mx5cartalk.com

(I haven't tried Hawk or EBC etc. )
I use Bendix Ultimate, they seem a great all round pad for our naturally aspirated NB.

They make a heap of brake dust but I put up with that given how well the pads perform.

Another vote for Bendix Ultimate.

I found OEM pads on the NA8 we had and the NC we currently have were/are just great for road and track days.

Track days yes... but what about when 'mountain dríven?'

\"Mountain dríven\" is muuuuch easier than track days.

yes the bendix pads are good, but i agree with jbt it is worth checking out the oem pads as well, they are a good all purpose pad and not as dusty as the bendix.

Fatty wrote:yes the bendix pads are good, but i agree with jbt it is worth checking out the oem pads as well, they are a good all purpose pad and not as dusty as the bendix.

evidently they perform much better when orientated the correct way

Fatty wrote::oops:

Hey I believe that should be my response

As part of the upgrade to a turbo I also installed NA8 brakes on my NA6. I had the disks machined and fitted OEM brake pads all around. I never really liked them. When I bought the bigger brakes I was given two sets of used pads OEM and some higher spec ones. I recently fitted the higher spec ones, and think they are great. I have only used them on the road and they have much better stopping power than the OEM pads. I'm pretty sure the previous owner used them on track. There is not a lot of meat left and if I could work out what they are I would like to get them again.
Not much help to this thread until I can find out they are.

J

I have OEM NB8A pads in the front. Absolutely love them.
They may be $300 But i guess its like getting a decent tyre.

worth while in my book.

I had NB8B original pads in and now have EBC Red stuff on the front and EBC Green stuff on the back. Have found them to be alot better.

Ben

I can't believe I'm reading that people fit brake pads that work when they are \"warmed up\". I want mine to work 100% from the time my car first moves until it is parked for the night. Oddly enough, the OEM pads do that.

JBT wrote:I can't believe I'm reading that people fit brake pads that work when they are "warmed up". I want mine to work 100% from the time my car first moves until it is parked for the night. Oddly enough, the OEM pads do that.

Must have something to do with Mazda having a bigger bucket of money than us minnows to get the pad material right for 99% of the people driving a MX-5.

And JBT the OEM pads on the NC work fine both on and off the track. I just wanted to raise the top end working temp as a bit of insurance on the track which is why I went for the HPS. The only offset is on a winter morning (probably not Brisbane) you need to ride the brakes for 50 metres to put a little heat into them.

My original NC pads, probably made in Japan, were a different material to the replacement OEM pads I bought here. The second set was probably made locally by Bendix and boxed as Mazda and lasted a lot longer than the first and therefore obviously didn’t dust as much.

i went from OEM to Bendix ultimates to Hawk HP+ and the hawks are easily the best.

OEM were shockingly bad, ultimates were ok.