Squeaky new mintex 1144s

[sycal]

Firstly, Hi to everyone.

After years of drooling, I've recently taken the plunge and bought a 2000 S1 Elise 111S (yellow). Unfortunately, it turned out that there was quite a bit of work that needed doing before I could enjoy it

I must admit to lurking on this forum for a bit first to get some ideas , but I've now had an S1-S2 suspension conversion installed by Plans Motorsport together with a full set of EBC disks & Mintex pads and a recon' steering rack. With a nice MOT certificate to stamp the work, I've now hopefully got a car that I (and the wife) can use on and off the track.

One problem I've noticed is that although the new brakes bite well, straight from the off, they are also very squeaky. I was under the impression that the Mintex 1144 pads I chose are mostly road with some track use thrown in, so I was a bit surprised by this. Does anyone know if this is correct or whether they need more bedding in or something?

Also, I took the decision to have the CAT pipe put back in. It definately makes the car more wife-friendly, and fortunately, the nice rasp at higher revs is still there. My main reason though, was I read an article (I think it was based on the MGF) that the VVC engine is quite happy to have the back pressure from the CAT, so I don't actually lose any power. Plans also seemed to suggest the difference was marginal, so I went with that

As a matter of interest, are there many owners here in the Reading area? If so, is there a more local place to get good servicing work done? I was thinking of SGT, but I've read some not-so-good comments about them.

Simon

[ptp170]

See how they bed in after the first few hundred miles....

[Furyous]

Steve Williams in Maidenhead is your man for service work.

http://www.swlotus.co.uk/





eta linky

Edited by Furyous on Sunday 25th November 21:19

[21TonyK]

Re: Mintex

Give them a damn good hammering for a day or two. If no joy pop the wheels off and copperslip the backs of the pads and the bits that touch the calipers.

[TIPPER]

Find a bit of private road and hit the brakes hard from 90ish down to 60 hard, several times. They should be fine then.
Oddly enough they can get squeeky again after hard use but I find it just dissappears.

[ChristianM]

I had the same thing with the mintex pads even with copper grease and following the bedding in guidelines.

I believe it is due to the pads sweeping a slightly wider area of the disk and took a few hundred miles of mixed use to disapear. Was terrible at first.

You could read this thread too for more feedback... http://www.pistonheads.com/xforums/topic.asp?h=0&a...

I'm partly based in Reading and can also recomend S Williams.

Edited by ChristianM on Sunday 25th November 23:06

[AlexT]

You can purchase a special silicon anti-squeal gel that goes onto the pad. Otherwise use coppaslip. I used some rubber pads on the back of my pads (SBS Pro) plus coppaslip and I have no squeals.

[Hollywood Wheels]

Squeeky brakes rule.............sounds like a race car!!

[RobM77]

My Mintex pads squeal like crazy even after a trip to the ring and a thousand road miles... I'll try the copper slip idea!

I'm based just south of Reading and also use Plans, as do a couple of my friends in the area. I've been very impressed.

[Cino]

I need to change my pads ASAP and was going to try 1144s, but I keep hearing about this squealing issue. I'm not keen on EBC after reading comments from people, and Pagids are not recommended for road use. Are there any other options? It would be for majority fast road use, with (very) occasional tracking

[dumbfunk]

I'm a little off-site here in the Lotus pages but the 1144s on my Griff have always squealed horribly. I had them fitted before driving to Slovenija and don't think 1000 miles of Autobahns exactly match the approved bedding in procedure. I've tried every kind of heat cycle trick to fix them and had them back in to the service agent but they're no different.

In fact, that garage (who also do Lotus) told me they squealed "because the discs are warped". Given that the discs are still on the car working perfectly 10k miles later and I use another dealer now, I would guess this advice is not especially reliable.


dumbfunk

[RobM77]

Just to add that my discs were brand new and fitted when the pads were. Plans warned me about the squealing, and just said that they all do it! Great pads though - it's reduced the infamous Elise 'pedal sink' making heel and toe easier.

[piooly]

do a few hard stops. all noise will go away.

[dumbfunk]

piooly said:

do a few hard stops. all noise will go away.

In absolute frustration I tried this a few times from very high speed on some *extremely* empty sections of autobahn South of Frankfurt and it had absolutely no effect. May work for others though?


df

[RobM77]

dumbfunk said:

piooly said:

do a few hard stops. all noise will go away.

In absolute frustration I tried this a few times from very high speed on some *extremely* empty sections of autobahn South of Frankfurt and it had absolutely no effect. May work for others though?

df

I did four laps of the Nurburgring and it didn't work! They still squeal as much as ever. To be honest, it doesn't bother me, although it is a little embaressing if you're in a quiet car park.

[Bing o]

Hollywood Wheels said:

Squeeky brakes rule.............sounds like a bus!!

EFA, HTH!!

[Hollywood Wheels]