Green Stuff Brake Pads

[Lammie]

I have a 2003 S2 Elise 120bhp and I need to replace my dics and pads. I don't want to go crazy on price, and I don't take the car on track (just yet anyway). I want better stopping power than the OEM pads and I was wondering if the Green Stuff pads where a good solution, and should I upgrade my discs too?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[TIPPER]

No, no, no, no.
EBC Yellowstuffs or Mintex 1144 (I prefer the Yellows). About £100 a set, you can't really get decent pads for the Elise for less.

[Lammie]

Thanks for that Tipper. Yellow Stuff it is then.

Any views on discs or are the standard items OK?

[TIPPER]

Standard discs will be fine. Not sure what the prices are of OE discs but when the time comes to replace them check out EBC discs too.

[Lammie]

I'm ordering them now! Thanks for your help

[Russ H]

Had a chat with Chris Foulds of Huddersfield (independent Lotus garage), he
reckons Green Stuff are the ones to use and all the negative reports are
internet bks. The other coloured ones are for track use mainly.

Also said some choice words about Nitrons and certain 'tuning' mods to the
K series. Seemed like good advice to me at the time.


Russ.

[malbon]

He's talking doodoo ! Greenstuff are fine if your using you car to commute and all you need to do is stop the car when you press the middle peddle. Just like putting remould or budget tyres on your elise to make it drive down the road

edit - just read the second bit about 'choice words' about Nitrons ?!?!?

Do yourself a favour and go and test out these 'mods' yourself and get your own opinion.

Edited by malbon on Thursday 18th June 22:43

[Russ H]

Favour

I have my own opinion, just expressing someone elses who is clued up in the
real world and not just hearsay via Seloc etc etc.

Russ.

[VX Foxy]

Russ H said:

who is clued up in the real world

He clearly isn't clued up if he thinks GS are good.

FGS.

[TIPPER]

Russ H said:

Had a chat with Chris Foulds of Huddersfield (independent Lotus garage), he
reckons Green Stuff are the ones to use and all the negative reports are
internet bks. The other coloured ones are for track use mainly.

Also said some choice words about Nitrons and certain 'tuning' mods to the
K series. Seemed like good advice to me at the time.


Russ.

Chris Foulds (and you) are entitled to your opinions however my recommendation isn't based on internet bks.
I've used OE, Greenstuff, Mintex 1144 and Yellowstuffs. I found Greenstuffs to have the footfeel of blocks of wet wood - not what you want when you need to threshold brake.
Yellowstuffs are my favourites of the above as they work well from cold , have good bite (without being 'grabby' which I think the 1144s can tend to) and feel with a nice progressive action.
'Choice' words about Nitrons? What do you think of them based on your experiences? They work very well for me (and many others from chats in the real world of real people) thankyou
'Tuning' mods to the 'K' series? I suppose that depends on what you call tuning. I don't think I've ever seen a single post claiming extra bhp from induction/exhaust mods not laughed at. Other than that most of the posts I've seen on tuning the K are based on head porting and cams, optimising that with another ecu etc, etc. All tried and tested routes that have proved very successful over many miles of road, track and race conditions and not just on the Elise.

The only bk I see here is your post.

[randy]

Russ H said:

Had a chat with Chris Foulds of Huddersfield (independent Lotus garage), he
reckons Green Stuff are the ones to use and all the negative reports are
internet bks. The other coloured ones are for track use mainly.

Also said some choice words about Nitrons and certain 'tuning' mods to the
K series. Seemed like good advice to me at the time.


Russ.

I would suggest that anyone who has the above opinion isn't worth listening to! Green Stuff are crap and not even cheap to run when you consider the wear rate of the pad and the accelerated wear to the disc. Nitrons don't seem to have done too badly considering they have won almost every single LOTRDC race since the series started :-)

[Stitch]

I love these threads!

'Experts' who know more than the manufacturer.

