Note:  this tech thread is an ongoing comparison -- it will take a goodly period of time for all the information to be discovered, so be patent -- more is to come over time as it is all discovered.

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This is about the different brands and types of premium LOW NOISE brake pads that are available for our bikes and how their performance differs.  

I will be comparing the premium SBC low noise ceramic pads against the top of the line EBC premium red (FA) cool running carbon graphite kevlar high friction fast race use X grade low noise EBC pads.  

(please note that EBC makes three other grades that I will not be comparing as they aren't the best low noise pads that EBC has to offer and you shouldn't be using them unless you just simply want to)

Now if you can figure out EBC's rating system and disagree with my pick, please educate me some -- I do find the EBC rating system a bit confusing and self-contradicting in some points.

In any case, I have the kevlar graphite FA 106 X pads in both thicknesses, the standard 7mm thick FA 106X pad and the 9.7mm "too thick to work on our bike" FA 106/2X pad.  

I ordered the thicker pads on purpose as they keep showing up whenever our members try to order the correct pad as the PART NUMBERS ARE EXTREMELY ALIKE and internet bike shops like to make mistakes if they get the chance to do so.   Since they were on sale I thought I'd sop up over half the worlds supply so they wouldn't keep showing up on your doorsteps by surprise ....        LEFT are FA 106/2 "too fat to fit" pads ..... and RIGHT are the "correct for the Savage" small FA 106 pads

And this is the stock FA 106X EBC pad compared to the just about a year old SBS pad.  Notice please that there isn't much worn off the black painted SBS pad in that year's worth of use (one stock Suzuki pad's entire lifetime).  

The picture is a bit blurred but you can see that the SBC is still very similar in pad material thickness to the new EBC pad even though the SBC is almost a year old.  Not quite as thick, but close.

To compare wear rates and wear-pattern-on-rotor using same-same conditions, I guess I'll have to run one pad of each kind at the same time for at least a year or so.  

But before I do that, I want to put a full set of EBC's on and seat them and then see if I can skid my front tire like I used to be able to do with the Suzuki pads.

I need to do this first while I still have the stock IRC tire on the front end of my bike to make it a fair comparison.  The stock IRC tire is almost gone so this is the time to do it if I am going to do any realistic post-seating braking comparisons.

Being an industrious new-resolution ridden first day of 2008, I decided to swap out my brake fluid, something I try to do on all vehicles at least every other year.  I was pumping away when my wife came to the garage to remind me it was time to take her to see National Treasure part 2.  So I stopped, cleaned up and took her to the movie.

Of course, I forgot to clinch the bleeder nut ----  when I came back to it 4 hours later I had 100% empty brake lines and it wouldn't pump for love or money.  

Ah Shucks .....

Came in, cleaned up a bit and punched up the list and hit "bleed brakes" into the search function.   Read a bit and found this nugget from Savage Greg that deserves being read and remembered for when YOU try to change out your brake fluid or swap to braded hose or have to rebuild a master cylinder or slave cylinder.

Savage Greg says ...

"Lots of good ideas here, but I know what the problem is.

You have too much air in the brake hose and it's hard to get it out.  The hose needs to be mostly full of fluid to get any action out of the master cylinder when you pump it.  Otherwise you are only pumping air, and no fluid is running out of the reservoir into the hose.  Kinda like holding your finger on the end of a drinking straw.

(I'm assuming there is nothing wrong with the master cylinder seals)

I wish that I had a photo, but let me try to describe a little trick."


<continued on next post>

read through it perhaps too quick and missed it - but to me the SBS ceramics caused a fair bit more wear on the rotor than the lower friction EBC - do you intend to contrast this ?

I see you write of the wear pattern - I did not notice any patterns - the rotor just went a bit thin

And here is the right side (side opposite the caliper puck).  You can tell there was a texture difference in abrasion action on the caliper puck side during the ceramic pad's duration of service.  

