Bluestuff NDX Formula Racing Brake pads

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EBC Bluestuff NDX Formula Racing Brake Pads

Race Development Progress

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details and specs.

EBC Bluestuff USA ......First test weekend with Race Driver George Penn in a 4000 lb stock GTO at VIR in USA. George ran 3 x 45 minute sessions on the E 366 compound EBC Blue before finally toasting the pads. The EBC formulation was then upgraded to enhance life and is being retested shortly. The stock PBR caliper only allows a 14.0 mm pad which is not enough for a car of this speed and weight and encourages us to caution drivers to monitor wear every 120 minutes of trackday driving on the GTO.

The GTO in Australia is known of course as the Holden Commodore and this very quick version shown above run by Emotional Engineering in the British GT series ran EBC Bluestuff throughout the long 1 hour races in its season. It also performed excellently in the FIA GT World series in France.

For several years EBC Brakes has been developing its full race pads for cars called Bluestuff and after a few final modification in 2009 is preparing to release this material known as Formula NDX in fall/autumn 2009 for the 2010 season.

The NDX Formula is a harder and longer lasting pad than its stablemate the Yellowstuff compound and has been very succesfully run on heavier cars including the Holden(Vauxhall) Monaro which weighs in at over 3600 lbs ( almost 1.7 tons) and as such is a much better test of the typical "3000 pound" USA race cars.

Whilst EBC Brakes Yellowstuff has worked out very well in Europe on Trackday and short even closed circuit racing its high friction characteristics cause it to wear quite quickly on heavier cars and longer races, making the Blue NDX grade the ideal upgrade.

NDX Blue final compound has been chosen as a semi - sintered pad compound blended using copper and other metals in a heat fusion process,rather than the interlayer system originally planned. Tests have shown this material to have the optimum life and friction and as required a super strong bond strength to the steel backing plates.

The new material has minimum chemical curing requirements and merely needs to mate to your rotors before the full effect of the brake is noticed. On decent flat rotors this will be barely more than one lap with 20-30 brake applications from around 100 mph in a snub down to 50-60 Mph.

Check contact patch before going to full race braking on the rotor, the blue-grey contact band will be self evident.

USA Driver George Penn , long time EBC enthusiast, has been using EBC yellows
and is now evaluating Bluestuff for us on the GTO.

USA Driver George Penn evaluating EBC Bluestuff Racing Pads

First and foremost, my very deep thanks for the early Christmas present of Stoptechs! They are a work of art. I cannot wait to get these on the car this winter for the spring events. I will be racing in TTC (stock calipers) and TTB (Stoptech bump me a class) next season and based on lap times this year, I should be on the podium every single event regardless of class. The way the blues performed though, I have no issues keeping the stock calipers around whenever you need testing done. Until additional upgrades go on the car to ensure I can smack around the Porsches and heavily modified Subarus, I may even pop on the stock calipers to win TTC once in a while and boost my ego.

This past weekend's event had 6 - 35 minute sessions. Each lap had the following braking zones/time intervals:
135mph to 65 mph
~10 seconds to a 100mph to 80mph
~14 seconds to a 100mph to 45mph
~35 seconds to a 110mph to 85mph
~25 seconds back to the top.

Feedback on the DM2081, even though I know you've moved on to the next formula:

1.	Excellent initial bite - I had to completely relearn where to initiate my brake zones the first day (good thing)
2.	Zero fade - I beat the piss out of these things and had zero glazing/fade
3.	Slightly less consistent feel than last formula - I put in my notes "grabiness" in the extended brake zone areas of the course. Now this could be attributable to some caliper stickiness, but I did a check Saturday night and couldn't find caliper issues.
4.	Durability - I've got plenty of pad left. I haven't taken the brakes apart for full measurement due to travel, but a quick visual Sunday night showed I could get at least another day out of them. Will get photos of pads and rotors to you in the next couple of days once i get the car back up in the air.
5.	Pretty quiet! The last formula were very noisy from the get go. 2081 were relatively quiet with some squeeks here and there. A lot less noise than I expected. I did standard bedding procedure.

At some point this winter, I will need some more promotional material as I handed out the last of the Race Brochures this weekend (I still have plenty of the yellow brochure). The GTO attracted a lot of attention on track and off track with folks asking about EBC (car was plastered with stickers). The Corvette and Porsche guys were especially interested as I was toe-to-toe with them in the braking zones.

Also, any plans for a brochure specific to the Yellows? I had several S2000 and Miata drivers drop by to ask about the Blues. Also several early development drivers who were using Hawk HPS on their Nissans and BMWs. Would be great to have a Yellow brochure equivalent to the Blue brochure with the technical specs.

EBC Bluestuff Race Pad Development Continued on Page 2...

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