EBC state that the Greenstuff pad (2000 series) is designed for lightweight cars with power up to 200bhp (sound familiar?)

Yellowstuff is for the fastest street use on high power sedans and track use and from the info I have seen doesn't operate effectively from cold (effective operating range of 150c to 900c).

Why would someone with a 120bhp Elise who uses on the road only (and doesn't drive like a complete tosser on that road) go with yellowstuff - unless of course they know far more than the manufacturer?

I think that the comparison above with using re-moulds takes things a bit far - a better comparison would be between using a standard all weather tyre and the A048.

For ultimate grip and operating at 9/10ths + of performance then the A048 is superior. However, for an all rounder (and a tyre that will be safe to use in the event that you get caught out in a downpour, or when the temp drops towards freezing - and before anyone gets upset about this comment it is picked up from the Yoko website - the tyre is not suitable for use in cold weather or where there is standing water) then take the Bridgestone or equivalent.

I'm not saying that yellowstuff does not have ultimate superior stopping power but that for 99% of applications the greenstuff is the correct spec.

[kambites]

Newer Green Stuffs seem to be a lot better than the older ones, I don't know what they've changed but it's definitely made a difference. The new ones are similar in quality to the OEM pad, but still not near as good feeling as the yellow and Mintex pads. They're perfectly adequate for road use though.

[Beachbum]

TIPPER said:

No, no, no, no.
EBC Yellowstuffs or Mintex 1144 (I prefer the Yellows). About £100 a set, you can't really get decent pads for the Elise for less.

Be aware, that there are 2 versions of Yellowstuff. not sure which is the correct one to use for the Elise, but a quick call to EBC should sort that out, or maybe the guy that gave aaway a few sets, after an interesting and less that complimentary thread on Greestuff, can comment.

I have yellowstuff, I went from the Lotus originals to them and the difference is amazing. Never used Greenstuff, but given how much I like what I have now and that I dont consider £100 for all 4 corners to much to pay for what is arguably the most important bit about driving (Stopping) then I'll stick with them in the future too, all things remaining the same

[TIPPER]

Stitch said:

I love these threads!

'Experts' who know more than the manufacturer.

EBC state that the Greenstuff pad (2000 series) is designed for lightweight cars with power up to 200bhp (sound familiar?)

Yellowstuff is for the fastest street use on high power sedans and track use and from the info I have seen doesn't operate effectively from cold (effective operating range of 150c to 900c).

Why would someone with a 120bhp Elise who uses on the road only (and doesn't drive like a complete tosser on that road) go with yellowstuff - unless of course they know far more than the manufacturer?

I think that the comparison above with using re-moulds takes things a bit far - a better comparison would be between using a standard all weather tyre and the A048.

For ultimate grip and operating at 9/10ths + of performance then the A048 is superior. However, for an all rounder (and a tyre that will be safe to use in the event that you get caught out in a downpour, or when the temp drops towards freezing - and before anyone gets upset about this comment it is picked up from the Yoko website - the tyre is not suitable for use in cold weather or where there is standing water) then take the Bridgestone or equivalent.

I'm not saying that yellowstuff does not have ultimate superior stopping power but that for 99% of applications the greenstuff is the correct spec.

I also love comments from those who've read the side of a packet and offer that up as advice!

I'm not claiming to be an 'expert' of any sort - I'm certainly not but I've a fair bit of experience of the Elise now and have spent a fair few ££££££££ on consumables. I'm offering the benefit of my experience to the OP, not the benefit of having read the sides of boxes or a manufacturer's internet site.
Yellowstuffs do improve with heat BUT they also work well from cold on the Elise.
Real world driving? Have you never needed to do an emergency stop. In 30 years on the road I've done a few there's always some cock who pulls into your braking space when you least need it) and in a car like the Elise with no assistance of any sort in the braking department then good footfeel is important in shaving a few feet of braking distances.

