I'd be interested to hear what brake pads people are using and how you get on with them.
Background:
I have 280mm front discs with montego single pot calipers, the rears are rover 200/400/mgf calipers on what I'm guessing are MGF discs.
I do around 3000 miles a year in the Spyder including usually 3 track days a year. The pads that were on the car when I bought it in late 2014 looked pretty new and have performed very well with excellent feel, plenty of bite and no noticeable fade on track. This summer I noticed the front were getting a bit thin so time to replace. I wasn't entirely sure what the calipers were so took the old ones into a local motor factor who identified the pads as Maestro/Montego but had none in stock. From the part number they were Ferodo brand. The only ones I could find in stock anywhere local were new/old stock (thick layer of dust!) Lucas/Girling branded ones so I thought should be okay. I drove a round a bit to bed them in a bit but they didn't give much confidence! On a track day in August they were dreadful. Scary fade, lots of smoke and smell. I checked them after one track day and around 200 miles of road use and they were thinner than the Ferodo's after 4 years, 10 track days and 12,000 miles. I've just put in some EBC Bluestuff - the highest spec road legal ones they do. I was tempted by Mintex 1144 but they were twice the price of the Bluestuff. I'll report back how these go.

What are you all using?

I’m using Mintex 1144 on mine at the moment, They were in the car when i bought it. I have done about 7k miles & they seem to be wearing quite well and give good feel & stopping power.
I also have a set of Ebc green stuff pads. I’ve used these before and like them, they give excellent braking & feel. But they are very soft & wear out really quickly! You’d probably go through a set in 1 track day!!

Green stuffs are good on the road, but on track even on a Libra you may struggle, I had Green stuffs on my Coupe and suffered fading at castle combe. They were never the same after that. I do run a custom brake setup but they are biggest vented discs you can get under a 13 inch wheel.

Neil

I don't know what ebc are like now but years ago I used greenstuff and they were great. When I replaced them they were awful. I tried yellow and they were bad on both road and track. In the end I went for Mintex 1144 and never looked back. Libra with the 304mm AP brakes.

Does everyone running upgraded pads run the same upgrade front and rear or just front only?

Just the front. I found upgraded pads on the rear were a bit much. When up to temp on track the rear over braked.

Thanks Roger. We’re you running std 240mm rear discs? Tempted by a 280mm conversion but worried the balance will be upset.

I have been running OEM rears but I was on OEM fronts too. My recent experience is that not all OEM's are created equall!!! On the basis that there is such a big difference between one brand of stock pads and another and it is almost impossible to know which are good and which are made of cheese I've made the decision to go with upgraded front and on that basis I'll probably also go to upgraded next time I need to change the rears too. I find I only get around 3-4 track days out of the rears so maybe an upgrade would extend the life a bit. The EBC Bluestuff don't seem to be available in the MGF etc rear fitting but yellows are so Blue on the front and Yellow on the back might be a reasonable combination.

Standard MGF rears. I did try a 280 conversion on the back and it was plain scarey. It was perfect on a V6 though.

Thanks Roger, I’ll shelve that idea