Essex - CL Brakes

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CL Brakes Overview

CL Brakes Sintered Pads are the most user-friendly brake pads ever developed. The revolutionary new sintered material allows you to spend more time on the track, and less time in the pits chasing brake problems. No more vibrations, trashed rotors, warm-up laps, and constantly swapping pads. Some features of CL Sintered Pads include:

Incredible cold bite
Nearly impossible to fade
Last twice as long as most semi-metallic race pads
Little to no bed-in required
Semi-porous: retain bite in rain, snow, dirt

For a more detailed explanation of the sintered technology employed in these revolutionary new pads, please click here.

Watch CL Brakes in action on the Nordschleife

Dodge Viper- 2009 VLN Endurance Racing Championship

Front compound is RC8, rear compound is RC6E

CL Brakes Pad Compounds

The RC5+ is CL’s latest offering, and was developed with the autoX and track day crowd squarely in mind. It is a well-mannered race pad, with lower noise, low dust, and a lower coefficient of friction. The beauty of this compound is that despite its mild manners, it still retains a very high max operating temperature. It is a great choice for lighter cars on race tires, or heavy, high power cars on street tires. The failure mechanism of this pad is one of its greatest strengths. If you do happen to push it over its temperature threshold, bite slowly tapers away rather than falling off a cliff, so you’ll easily recognize when it’s time to back off. It’s extremely wear resistant, and doesn’t destroy rotors with pad deposits like the majority of street pads do when pushed to their temperature envelope. The RC5+ is a great rear pad option for those who like a more front biased setup with the RC6 or RC6E compound up front. View Reviews for this compound

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The RC6 is the first race pad compound ever produced by CL Brakes. The first thing you’ll notice about them is the incredibly high, yet controllable bite. You’ll likely use less pedal pressure than you’re accustomed to, which means no more standing on your brake pedal praying for the car to stop while diving into turns. You’ll also have incredible cold bite, which is of great value to autoX and Time Attack participants, who typically have little or no time to warm up their brakes prior to timed runs. Regardless of your engine package, tires, or the track you’re driving, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever fade the RC6 compound. Since the material is so dense, the RC6 feels rock-hard underfoot. The RC6 has become a bread and butter pad among rally drivers in Europe due to its relentless bite in every imaginable track and weather condition. Most experienced drivers have a ‘wow’ moment the first time they drive the RC6, as they’ve never felt anything quite like it before. The RC6 is typically used on the front of most cars, although it’s a great rear pad option if RC8 is being used on the front. View Reviews for this compound

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Customer Reviews

These pads bite. Hot or cold. Virtually no bed in required. My next set of pads will be CL.
Review by thirteen

These pads bite!! 38 degrees (F) outside at 6am, I made the switch to the CL RC6 full race from my street pads. The very first time I hit the brakes, they bit hard. There was virtually no bed in required and this is a huge time saver for someone running HPDE. When cold, they are LOUD! But it is nice to know if you need to run to the gas station in between runs and the brakes are cold, you will have stopping power if you need it. When you are on the track and you heat them up they are much quieter but the bite stays strong. After long straights, I experienced absolutely no fade from these pads. Previous days on different pads were not so fortunate. The pedal was firm from the first stop to the very last over my two day event. Given my limited time on the track, my only concern is how fast they will eat my rotors. After a two day event, the rotors have not shown much wear, but my testing is incomplete without enough time at the track with these pads. Lastly, overall customer service from Essex was fantastic. When I need another set of track pads, they are going to be CL and I’ll buy them from Essex.

(Posted on 4/22/10)

Learning Center

How to Choose the Best Street and Track Brake Pads

by Jeff Ritter

Introduction

I'm going to share a little secret with you: As delivered from the factory, the brakes on your car are not capable of handling repeated lapping on a racetrack. They're also probably not very good for Autocross, drifting, or rally racing. I don't care if your calipers are painted red or gold, if you have gigantic carbon ceramic rotors, or if your car is advertised as being optimized on the Nordschleife. Do you know why your brakes are not up to the task of a serious thrashing as delivered? It's the lowest common denominator rule.

In the US in particular, manufactur...

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