EBC

EBC is probably Britain’s best-known highperformance braking brand, with most of its products manufactured in the UK. Right now, the firm’s ever- expanding range includes discs, pads, stainless steel braided brake hoses, brake fluid and – coming very soon – two-piece discs and lightweight fourpiston calipers.

We’re probably all familiar with EBC’s wellknown colour- coding system for brake pads, but the compounds are consistently improving. Ultimax (black) are OEM replacements, Greenstuff give a 15 per cent improvement over standard, Redstuff are low- dust fast-road pads for 200bhp-plus machines, Yellowstuff are leading road/track day gear, Bluestuff NDX are intermediate track day/race pads, while Orangestuff are full-race endurance equipment.

EBC also offers different discs for specific applications, such as premium (OE-spec), coolrunning GD Sport, super-silent USR slotted, and BSD with bladed slot design.

Here we’ve used USR discs for our roadgoing Focus ST250. On the rear they’re mated to Yellowstuff pads, while the fronts are truly fantastic Bluestuff NDX – pretty much the ultimate compound for this application, being a high-friction sport/race material that’s typeapproved as legal for selected cars on British roads – happily including the Mk2 and Mk3 Focus ST and RS. Like EBC says, they’re almost too good for the road…