Exige S - ap racing brakes

[vxc]

Hello,

My first day in the exige s and i have to say. wow!

so many looks from pedestrians and onby travellers!

my only concern is the brakes, and was wanting to know a ball park figure for a lotus garage to fit these including buying.

as they seem a bit sluggish when braking. i can stamp my foot down and the car stops alright but to a gentle slow.

i have a mg tf, which when doing the same precedure u can tell theres a difference in responce.

If any one can tell me or sugeest some checks or general maintenance would be good

Thanks

[shangani]

The standard calipers are absolutely fine. Most of the elise trophy racers use them, albeit with better discs, though that won't be an issue on the road. The problem with the brakes in road use is two-fold:

Most people are used to cars with heavily servo assisted brakes and simply don't apply enough braking force on the elise / exige until they are used to the setup. Just takes practice.

I am not sure what pads your car came equipped with, but some of the std lotus offerings are dire with very poor initial bite. Some exiges come standard with the pagid rs 14 pads which are pretty good when warm, but need heat in them. Great for track, but not so good for road imho. They are black btw.

I changed to the blue pagids - rs 42's which resolved my braking issues.

[bogie]

as above the standard 2 pot AP calipers are more than good enough, just try changing pads, even re-bedding the ones that are fitted properly will help, as they glaze over with no use

the 4 pot APs are overkill unless you are racing, and even then the marjority dont feel they need them

[S Works]

What those two said. Give it a few more drives and you'll soon see how bloody good those brakes are. If you're still not convinced, get to a carlimits day and Mr Walsh will happily give you a demo!

[nsm3]

+1

Exige S, Standard calipers, Pagid 42's all round, that lack of initial bite completely dissapears and the brakes behave exactly as you would expect them to - £200 as opposed to, I would guess circa £1,500 for the AP conversion?

[F.C.]

I drove an S2 Exige S and an S with PP and SP options with the AP upgrade.
I bought the latter because the brakes had better feel and response, however considering the not insubstantial cost of an AP conversion I'm sure the standard set-up with some pagid pads would be up to the task.
F.C.

[VTECMatt]

If new it will take a while to bed them in if older it may take a short while to get decent temperature in them. Whilst I would keep the OEM set up for trackdays the brakes are 100% fine for road use.

[vxc]

thanks very much the suggestions.


The only reason i bring this up is when during my drive i notice that they werent that 'responsive' and if i had to perform an emergency stop in order to save my exige's front end, i was pondering wether at the curretn state would i stop but hit the person in front because of this.

however i havent perform this action to test this out, probably should...but if its a case that more pressure is required (even tho i feel as if i cant push anymore) then i will test this.

[TIPPER]

Have a look on the Pagid website and it will tell you how to properly bed the pads in. Ifv you do that it makes a huge difference. Other than that push harder: you won't be the first to think Elise/Exige brakes aren't all that if you've never used non-servo brakes before. Regarding the AP package: Chris Randall was quiet happy with the performance of standard calipers when racing (and dominating) with his supercharged Honda Elise. His new Europa project will also be running standard calipers. He reckons you'd only need to upgrade the calipers for cooling purposes in endurance racing.

[The Bandit]

I have to say,the thing passengers have been most impressed by in my car is the power of the brakes,even with ABS the feel is excellent-they do need a good hard push though .
The good initial bite does'nt seem to last that long with the OEM pads so(with a few recommendations now)will be putting a set of Pagid RS42's on next

[ruston]

TIPPER said:

you won't be the first to think Elise/Exige brakes aren't all that if you've never used non-servo brakes before.

I think you'll find that the Exige (S2) does have servo assistance.

[TOENHEEL]

I have yellow stuff fitted to my exige and they wrok a treat, no fade after lots of stick around the ring.

[squirejo]

when was the brake fluid last changed? If the car's over 12mths old and hasn't been done, I'd get it done. I agree with all the previous posters regarding pads; my 240r has standard calipers, larger discs at the front and pagids. Nowt wrong with the stopping power.

[LRGS2]

Fit EBC Yellowstuff they are half the price of Pagids and have transformed the braking feel on my car!

[cyberface]

OP - what pads are currently fitted? If you've got EBC Greenstuff in there, then that could easily explain your lack of bite, since the Greenstuff pad is notorious for being useless on lightweights like the Elise. The pads / discs could be glazed due to previous owner mistreatment too.

I've had great performance from EBC's Red pad so given that Yellow is the next one up, and appears to work well in the Elise, I think I'll be swapping for EBC Yellow rather than the default Pagid RS42, which are not only rather expensive but marked 'for track use only' and I don't want *any* more aggro with insurance 'people' if the worst happens - took 5 months to resolve my VXT claim...

I reckon you're best off just getting new fluid, new pads and if the discs aren't worn then get a garage to de-glaze them. Otherwise you can get new discs, either OEM or upgrade ally-bell ones.

I'm not fond of the unservoed S1 and K-series S2 setup, whereas many die-hard lightweight Lotus fans much prefer the unassisted setup. I thought the balance and level of assistance first on the VX220 turbo and now on my Exige S was spot-on, perfect for heel-n-toe, without massive discrepancies in force required for brake and throttle. However I never felt that the S1 wasn't going to stop, until I tried a mate's unassisted car which had EBC Greenduff pads fitted. That *really* was a bit nerve-wracking, needing the full force I could possibly apply to the pedal without damaging the seat...

Seriously, a change of pads should do the trick, choose something that fits your preferred driving style and bed them in properly. The standard calipers on the Elise are up to the job - if they're used by the Elise Trophy race cars, some with supercharged Honda VTEC engines and featherweight chassis, then they will be able to cope with your road car. If you want more aggressive bite, choose a more aggressive pad.