I would theorize that maybe the caliper puck allows more incidental pad vibration, being a somewhat more mobile element than the "stationary" legs of the opposite side.  The puck side may see a difference in non-braking separation distance as it is the part that moves away when you let go of the lever.  The opposite housing can move too, but it weighs a lot more and has more friction acting on it.  More mobility and relatively more separation space may account for the little waffles in the wear pattern??  

Heck, I'm really just guessing here.  Who knows?

If EBC's really prove out to be less abrasive than SBS's I may not put the SBS's back on at all.  But we don't really know that for sure yet, now do we?

To quantify this, I guess I had better dig up my old measurement post from when I put the SBS pads on the bike and take some brand new post SBS measurements now so I will have some thing to compare against.  I'll use a micrometer since we are dicing a few thousandths worn off the each side of the rotors at this point in time.

Measuring untouched steel at rim    =   0.1762"    considered "as new"

Measuring centermost worn portion
after wearing out Suzuki pads         =   0.1750"    (.0012" wear from one year of Suzuki pads)

Measuring centermost worn portion
after 1 year of SBS pad wear          =   0.1706"    (.0044" wear from one year of SBS pads)


Total wear is 0.0056" at this stage of the game, with the wear showing itself more in the center of the "shiny zone" than to either side of the zone.  

Clymer manual states the rotor wear limit to be 0.160" so I think a dealer would try to sell me a rotor pretty much right after my first SBS 100% complete pad wear-out change.  

Heck, I've only got 0.010" of rotor life left .....    

This would surely suck big-time, as Suzuki charges a lot for that rotor, $179.95 plus shipping from Bike Bandit to be exact.

High friction pads may be softer and wear out a lot quicker than a long life pad.  Like our stock IRC tires, they may be sticky and soft to get the extra grip, but really wear out quick because of that high coefficent of friction grippy effect.  High friction pads may wear out quicker than a lower friction longer life pad like the SBS appears to be.

Reelthing, what brand were the rest of your three other replacement pad sets?

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I'm wondering if I shouldn't sand my rotor some to keep the roughened surface from the SBS pads from screwing up the overall life results on the EBC pads.  The original SBS installation got a smoothed deglazed rotor for them to start on, so maybe I should try to smooth up the surface a bit for the EBCs to give them a similar starting point.  At least I know the SBS pads CREATED the rough surface that exists now, I won't have the ability to know that about the EBCs unless I sand the rotors to smooth out some of the roughness that is there now.

I betcha that you ain't a gonna get Reelthing to put SBS ceramic pads on that expensive new rotor of his.  He is currently using the EBC organic pads (I am not sure which exact grade and type) for a reason. He done learned that particular lesson already with his last rotor.

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OK, I polished the outer (puck side) surface of the rotor (the roughest side with the most scratches and most metal removed by the SBS pads) back to smooth using an orbital finishing sander and fine paper while rolling the wheel by hand.  I removed 2 tenths of metal to get it smooth again.  Finish is tiny little overlapping circles and will make it very easy to know where the break in wear happens with the EBC pads.

Can't do very much about the other side of the rotor since I am limited to hand sanding due to "no room for power equipment" between rotor and spokes.   Such is life .... do the best you can with what you got.  

It is pretty flat and fairly smooth, so we will see what happens to the two rotor sides now with the EBC pads.

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SBS pads had seated brownish-tan against the rotor and this was also the color of the brake pad dust left on the caliper.

EBC seats a dark black against the rotor and leaves black dust on the caliper.

EBC gets very slightly better braking force than the SBS pads -- this is a very "touchy-feelly" observation but I can get the front end to skid very slightly with EBC pads.

Did you mike the rotor (or do you still have a virgin material lip at the edge that you can go mike now)?

EBC official start point for one set's worth of wear on a Suzuki original "smoothed rotor" is 0.1704" on my bike.

You should be able to catch a start point on virgin steel for one SBS set's worth of wear on an EBC rotor.

Reelthing should be able to catch a start point on virgin steel for one EBC set's worth of wear on an EBC rotor.

This way we get data on both types of pad on an aftermarket EBC rotor and we can get data off my bike for EBC followed by SBS -- then I will likely be in the market for a new rotor myself as I will be well past the wear limit.