This is weird, and I can't easily find info online, basically I wanna know what the differences are between carbon fiber ceramic and aramid (kevlar) fiber ceramic brake pads. I have found lots of info on carbon ceramic brake rotors, and carbon fiber rotors, but not a lot on Carbon Fiber Ceramic Pads specifically. Lots of companies, like powerstop sell carbon fiber ceramic pads, and EBC's redstuff pads are the only aramid fiber ceramic pads I know of. Does anyone know if these two pad formulations are significantly different or will yield different braking performance? I believe the current pads on my Monte are carbon fiber ceramic (though they might be semi-metallic (with carbon fiber?) considering the INSANE amount of dust they produce. Something got between the pad and rotor on my Monte so I'm trying to decide between EBC redstuff+USR rotors or having my Duralast GT rotors turned and getting some powerstop carbon fiber ceramic pads. Thanks for the help, hopefully I'm not getting to detailed on brake pad formulation lol.

 

I really wish the industry (or a major distributor) would come up with some standardized testing to quantify brake pads. I hate how the industry as a whole just throws around subjective terms with no quantifiable indication of relative performance - even within a same brand:

Pad 1 - quiet, low dust, low performance
Pad 2 - quiet, moderate dust, moderate performance
Pad 3 - mildly noisy, heavy dust, extreme performance

You'd think it wouldn't be that hard - show a coefficient of friction vs temperature plot, do a wear test similar to tires (against some standard metal composition similar to that of a rotor), and then take db readings at certain temperature/ force application levels. Certainly won't be apples to apples with how it performs in your car but if brand x's pad 3 is 90 db and brand y pad 3 is 105 db - you at least have a relative baseline.


Enough of the rant. Getting to your question - IMO (from a mechanical engineering education with industry experience working with both materials mentioned - albeit not in brakes). The bottom line is that I don't think it matters one bit. They're highlighting high performance buzz words that get people excited to sell brakes.

In general, you use carbon fiber where you want stiffness and strength. You use aramid where you want flexibility / toughness and are able give up some peak strength. However, the two materials also have a lot of similarities and really aren't drastically different from one another (as opposed to comparing a ceramic based pad to a semi metallic pad - where the materials used are extremely different).

When it comes to a solid brake pad and being baked into a matrix of multiple other materials, it wouldn't make much difference which you use. Its also not at all helpful even for a composites expert to compare the single material when you don't know the % used in the mix or the list of other ingredients.

The most important thing- coefficient of friction / stopping power - likely doesn't rely on these fibers at all (as I imagine they're an extremely low % of total mateiral used). Id also imagine dusting is also not impacted for the same reason. Strength difference won't really matter because the pads aren't compressible and breaking pads isn't really an issue today. I could see it playing a role in heat dissipation/ rejection, but again without knowing what else is in there or the amount used, its impossible to draw any real conclusions.

Bottom line (again, completely my opinion) is that throwing those words in there are just marketing buzz words to sell pads. For a street car, that single component won't make any noticeable difference to you. The two pads could act very differently relative to one another, but thatll be the result of the other components in the pad (which I'd bet make up the vast majority of the pad itself).

 

Thank God I just have to go to Wilwoods website when I want to switch brake pad compounds.

How much power are you putting down and what are you using the car for?

 

They definitely deserve praise for readily displaying a friction vs temperature chart right up front. All other performance pad manufacturers should really get on board with this as a bare minimum.

TBH, I do wish they had some kind of test procedure/ quantifiable metric for the other categories though. They certainly do a better job than most with the 1-10 scale vs low/med/high that some other companies use, but it still makes it hard to compare across brands.

 

Sweet info, looks like I'm just going to do this job as cheap as I can lol

I've got 100k on my 3.4 with a gutted airbox and muffler delete, so I'm probably down 15hp lol, but I absolutely loving bombing hills, and the stock brakes could NOT keep up. The carbon fiber ceramics with slotted rotors from duralast have really been an amazing upgrade for the street, and since duralast GT is discontinued its time to find an alternative.

 

Just to clarify, I'm not at all trying to say that bargain basement autozone pads will perform as well under hard use as these two pads youre comparing. Im just saying if you had two completely identical pads and the only difference was using CF vs aramid that there would be zero noticeable difference for a street user given the extremely small % of total composition that this material would be used in.

I'd also caution that a company advertising having one of these fibers in their pad also doesn't automatically make them better than a pad without. Hypothetically a company could use so little of this material to have virtually zero change in pad performance characteristics. Conversely, a company could use so much of it that it negatively impacts certain characteristics in the hopes of improving others. Thats why I think without a lot more info, the generic one liner marketing hype of using it is rather useless.

 

Yeah, I definitely could have worded that reply better lol. I think I'm gonna get the GT rotors turned and go with powerstop's Z37 pads, no need spending over double for redstuff.

 

I think you'll be happier in the end that way anyways with that route. I hate to put too much personal opinion in it, but ive got red stuff on my monte all around and I'm not overly thrilled with them. They're OK, but I dont feel like they excel at anything. That was the one and only set I ever bought from them.

 

I'm now running the EBC Yellow Stuff. Road And Track reviewed EBC Yellowstuff against Hawke and out of the whole mix "yellow Stuff " came out on tops for the least brake pedal fade. When I was at the road course track my Wagner ThermoQuiets experiencing significant pedal fade was found to be a common fault going hot into the corners. Adapted to the Yellows and I agree, The car runs hard into everycorner and next to zilch fade. Only issue is the significant amount of brake dust I accumulate. But it made the course more fun.

 

I'm glad you're willing to give a "they're fine" review after dropping that cash, to many people defend stuff based solely on its price tag now-a-days.

If I were tracking I would 100% run yellowstuff, but the vented rotors with carbon ceramic pads takes 10+ 70-0 panic stops to start fading, where the stock rotors and pads took 3 70-0 stops before they started fading and kicking the steering wheel all over the place, so I'm pretty happy to keep running cheap carbon fiber ceramics for now lol.