pads with more initial bite
 

Hello guys.

I am in a 986 S and admittedly have cheapo pads in fitted by previous owner.

I am looking for a pad with higher initial bite, so they need less of a shove at normal town speeds. I don mind leaning on them when I am out for a good drive, but around town they could do with a bit more top of pedal bite.

Or maybe a GT3 MC would be a better choice?

Any thoughts on this?

I think what your craving for are OEM pads. They have fantastic bite and great feel. At worst they'll establish a good baseline for you. Porsche knows there chit- trust the Fatherbrand! As you may know, they're dusty. I switched to AKEBONO and found there's practically no dust but they have poor initial bite and feel numb in comparison.

Certainly no need for a master cyl change unless it is dead. Any performance-oriented pad should have more bite than cheapie aftermarket pads. OEM, Pagid orange, Hawk, Raybestos, etc. Make sure to do both ends of the car to retain brake balance. Is your brake fluid fresh? Old fluid can feel soft if it is contaminated.

Jimko4,

Give the OEM pads a try. It will give you a baseline. If you mostly drive around town the last thing you want is a performance pad because you'll never get them up to operating temperature. If the OEMs don't do the job for you, you may need to take a look at the brake fluid.

I really liked the Mintex "red box" pads. I've also used the textars, and I don't like them at all: no initial bite. I use Hawk HP Plus on my autocross car, and they are amazing, but there's tons of noise and dust.

I used to have Pagid RS5 front and RS 4-2 on the rear of my 986 S.

SERIOUS overkill for street and they were hell on the rotors, particularly the RS5 on the front, but being able to come to a dead stop from a 100mph several times in a row without any fade was rather cool.

I replaced them with OEM which I think was a sensible choice, although they don't have anywhere near the bite of the race pads.

Maybe look at the Pagid yellows, RS19 or RS29. They are the standard pads fitted to GT3's.

Check out Akebono

2004 S here, have used pagid yellow front, black rear on track. very strong bite, no fade. using ate gold fluid. also work well on street in terms of stopping, except very noisy. I don't have the stock noise dampers in though. Another option that I plan to try is the Cayman R front pads. They are slightly more aggressive than stock 986 s pads. Maybe a good set up for street.

Yes, I forgot to mention the SQUEAL that the Pagid RS5 pads made. The noise dampers would not fit with them, not that it would have made much difference though, they were very loud until warm or used aggressively, which was not possible on the street.

Boxster S has one of the shortest braking distance (60-0) on record compare to 99% of the cars out there.

Don't over think it. Just flush your brake fluid, get the GT3 cooling ducts and fresh set of OEM pads and you're all good.