that I had become accustomed to in the AP's.

The Alcons felt unbalanced to me, they upset the car as they gave too much brake effect to the rear, for road unnoticeable, but on track it was apparent. I tried differing compounds front to rear to try to balance, but they always made the car feel unstable on "on the limit" braking.
If on a very very fast pace they felt good, then stepping up a level, made it feel squirmy and sacrificed corner exit speed for me.

This will be why you were tail happy as I noticed this when I changed from AP fronts with K sport rears to alcon front and rear. The brake bias was out and this for track use would need addressing.

Tried different compound pads, but always felt to me, more road friendly than track friendly.

Alcons certainly look the best in my view.

APs are the recommended set-up for me for track work.
K sport if you cant quite stretch to AP's. £1100 for fronts with same results as AP's.

[uncle benz]

Try putting some road miles on and see if they clean up. Oakie had exactly the same issue yesterday with the stoptechs on his e36 . He was running rs29 compound too, and my ap's with ds2500's (shhh) were the same by the end of the day. Oakie drove the 160 miles back to my shop today and his discs were cleaned and perfect by the time he arrived. I have this most times with the ds2500's, and they have cleaned up everytime so far. I found snetterton to be quite demanding on the brakes, and there was a little bit of youthful exuberance on show yesterday too...
Interestingly my stock rears were really getting hot yesterday, but with hindsight I think it's probably because I use the dsc track mode all the time, and I think it uses the rear brakes to reel the car in.

[azrael]

I had contis once and used them on track once, was easy to lock up the wheels under heavy braking. So in short they were pants, might explain why yr dsc was intrusive

[DazBlackCSL]

Had Zero issues with AP's in 40k miles tons of laps of the ring tons of track days and loads of road miles ...

Alcons on my race car looked better that's a given especially on the rears but any better than my road AP's ??? I doubt it and nothing that is noticeable for the extra cash ...

Would love some plain yellow alcons with the black logo on .. But only for the looks

Bed either of them in correctly and treat em properly and neither will give you any issues, RS29s seem to be perfect for both

[Rutkowski]

Talking about brake pads - what pads do you guys recommend for my set up. The pads i currentlly have seem to be made from chocolate.

The stock set up gives a nice 'bite'. Before i went for Brembo GT i had uprated pads (Pagid Blue) hose and fluid. I absolutely hated the squicking noise around town. Is there a compromise? I don't mind little noise and you won't see me much on track either so nothing hardcore either...... TIA.

[_Nathan_]

I wouldn't hesitate to use rs29 on a road car, if you are using your brakes hard enough to think normal pads are made from chocolate then just bite the bullet.

[titan]

My bro has RS29s on his R26.R on the road. Ace for track, all I'll say is that in his car in say a carpark you have to be very gentle with the brakes, they are quite grabby and typically anything not bolted down makes a dash for the windscreen ;-)

[_Nathan_]

I ran them as a road pad for years and never had that problem, maybe the Renault is even more servod than the BMW?