John Boggiano

Hi, Guys

Can some just confirm for me that these don't have a green backing plate when supplied from Porsche?

Thanks.

MarekN

Hello John, I think that they indeed have a green plate, the manufacturer is Pagid, the type is P50. The difference is that the motorsport pads have a different friction material, but they are also about 20% thicker. If I am not mistaken, the OEM pads are P40 front and rear, but the motorsport pads are P50 front and thicker and P40 rear and thicker.

In your article, you could also investigate the evolution of the PCCB system, which started in the 996 GT2 (?). I guess it depends on how talkative SGL is on this subject, which I doubt.

I guess that the main paradox is that PCCB is marketed as a race-bred system, but the people using it on the track know that they will be better off with iron brakes. Of course, Porsche runs the Supercup cars with ceramics, but many people don´t really know the severe distinction between full-out carbon brakes (DTM, F1) and carbon ceramics.

P.S. I have them on my car and I love them, no problems so far, but I have seen a few 997 GT cars which plainly show that the ceramic rotors are indeed destructible, and very quickly.

John Boggiano

Thank you very much. Can anybody say for sure?

I didn't realise they were also thicker. By coincidence, I'm just about to contact Pagid now.

Evolution/development/manufacture/ research - check.

Problems/care of/ etc - almost done. Some very interesting stuff - I hope everyone enjoys the feature and finds useful stuff within. I thought I knew a fair bit on this subject, but I had only scratched the surface, if you'll pardon the pun.

FYI - SGL have been very helpful indeed - not what I expected to be frank.

roberga

Front: P-50 (green)
Rear: P-40 (green) Same as black OM but 10mm thicker.

John Boggiano

10mm each? Seems a huge amount.

roberga

Maybe 5mm per pad for a total 10. It is a very big difference. Being motorsport pads I would expect it keeps any changing during an event to fronts only. It would be nice to hear from the Porsche Motorsport folks to find out.

997gt3north

dont have a backing plate
they are approx 13mm thickness versus 10mm standard

NJ-GT

The Pagid Green (P50) is a race compound, it is used by the Porsche SuperCup teams. It is a very hard pad designed to be used on PCCB.

I have been running RS-19 and RS-29 on PCCB (Gen I) for over 4 years. They are easier on rotors regardless of rotors being PCCB or cast iron.

My Pagid supplier says that P-50 are a compound similar to RS-15 (Pagid Grey). RS-15 is tougher on rotors than Pagid Blacks (RS-14).

John Boggiano

Thanks for the info, guys, and the picture might be useful too.

C.J. Ichiban

if you use the P50 greens you have to really to bed them in properly and heat them up (hot enough to just about smoke and get some pad transfer) so the rotors last longer, if you fail to bed them in correctly they can shred them pretty hard. Mine have lasted really well on both street and track use.

John Boggiano

You are right - SGL are very firm that good bedding in is essential for all PCCB pads. That's 'essential' - so why aren't we told this..?

997gt3north

Not that I disagree, but I think that any and all new pads should be bedded in (i.e. the 10 very hard back to back stops form 60 to 5mph)

What is far more critical to know is that the OE pccb pads "under track conditions" will release a gas that causes you to blow 2 corners while it happens - this will never happen for street driven cars so don't worry, but I think porsche should include in the manual information about this because when it happened to the first of us that got the cars on the track it was very scary and no one knew what was happening and the techs at the dealer didn't believe it. The other issue that should also be covered in the manual is how the bit point will fall about an inch once the rotors have been scrubbed in at the track - again, for those that experienced it we all thought the brakes were failing / fluid boilling

John Boggiano

Thanks for this - just time to include it.

I agree about the bedding-in for all pads, but in practice most people just don't know this and, of course, for the majority it's not a problem. The fact that PCCB's maker insists it is essential should be prominent in the written material that comes with such a car, I feel.

997gt3north

The bite point / modulation issue is a biggie imo.
Whe these gen2 pccb cars were first delivered all the original posts back then were about how incredible the brakes were - i.e. touch the pedal and the car just instantly stopped because the initial bite point was very very high and the "feel" was very on/off. Problem was for those that tracked the car the initial street driving experience basically made you think that there was going to be no way to heal toe downshift as the pedal would never line up. Even when you went out to your first track day with the car (i.e. most of us start easy in a brand new car in order to learn it) it is very likely that the first trackday that the bite point stayed high and was still on off. For me, it was at at limerock on a cold april day in 2007. The first two 25 minute sessions i left the car in 3rd gear going into bigben and everything was fine. On the 3rd session with my confidence growing i shifted into fourth and waitied for marker #4 1/2 and then with the added heat and wear from the first 2 sessions the pedal literally "felt" like it went to the floor. What I think happend was not only did I get the rotors finally scrubbed in (no one told me this was going to happen) but I think the pads also vented their gas - the combo was rather frightening but I made the corner "just" and continued driving the rest of the day convinced I had "boiled" the fluid. It felt like that spongy "boiled" felling but the car was stopping but I knew something had change. Took it to the dealer they didn't believe me said everything was fine. What I know now is that the pedal feel is different (softer) but far better (easier to modulate) but I know for 100% sure that it is different as it is no longer high up on on / off.

I know I'm not the only one that experienced this as I had two guys that very day with pccbs at Limerock that experienced the same thing and now almost 2 years later most have had some version of this. As this pertains to such a critical system on the car, I think somekind of BIG LETTER WARNING shold be included in the manual and actually told directly to customers when they take delivery of the car - thus they wold be ready and not freakout thinking their brakes had failed.

Now that the rotors are scrubbed in, with P50 pads I think these are the greatest brakes you could ever purchase

Paul

crispenigl

This EXACT SAME thing happened to me, except I was on Willow Springs headed into turn 1, which is rather fast and I was chasing a friend of mine who is a bit faster than I am.

From that point forward, I was able to heal toe on the street without an issue.




I could not agree with you more.!!!

I wish I knew then what I know now. I ruined a rotor because of TC.


I wish I could go back in time and had been using p50s to protect the rotors better.


Great post Paul!

Greg