Initial review of Winmax W5

[Lynxis]

Updating this with some more impressions now that I've got around 1000kms of street driving on them and a track and autocross event under my belt now.

Regarding street driving:

I did a final partial rebleed with the Motul RBF600 fluid. This was the last of the fluid I have so my next bleed is going to be a full bleed switching to the Castrol stuff. I'm noting this because I did find a few air bubbles come out of one of the calipers and I've noticed since then that the spongyness in the pedal is gone.

Regarding noise, braking from higher speeds seems to be mostly quiet, especially if I am applying moderate to heavy brake pressure. At slower speeds like when I am close to stopping, they are quite loud depending on my pedal pressure. This also seems heavily related to the heat that the brakes are operating at. Now that it's gotten warm out, my first 1-2 stops are mostly quiet with light squealing as I come to a stop but all stops after that get noisier and after 4-5 stops, my car sounds like a city bus again. As noted, I've got the RR Racing SP kit which doesn't feature any harmonic damping so guys running other setups may find their results will vary.

Anyways, I should mention the dust, while they didn't dust much at first, now that I've got more kms on then, they definitely dust as bad as any other pad I've owned although it seems to be lighter than most and cleans away without much issue.

One thing I didn't mention previously was the brake pad release characteristics. I noticed with the BP10s that when you released the brake pedal, the pads didn't actually release from the brake disc until I started moving. With the W5s, this doesn't happen at all. As soon as you let go of the brake pedal, the brakes will release and the car will start moving if you are on any sort of incline.

Now I'll mention on track:

They are amazing on track! As before, as they get hot, pedal efforts decrease to get the same stopping power. They are still capable of inducing ABS activation on the old 245 BFG Rivals with no more than 60% brake pedal effort once hot so these got plenty more to give for stickier tires. I'm getting the tires swapped to 225 RS3s tomorrow and I've got events this coming weekend with regional Autocross on Sat and Sun and another track day on Monday. I'm expecting good things!

I will note that while on track, these pads don't make a peep, probably because you are only engaging the pads at high speeds with heavy pedal efforts.

Here is a video of my fastest lap from the recent track event I was at:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W47oIK25aDI[/ame]

[Lynxis]

So final impression for now. I might update this again when I've finally killed them.

I've done some more autocross and track events and been using pedal dance and experimenting with trail braking. On Monday, I was back on Fabi again (same track as above) with my fresh 225 RS3s this time. Ultimate grip levels and braking performance are noticeably higher than on the 245 Rivals but still not approaching the limits of my braking system. ABS engagement was happening at around 60-70% pedal force, only slightly more than the Rivals so there was still plenty of room for me to put my foot down harder.

My friend and I traded cars for a session later in the day and he is running stock brakes with EBC Yellows on an RX8. We both came to the same conclusion that the brakes in my car are on a completely different level than his. Some of that is the BBK and some of that is the pads I think. I have to brake a lot earlier in his car than mine, despite our cars having similar speeds. On the back straight, I can brake at the 50 marker in my car easily but I need to start right after the 100 marker in his car to make the corner. His pedal needs so much more effort than mine to get stuff to happen, it really threw me off at first. He's now looking at getting a BBK for his car or considering just getting a twin. You know what I suggested

Some notes: Wear is much better than my Wilwood BP10s or my EBC Yellows. After 2 track events, 3 autocross and around 1500kms of daily driving, the W5s still have practically no wear, even in the front, despite the slightly increased front brake torque from my BBK. I had basically finished off my BP10s and EBC Yellows after less than 3x as much driving last year so this is great, also considering that I'm much faster this year as well. Best time last year on Fabi was 1:20 but I just did a 1:18 with a big puddle in the way of turn 3 on Monday.

Fade was non-existent, even using the RBF600 fluid, they held up fine. Dust is high, wheels were completely coated after the 2 autocross days and a track day. I do find the higher brake torque in my car makes trail braking a bit more difficult because the pedal is so sensitive. It's hard to make small modulations but it's not a problem once you get used to it.

Because this is more about the pads than the BBK, I'll keep my opinion about the RR SP BBK with these pads brief. I'm going to suggest using this kit with similar compounds front and rear. There are some complications as staggered compounds come up to temperature where you may have issues getting the rear pads hot enough to work fully. There were no negative repercussions that I could identify caused by the increased front brake bias. Stopping power was amazing and I had no issues getting the car to rotate under trail braking. I'm still a novice at trail braking but even my friend who uses trail braking heavily said it was amazing and didn't suggest changing anything. Also, front pads for the kit are legit cheaper than OEM rear pads so even if you are wearing the fronts slightly quicker, that would actually be preferred in the name of running costs.