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BMW pads vs SAAB & PFC vs Porterfield PHOTO COMPARISON
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Posted by Gavin (more from Gavin) on Sat, 21 Apr 2007 10:55:45 Share Post by Email
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Hello everyone,

So, i was really bored, and i decided to photograph these brake pads side by side to help others with their choice in pads.

First of all, I ordered some new 1994-1998 9000 CSE calipers from autozone, for about $85 per PAIR, and $100 refundable core charge. I am planning to "retro-fit" these calipers onto my 1988 9000 turbo WITH ABS. Part number P1268 at autozone on their website, or call your local store to order them. (they come with pads, throw them away! :) )

These 94-98 calipers are supposedly the "largest" ones made for the 9000, so i've been told by C900 owners who upgrade to 9000 calipers. I think they are referring to the piston size? I'm not sure though.

ANYWAYS, with these larger calipers, (1990-1998) you have the option of using a 1988-1991 BMW M3 series brake pad for your 9000 FRONT brake pads. A lot of you already knew this... and you know that there is a SUPPOSED 25% increase in pad size, at the cost of having to "grind" the pads down a little to fit, which supposedly isn't difficult if you have the tools and time.

So, when it came to pads for a 1991 BMW M3, I heard the name "Performance Friction Carbon Metallic" and i read some good reviews about them, and I read some so-so reviews about them...

...and autozone stocked them for about $45 for a front set, so i bought a pair, because I was curious if they were truly 25% larger.

The calipers and pads took a single business day to arrive.

I also ordered a set of Porterfield R4-S pads from Livermore Performance in California for about $68 a set plus shipping. The R4 compound is their racing compound, and the R4-S is their longer lasting High Performance STREET compound, based on the racing compound. If you were going to buy the full R4 racing compound, you would be spending well over $100 for a set of front pads alone! There is also an R4-E compound, which stands for "endurance" which lasts a little longer than the original R4 race compound.

The R4-S is good enough for me, I am not interested in spending that much on pads, nor will I be driving on a track anytime soon. Porterfield has the same part number for all saab 9000's that they make front pads for. AP403 i think.

Porterfield pads have gotten all good reviews on saabnet that i've seen. As good if not better performance than OEM pads, with LESS brake dust, to say the least.

So, I decided to do a side by side photo comparison of these pads.

You decide what you'd rather do. Go with a better compound pad, and spend a little more, or go with a pad for a different car, for a supposed gain in surface area alone.

Copy and pase the image links below into your browser... I'm sorry i just don't have the time to make a dedicated HTML page for this stuff...

The pic displayed below is the pads and their boxes, obviously

then this pic is of the pads laying flat next to each other, where it would APPEAR that the PFC (performance friction carbon) pad on the TOP has the advantage over the Porterfield on the bottom:

http://www.geocities.com/griffin800/pfvspfc2.jpg

Now in this next picture you can see the porterfield pad sitting directly on top of the PFC pad, with the tops of the pads lined up perfectly square on the side facing away from the camera. The tops lined up almost identically, and this shot was to show how much more surface area there was on the PFC pad along the bottom edge of the pad:

http://www.geocities.com/griffin800/pfvspfc3.jpg

As you can see from that picture, there is ONLY a little more than 1/8th of an inch more surface area along the bottom of the PFC pad...

Hardly the 25% increase I was led to believe...

In this next shot however... Pay CLOSE attention to the Porterfield pad's outer edges compared to the PFC outer edges, towards the left and right of the picture.

http://www.geocities.com/griffin800/pfvspfc5.jpg

Notice how much the porterfield pad hangs over the PFC pad??? This ammount of surface area on the outer edges of the pad almost SURELY evens out with the surface area along the bottom of the PFC pad... if not even equal out to MORE surface area!

Sure, once the PFC pad wears down almost 50%, you will gain that extra surface area back, and perhaps it will truly have the advantage of more sirface area, but i would say they are almost DEAD EVEN to start with, and NO WHERE CLOSE to the PFC having a 25% advantage over the Porterfield pad.

In this next picture, you can see the outer edges of the pads more closely, but i think the alignments of the pads was a little off, because the bottom edge difference appears to start narrower closer to the camera and get wider away from the camera, probably a result of me moving them for the picture... but you can see how slanted the outer edges of the PFC pads are, and how much would have to wear before that area started making even contact with your rotor. You can also see the show of the overhang of the Porterfield pad:

http://www.geocities.com/griffin800/pfvspfc6.jpg

These pictures were taken with a $1,000 Pentax K10d camera body w/ tamron 18-200mm lens FYI... there is no image trickery going on here with the camera.

So, based on these photographic test results... now you can decide if you want to try and "kob job" a BMW pad to fit for a slight surface area gain... or you would rather buy a pad with a performance gain in compound.

Although... I might remind everyone, that porterfield makes pads for the 1991 BMW M3 AS WELL! And if you bought these pads, perhaps they wouldn't have the shaved edges like the PFC pads, however, they may not fit nor be able to be ground down to fit, since they are meant for a BMW afterall. The Porterfield BMW pads also cost $86 a front set from Livermore performance... compared to the saab pads for $68. So with shipping you'd hit $100 for front pads... at a slight surface area gain...

I guess the choice is up to you all now.

I hope this information benefits everyone!

-gavin



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