Winmax W5 brake pads

[peter_s]

Just received a box with a set of Winmax W5 pads.

It's a Japanese brand that's been into rally for many years. I can't wait to try them on a track, my dealer says they should be great. I got them from my brake specialist here in Sweden that have supplied great brakes for me over the years.

http://www.winmaxusa.com/

I thought you might wanted to know there is another alternative out there.

Will mount them asap, but it will be a month before I can take them to the track.

[peter_s]

Mounted the pads yesterday. Will track them on Sunday, really looking forward to it

[CanAutM3]

Looking forward to your feedback

[gthal]

Subscribed for update

[peter_s]

So I went to the track yesterday, having mounted the Winmax W5 and also bled the brakes.

I'm usually pretty hard on my brakes, but they held up really well. Great pedal feel and no fade whatsoever when braking properly. I did some mistakes braking too late and they faded a little, but still gave my confidence. Just backed off two corners and they were back in full swing.

They don't have that initial bite like the Carbotech XP10s, but I like it. It's a little easier to brake smooth with there pads. They feel a little more like endurance pads.

No excessive pad wear and great performance. I did about 40-50 laps yesterday in 4 sessions. I can highly recommend these pads. Great stuff, I will buy these again.

A little noisy on the street in some cases, but not a problem to be. Similar to the XP10s.

Right front brakes:





Left front:

[kitw]

Any pad deposits?

[CanAutM3]

Originally Posted by peter_s

I'm usually pretty hard on my brakes, but they held up really well. Great pedal feel and no fade whatsoever when braking properly. I did some mistakes braking too late and they faded a little, but still gave my confidence. Just backed off two corners and they were back in full swing.

This part is a little worrisome

Based on my experience and the above, they don't seem to be on par with the RS29 or PF08. I never encountered any fade with those pads.

[CanAutM3]

Originally Posted by peter_s

So I went to the track yesterday, having mounted the Winmax W5 and also bled the brakes.

I'm usually pretty hard on my brakes, but they held up really well. Great pedal feel and no fade whatsoever when braking properly. I did some mistakes braking too late and they faded a little, but still gave my confidence. Just backed off two corners and they were back in full swing.

They don't have that initial bite like the Carbotech XP10s, but I like it. It's a little easier to brake smooth with there pads. They feel a little more like endurance pads.

No excessive pad wear and great performance. I did about 40-50 laps yesterday in 4 sessions. I can highly recommend these pads. Great stuff, I will buy these again.

A little noisy on the street in some cases, but not a problem to be. Similar to the XP10s.

Right front brakes:

I don't know if the angle of the picture is misleading, but it seems they wore down quite a lot for only one track day.

[nicknaz]

OP, could you please tell us the track and what the typical speeds are? That would help a lot to understand how hard the track is on the brakes

I thought from reading other posts that XP10 is not quite enough due to our car's weight on tracks that are very hard on brakes and XP12 is the better choice for front, so your choice of comparison to XP10 was very helpful

Thanks for sharing!

[peter_s]

Originally Posted by kitw

Any pad deposits?

No, didn't feel any

Originally Posted by CanAutM3

This part is a little worrisome

Based on my experience and the above, they don't seem to be on par with the RS29 or PF08. I never encountered any fade with those pads.

I think I should retract my statement there. I'm 90% sure it was the fluid. I was my first session of the year (sad I know ) and I was trying to find my braking points. Two laps I braked WAAAY too late in a couple of places. The pedal went a little soft but came back to me. I don't think it way fade.

Originally Posted by CanAutM3

I don't know if the angle of the picture is misleading, but it seems they wore down quite a lot for only one track day.

Yeah, it's a bad angle. I would guess they wore down maybe 1mm, I can't tell by looking at the pad compared to before visually.

Originally Posted by nicknaz

OP, could you please tell us the track and what the typical speeds are? That would help a lot to understand how hard the track is on the brakes

I thought from reading other posts that XP10 is not quite enough due to our car's weight on tracks that are very hard on brakes and XP12 is the better choice for front, so your choice of comparison to XP10 was very helpful

Thanks for sharing!

