Bugeye poor brakes
 

Have a 2000 bugeye with the Subaru 4 pot brakes, but they seem very poor even under mild braking.
Do these suffer from sticking pistons or is the likely result down to cheap pads?
Discs are fine with no lip on them, but when you press hard they really feel that they are not going to stop!!! Kinda worrying when you have that sort of power and very little stopping power! lol
Suggestions / advice on this openly welcome

I replaced my front pads with ferodos; better than standard but still not great, plus lots of brake dust; I've since heard good things about yellow stuff pads from a local specialist.

I have also recently replaced my front discs with godspeed items and fitted braided hoses all round. Had geometry done at same time.
Result is that the pedal feel has improved marginally BUT the car does stop quicker and since alignment no longer pulls to one side under heavy braking, which is much better!

Start with better pads OR if you have money to burn there's always K-Sport or AP kits or brembos.

love to go to Brembo's but it would just be cheaper to sell it and buy one with that all on, I know there's no fun it that but you try and convince the wife lol. Having a hell of a job about an exhaust and dump valve lol
Brake dust is never a problem as she is just as much a petrol head as me and loves a clean car, so I might give the Yellow Stuff a go, along with some hoses, thats as long as nothing is Seized of course!
Geometry alignment is def on the list as steering wheel is slightly off and driving me nuts!

couple of things you could do:

change the fluid to dot 5.1, this will improve the pedal feel

change the pads to either yellow stuff of ferrodo ds2500

change pads and discs for a set of godspeed uprated discs(big improvement)

or buy brembo fronts with discs and pads. these have dropped loads in price now and can be bought for £400 easily(ebay is your friend)

£600ish will see you with a godspeed conversion taking your standard disc size upto 330mm but using same calipers.

£800 delivered will see you with 330 8 pot with ferrodo ds2500 pads

£1000+ will get you AP's

Now you will get between £200 and £250 for your front brakes that you have on now(4 pots)
so imo why not buy some brembos, it reality it will only cost you £150-£200 in the end. you cant buy uprated pads and discs for your fronts for that. so seems a worthy upgrade.
hope this helps mate as i was in the same situation as you

Joke mode on/

If you sort the handling, you won't need to slow down !

Joke mode off/

I had Ferodo DS2500 pads on my bug-eye, and they felt better, but as you said, check for other problems whilst swapping the pads.

HTH

DunxC

4 pots are actually a good caliper and quite powerful, on a track fade and knock off occurs as the discs heat up quickly being only 28mm wide.

The actual brakes aren't over servo'd like most cars so a lot more effort is needed making them nice and progressive.
Most people often state they are 'crap' but in reality they do a good enough job.
Good pads, brakelines and fluid will help firm things up but don't expect miracles.
If 4 pots were good enough for my old type r without ABS for the road then they were good enough for me.

I've chnaged the discs for DBA slotted and added some mintex extreme pads. With 5.1 fluid and some braided hoses I have found them more than good enough for even spirited road use.

The only time I would consider an upgrade as neccesary was if I was looking at some track time, otherwise any further upgrades with be because I want too and not need to

guys you have been great, so many ideas lol!
Can seriously understand the logic for the Brembos, However as the wife is going to be using this and its not going to get modified (need it to be reliable) or put through its paces too often then i think i'll go down the route of upgrading what i have. Maybe i have over expected the brakes having jumped straight out of a light weight astra van into this (van is daily work use) but think if i get them as good as new or slightly better this should then sort any issues with normal driving use.
It is simply that to get where we are (towards the isle of grain) there are a number of nice straight dual carriageways, and some silly roundabouts to slow up for, just found that the standard set up didn't feel that it was capable of anchoring up fast enough if i needed to stop in a hurry, and before i worry about it going in a straight line i want to make it stop better first and foremost!

If you sticking with originals then braided hoses and dot5.1 fluid is a must imo. for around £70 all in its well worth it.
you can buy the fluid from halfords for about £11

Totally agree with comments on the brakes not being over-servo'd on scoobs. Takes some getting used to but makes for a more progressive feel.
Only thing I still suffer from occasionally is a bit of judder under hard braking, but considering one of those brackets someone had on a group buy on here to see if that'll remedy it..

Plus your van will be over-servo'd to stop with the 3 tons of gear you have in the back !

DunxC

3 tons lol it would go backwards. I don't actually carry much in the ole van, as i film windows, so more just boxes. but the roof box does slow her down a little! lol even worse on LPG!!

guess what.....found the problem. After getting some red stuff pads, i removed the old ones only to find that they were cheap Apec pads that were in there!!!! FFS why do people not realise you get what you pay for and THERE IS a BIG diff between a £20 brake pad set and a £100 brake pad set. As you can imagine, braking is now returned to a very good level lol

Nice !

But if you fancy an upgrade later Brembo's are a good low maintenance item.

DunxC

ooo don't tempt me!! Gotta love those big brembo's for sheer stopping power, however i want to propel it forward a bit better now, without going silly budget or ruining the reliability of the thing. lol