Low Dust Or No Dust?
Every driver is trying to reduce the amount of awful, black dust accumulating on their wheels, and EBC Brakes is at the forefront of making this happen. What drivers need to understand, however, is that there is no such thing as no dust.
By the very nature of how brake pads work on cast iron rotors, friction, which is the effect of the brake pad doing its work on the rotor, is actually abrasion. It therefore follows that there is always going to be some form of deposits generated by the action of the brake pad on the rotor. However, different types of brake dust can be the difference between a good experience and an unsatisfactory one.
EBC brake pads have, for many years, contained ZERO metallic particles, or steel fibres as they’re commonly known, and therefore any dust generated by EBC brake pads acting on a cast iron brake rotor is simply a small amount of black/grey dust that is very easily removed. There are various EBC brake compounds, with different friction levels and amounts of dust emitted according to the severity with which the brake pad acts on the rotor.
This year sees the launch of the EBC SC Super Ceramic brake pad, planned to debut at the Las Vegas SEMA Show, representing the lowest-dusting material that EBC has ever produced. However, the new Super Ceramic compound has a far higher performance curve than the previous EBC Redstuff, with a similar amount of dust emitted. EBC brake dust is, again, simply removed with soap, water and a sponge. SC Super Ceramic does not burnish or etch into alloys or the lacquers covering those alloys.
In its launch year, SC Super Ceramic will only be available for faster cars that might see some outings on a race track, or at least high-performance street use.
So, while you can look for a NO DUST brake pad, if you ever find one, you may also find that your car has NO BRAKES, which would not be a good scenario.
Looking at the performance of the new Super Ceramic, it is close to the well-tested and proven EBC Bluestuff, which is a true track-day material. This makes Super Ceramic a track-capable ceramic pad, which we see as a market first.