Final point: Randy is hardly an 'internet expert'. Real world expert? Oh Yes!

[kevin ritson]

lol, this row happens every 3 weeks. What seems like an overwhelming opinion that greenstuffs are crap, yet go to any Lotus meet and you'll be surprised how many cars have them fitted, surely they'd have changed them by now if they were so bad...

I used to have a set on an my observations are:

About the same as OEM, except Lotus will probably bill you three times the price
Can they stop the car? Yes - a kid on a pushbike decided to cross a 40mph road 10 feet in front of me and the car stopped pretty damn well
Do they wear out quickly? In a year's (12,000 miles) use I still had half the pad left and the discs had plenty of meat if I wanted to keep them on
Would I use them on track? Frankly no, which is why I switched to Pagids

Now I'm not one to stand on the brakes for road use, I kinda think the whole point of road driving is avoiding the brakes as much as you can but if you don't go near a track then you won't be crashing in a ball of flame with them any time soon.

Edited by kevin ritson on Friday 19th June 09:36

[TIPPER]

Beachbum said:

TIPPER said:

No, no, no, no.
EBC Yellowstuffs or Mintex 1144 (I prefer the Yellows). About £100 a set, you can't really get decent pads for the Elise for less.

Be aware, that there are 2 versions of Yellowstuff. not sure which is the correct one to use for the Elise, but a quick call to EBC should sort that out, or maybe the guy that gave aaway a few sets, after an interesting and less that complimentary thread on Greestuff, can comment.

I have yellowstuff, I went from the Lotus originals to them and the difference is amazing. Never used Greenstuff, but given how much I like what I have now and that I dont consider £100 for all 4 corners to much to pay for what is arguably the most important bit about driving (Stopping) then I'll stick with them in the future too, all things remaining the same

EBC changed the compound on the Yellowstuffs last year. It was the new compound that EBC sent out to a few of us to try.
Although my first set were free I don't have any axe to grind, just reporting as I find.

In the interests of fairness perhaps I should also say that someone with a pagid set up drove my car (albeit on track) and didn't think my brakes as effective. Fair enough, but the Pagids are twice the price and he was using a pretty aggressive compound.

[braddo]

I've had my S1 for about 10 months and it came with relatively new greenstuff pads. I've done about 5000 miles of mixed driving and 3 trackdays and the pads are barely worn. So in my experience, they work fine. That's not to say there aren't better products out there, obviously.

The trackdays were Snetterton, Brands Indy and Donington, the first two with 80-90kg passengers the whole time, so the brakes got a reasonable workout and I had no brake fade or other problem. The harder I pressed the brake pedal, the harder the car stopped, although I must admit I could not tell how close I was getting to the threshold - I guess this is the wooden feel people talk about and I would interested to see if yellowstuffs improve this.

Clearly pad wear varies with the driver and perhaps I'm light on brakes. I would like to think I was making proper use of the brakes on track (going by the amount of nosedive under braking, the occasional right-front lockup turning into the chicane at Donington, braking points not being earlier than most of the other cars), but I guess I cannot be sure until I passenger with a more experienced Elise driver, for example.

Brad

[Ikemi]

I have tried two S2 Elises that had EBC 'Green Stuff' pads fitted - All I can say is that you'd get better braking performance by winding the windows down and flapping your arms to create some sort of drag! Imho, they feel almost non-existent in comparison to other pads on the market ...

Pagid pads are fantastic; improved pedal feel, incredible bite from cold and more resistant to fading from heat However they are fairly expensive. The EBC yellow stuff and Mintex 1144 are very capable pads

Edited by Ikemi on Friday 19th June 11:35

[lee111s]

Ikemi said:

I have tried two S2 Elises that had EBC 'Green Stuff' pads fitted - All I can say is that you'd get better braking performance by winding the windows down and flapping your arms to create some sort of drag! Imho, they feel almost non-existent in comparison to other pads on the market ...

GLOL!!