"Upgrading" front brakes

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Paulmitchell1984

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hi guys in need of new pads and thinking disks could do with being swapped too, so shoppijgn round iv seen these

Land Rover Freelander 2001 Terrafirma Drilled & Grooved Brake Discs & EBC Pads | eBay

has anybody used them? any good?

any recomendations for anything else. i dont tow too much but i do go camping and have a fair bit of weight in the car so just want the extra help up front considering backs are drums which i dont like.

also going to sort new brakes out at back and recomendations for them or just bog standard stuff be ok for them?

ta
 
If you go off road, X drilled discs are a bad idea. They just harbour all sorts of debris that then chews up pads.
If you have vented discs, they don't get nearly hot enough to warrant X drilling/ grooves.
Quality discs and pads is all the Freelander needs.
 
i dont go offroad in this should have mentioned that really now i think about it..apart from sh!tpart are there any ones to avoid?is there any that creat less dust as im forever cleaning the bloody alloys lol
 
hi guys in need of new pads and thinking disks could do with being swapped too, so shoppijgn round iv seen these

Land Rover Freelander 2001 Terrafirma Drilled & Grooved Brake Discs & EBC Pads | eBay

has anybody used them? any good?

any recomendations for anything else. i dont tow too much but i do go camping and have a fair bit of weight in the car so just want the extra help up front considering backs are drums which i dont like.

also going to sort new brakes out at back and recomendations for them or just bog standard stuff be ok for them?

ta


I have them fitted with EBC Ultimate pads.

They are fine. I use the car off-road and not had any problems with them.

The discs are slightly noisier because of the holes and grooves. I think they work better than the standard ones I had on before.

I would buy them again.
 
It's always hard to say if the upgrade discs are a genuine improvement, or a perceived improvement. The reason being, the upgraded discs often replace tired discs. I suspect the improvement wouldn't be so obvious if good discs were replaced with upgraded discs.
Personally I'm not a huge fan of X drilled discs. Mostly because I had one shatter on me. That made stopping, interesting!!
 
If you go off road, X drilled discs are a bad idea. They just harbour all sorts of debris that then chews up pads.
If you have vented discs, they don't get nearly hot enough to warrant X drilling/ grooves.
Quality discs and pads is all the Freelander needs.
+1
:behindsofa:
I agree 100% with wot he says ^^^^^^^^^:D
:)
i dont go offroad in this should have mentioned that really now i think about it..apart from sh!tpart are there any ones to avoid?is there any that creat less dust as im forever cleaning the bloody alloys lol

Better pads will make more dust :). If you drive a car fast it will need X drilled disc's. A freelander although requiring a larger force to stop than a smaller car doesn't generate heat as mush as a car driving faster. Speed is actually what causes excess heat in braking. For road use the best way to increase stopping power is by going bigger,, X drilling and grooves will only assist vented disc's dissipate the heat faster. You won't be putting the car through the high speed braking and then high speed runs needed to make all that work much better than standard. Buy quality OEM parts and you will find better braking. Get larger diameter disc's and pads if you wish to up the way your car stops. But be warned causing it to stop harder will throw the cars weight around more so make sure you have good suspension or you may find yourself being overtaken by your back end if you brake hard. If you are finding standard brakes too weak try driving slower or braking sooner. When brakes come to the end of their life they can often feel like you need better than standard. Replace with quality then see how you feel. To improve on standard braking will really require a caliper swap on a big vehicle.
 
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As already mentioned, if you want more stopping power you need more leverage on the disc rotor. This can be accomplished by fitting bigger diameter discs, more power needed? Increase the clamping force with more pistons in the brake caliper. A softer compound pad will help with bite of the pad to the disc, and high performance (dot 5+) brake fluid will help stop the fluid from boiling (although it will absorb moisture quicker and need replacing more often).

As for drilled and/or grooved discs they will, on a road car at least create less braking force as there's less surface area for the brake pad to act on.

The reason for the holes in the disc is to help release gases that can build up between the pad surface and the disc. The grooves are there to deglaze the pad. Both of these issues are associated with fastroad/track driving, not really something you'd be doing in a Freelander unless its a rally stage!

The grooved discs also produce more dust than a solid face, I know this all too well.



I'm forever cleaning these!!
 
+1

:)


Better pads will make more dust :). If you drive a car fast it will need X drilled disc's. A freelander although requiring a larger force to stop than a smaller car doesn't generate heat as mush as a car driving faster. Speed is actually what causes excess heat in braking. For road use the best way to increase stopping power is by going bigger,, X drilling and grooves will only assist vented disc's dissipate the heat faster. You won't be putting the car through the high speed braking and then high speed runs needed to make all that work much better than standard. Buy quality OEM parts and you will find better braking. Get larger diameter disc's and pads if you wish to up the way your car stops. But be warned causing it to stop harder will throw the cars weight around more so make sure you have good suspension or you may find yourself being overtaken by your back end if you brake hard. If you are finding standard brakes too weak try driving slower or braking sooner. When brakes come to the end of their life they can often feel like you need better than standard. Replace with quality then see how you feel. To improve on standard braking will really require a caliper swap on a big vehicle.

Sort of correct but not entirely ;)
Speed isn't the key feature in heating up brakes. Energy removed from the vehicle is what heats them up.
A given mass at a set velocity will produce X amount of heat in the brakes.
Now increasing the same vehicle's velocity will heat the brakes faster and hotter. Reducing it's mass will reduce the energy dissipated by the brakes so they will be cooler.
So technically a smaller car can drive faster than a Freelander because it's likely to have a lower mass. This means it's brakes will need to dissipate less energy in the form of heat.

To put some figures to this analogy. I did several 80 to 0 mph stop in my ZS180 on a disused runway. I recorded front disc temperature on stopping. This was on standard but correctly functioning brakes. I was surprised to see that the discs got to a tiny 100 °C.
Now the ZS180 has a mass of 1350 Kg's with me in it. But what makes the MG relevant is, the brakes fitted to the MG are the same size as those fitted to the Freelander. Same rotor diameter and thickness and same pad area too.
Now an empty Freelander can weigh in at around 1650 Kg's. That is just over 20% heavier so in a world where energy is a constant, this would mean the Freelander's front discs would heat up 20% hotter than those of the ZS180 in the same 80 to 0 mph stop.
So this would give you a brake temperature of around 120°C after a stop like that. This is well under the 350°C minimum fade temperature of the standard pads.

So technically the standard Freelander brakes are well up to the job.
 
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As plattyR56 said. X drilled and grooves are for a different set of reasons. These are completely unnecessary on a Freelander.
 
eeemm...

I got upgraded brakes. Need to do some with that because car weights is now 1750 instead of 1500 kg. New gen stock brakes were crap.

So i put a nitrac grooved disc, with EBC SUV 7000 together with SS braided hoses and ATE TYP200 brake fluid.
It stops a lot faster than stock, brakes have better feeling, also can handle a higher temps than normal that i use before.

Few setups were tested and that one is best for now

IMG_0587.jpg


IMG_0589.jpg

(photos before ss pipes fitted)
 
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I'm not surprised. You have uprated pads, stainless lines (to stop excess pedal travel from distorting rubber lines) and performance fluid.

I used to run rubber lines on my MINI when I swapped from single pot to 4 pot calipers. The pedal feel was terrible. I thought the new brakes were worse than the old brakes....until I swapped to braided lines. Once the new lines were on it transformed the pedal feel.

Here's a link to the thread where I swapped the brakes over.

PPP - Page 5

And after the new lines were fitted (post #68)

PPP - Page 7

**apologies for linking another forum, its not a Land Rover one ;)**
 
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