No worries, I should also point out that I have not used XP10s on this car. I had them on my old Mini cooper S and my 370Z. The 370Z had minimal cooling on the brakes, the wheels felt encapsulated on that car.

The track is called Ring Knutstorp. I wasn't allowed to log my laps (my insurance is actually valid under those conditions with BMW Sport Club of Sweden, pretty cool). But I had 200km/h at the end of the straight.

Sorry for the swedish link, but here is the layout:
http://rejsa.nu/bana_info.asp?knutstorp

Vid with logging overlay:

All in all, I'm pretty impressed with these pads. I will go to Nurburgring early october for a few days and even though that track isn't as heavy on the brakes as normal track, I will do a write up. I will probably switch to MPC2 to then, we'll see.

[D4T]

Did you ever take them to the Nurburgring? Final thoughts after nearly 9 years 😂

[M3SQRD]

Originally Posted by D4T

Did you ever take them to the Nurburgring? Final thoughts after nearly 9 years ��

What the hell is happening lately. You bumped a 9 yo thread wondering when a forum member from a post in 2015, and last activity on the forum in 10/2020, is going to update this tread is pretty much 0%.

It’s difficult to recommend pad compounds to people because we all prefer different performance characteristics from a pad. The only way to know is if you’ll actually try the pad. For example, I do not like Hawk DCT70 pads but a large group swear it’s the best but I’d give it about a 7/10 in all pad metrics. I prefer PFC pad compounds.

[D4T]

Yeah I know, I was still interested so asked... no harm is there really!?

As the saying goes, if you don't ask you don't get!

Also interesting points, thank you for that. I currently run Endless MX72's and really like them but I know at some point I'll need new so was tempted to try something different hence my necropost.

[M3SQRD]

Originally Posted by D4T

Yeah I know, I was still interested so asked... no harm is there really!?

As the saying goes, if you don't ask you don't get!

Also interesting points, thank you for that. I currently run Endless MX72's and really like them but I know at some point I'll need new so was tempted to try something different hence my necropost.

Recently there are a lot of dead threads being brought back. You’ll have a better chance asking the question again and get fresh posts. Also, you check with the coding companies on the forum to find out if the latest software version is needed as well as whether it’s possible to get down to 2500-2600 rpm for LC.

What pad characteristics do you rate the highest? Here’s info on PFCs latest compounds except for 82 & 83 compounds:

[ArthurK]

Given this dead thread has been brought back to life, I may as well share my experience.
I've used winmax pads in my wrx and M140i, nether an F80, but the M140i is almost comparable.
It only has the 340mm front rotors, but has quite a few mods (power and handling) with about 550 whp.

My only other performance pad I can compare to is EBC Bluestuff NDX which I was NOT impressed with. The EBC left deposits and gave me brake judder on the track. I only tested those at a high speed track (Phillip Island GP circuit) where there are only 2 heavy braking corners.

The Winmax pads were fantastic for me and I can't fault them.
My experience was at Sandown International Raceway in Melbourne Australia. Which has 2 very long straights and about 4 to 5 heavy braking zones (depending on how brave you are). For reference, I'm not that brave and there were 5 heavy braking zones for me.
I was hitting over 230km/h on the 2 long straights with the M140i and I had the confidence to brake very late.
I had zero brake fade and based on the thermal paint on my rotors, the temps got over 550 degrees Celsius, and below 635 degrees Celsius.

At no point did they leave any deposits, but I am using slotted rotors which may help?

My neighbour is also using them on his E92 M3 and also never experienced any brake fade.

I will definitely be buying them again and I'm very impressed with their characteristics.

They were about $340 AUD, which I found to be good value.

[M3SQRD]

ArthurK

Winmax pads have limited availability in the US. PFC, Hawk, Colbalt, Pagid, etc. race pads are popular in the US. With the W5 being a dedicated club race pad, it’s far superior to an EBC Bluestuff street-track pad. The EBC RP1 and RPX are their dedicated track pads but I have zero experience with EBC pads.

The W5 has an upper temperature limit of 750 C so worst case you have 115 C of additional temperature capacity. Peak mu is around 400 C with a slow linear drop off in mu from 400 C to 750 C. W5 on paper appears to be a solid track pad.

[F80 M3 LTW]

Originally Posted by D4T

Yeah I know, I was still interested so asked... no harm is there really!?

As the saying goes, if you don't ask you don't get!

Also interesting points, thank you for that. I currently run Endless MX72's and really like them but I know at some point I'll need new so was tempted to try something different hence my necropost.

I happily ran MX72s last year but by the end of the first half of this year they werent quite holding up session after session and I ended up with some gamely pad deposits halfway through a weekend at Watkins. I’m moving up in groups so I think my pace has them closer to their limit. I’ve moved on the ME22s and girodiscs for my events in the second half of the year.

So, if you are / expect to get faster, it is NOT a bad idea to get a compound that even more track oriented than the 72s.

PFC 11s were in my list and so were MX87s but 87s are hard to get in the US and the 11s were more expensive than me22 (found a deal).

[M3SQRD]

Originally Posted by F80 M3 LTW

I happily ran MX72s last year but by the end of the first half of this year they werent quite holding up session after session and I ended up with some gamely pad deposits halfway through a weekend at Watkins. I’m moving up in groups so I think my pace has them closer to their limit. I’ve moved on the ME22s and girodiscs for my events in the second half of the year.

So, if you are / expect to get faster, it a bad idea to get a compound that even more track oriented than the 72s.

PFC 11s were in my list and so were MX87s but 87s are to get in the US and the 11s were more expensive than me22 (found a deal).

Why would you not run an appropriate race compound that matches your braking abilities? I’ve used PFC 97, 01, 03, 05, 11, 13 and 39 compounds with great success. What’s the reasoning for not running higher performing race pads which are congruent with your braking abilities (BTW, PFC 11 is a high performing very progressive CoF sprint race pad)? You absolutely need a higher performing race pad if you are capable of making up significant time in braking zones. The MX72 is supposedly one of the so-called dual-purpose street-track pads, which can’t withstand threshold braking without fading and high wear rate (easily destroy a set in one day just like DS2500 pads), so it’s not even a dedicated track pad and this is the upper limit for someone with expert braking abilities? I used race pads with my ‘92 Civic Si dedicated track car without issue.

[F80 M3 LTW]

Originally Posted by M3SQRD

Why would you not run an appropriate race compound that matches your braking abilities? I’ve used PFC 97, 01, 03, 05, 11, 13 and 39 compounds with great success. What’s the reasoning for not running higher performing race pads which are congruent with your braking abilities (BTW, PFC 11 is a high performing very progressive CoF sprint race pad)? You absolutely need a higher performing race pad if you are capable of making up significant time in braking zones. The MX72 is supposedly one of the so-called dual-purpose street-track pads, which can’t withstand threshold braking without fading and high wear rate (easily destroy a set in one day just like DS2500 pads), so it’s not even a dedicated track pad and this is the upper limit for someone with expert braking abilities? I used race pads with my ‘92 Civic Si dedicated track car without issue.

Typo in my OP

I meant to suggest moving to a better pad than MX72. I got faster and found their limit and needed to move to a real track pad.

Great pad when you’re first starting though. At least they were for me as a beginner.

[M3SQRD]

Originally Posted by F80 M3 LTW

Typo in my OP

I meant to suggest moving to a better pad than MX72. I got faster and found their limit and needed to move to a real track pad.

Great pad when you’re first starting though. At least they were for me as a beginner.

It definitely didn’t sound right because you want more from a pad as you develop braking experience and accumulate knowledge.