jiodaqmke

I'll probably get Centric C-Tek rotors. (They're like the Premium rotors but without the black E-coating finish)

For pads, I'm leaning towards StopTech Street Performance but also considering Hawk HPS and Wagner ThermoQuiet.

Anybody have experience with any of these pads?

dfj240

No experience with StopTech. Have used Hawk pads on a couple track/street cars, and they are a great pad. They seem to stay cooler longer than some others I've tried, aside from EBC race pads, but they are definitely a good pad. Wagner ThermoQuiet's are what I use on every road car I have. They have excellent pad life, and they're not quick to heat up so brake fade is reduced.

StopTech makes some great brake systems and parts, so I doubt you would be going wrong with StopTech. We installed some StopTech Rotors and Calipers on an S2000 for a customer a while back, and they performed very well. He used Brembo pads though, so I still can't give any opinion on the StopTech pads.

deanhavie

The pads "stay cooler" - I'm a bit confused by this. All pads are designed to get hot and depending on use can overheat. I have been a race car driver for the past 10 years and have a special connection to my pads. (sorry - not that type of connection... haha). Under nearly all street conditions, it is virtually impossible to overheat your pads. Throwing on the most inexpensive carbon/metallic pads then bringing your car up to 120mph and back to 10mph 10x in a row will cause a bit of brake fade. If you are driving your car like that, you should not be on the street.

Back to the root of the question. What pads. Well, the higher the quality rotor (for the most part) the harder the metal (for the most part) and matching the pad with the right rotor is also important.

Stoptech rotors go through a pretty good manufacturing process and as a result are a great rotor. I have used nearly all Hawk pads that are made including ones designed only for the race track. HPS is a fine pad to use - low noise and great linear stopping power. The trade off is lots of dust. HP+ on the other hand, have even greater initial bite and then become more linear. Tons of dust with these guys. For the dust-o-phobs, throw on a good quality set of Ceramics. You will find the braking curve much shallower with makes your brain think your brakes aren't working - they are, just a little more effort is needed to make them work. The upside, virtually no dust.

Ok, back to the crappy pads/good rotors scenario. The pad material of lousy pads is 'soft' and will dust a TON - dust = pad material. The more the dust, the faster the pads will wear. For your typical $14 set of front pads, I would expect 20k of normal local driving before you need to replace them. Higher quality pads might net you 40k.

Again, YMMV. On a typical track weekend, I will use an entire set of pads - that is less than 150miles.

Lastly - don't put race pads on your street car (unless you are going to the track). They are designed to grip the rotors very hard. As a result by using them on the street, they will destroy your rotors in under a week.

Keep the shiny side up!

D-

dfj240

I apologize. I reread my post and didn't clarify. I have also raced cars (about 8 years now), and have used the Wagner's on a couple of my weekend racers that were also street driven. I do not run my car ragged on the street, that's what the track is for. In any case, I was impressed with the Wagner's. Last time I ran them on the track was on a 1992 Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo at MSR Houston about 2 years ago. On the street, no they most certainly shouldn't overheat. I am not a brake expert by any means, simply lending my experience with the brake pads he named. My apologies for any offense.

deanhavie

OMG I just laughed so hard.... ya aint no retard. (nice PC term too).

Oooh - next fun topic, "warped rotors".

D-

LeX2K

I have to say that my experience with brake pads is, the ones that are virtually dust free I liked the least. They took more pedal effort, and I just didn't like the way they felt. The pads I've had that made some dust (not insane amounts) I thought were good, better pedal feel and more linear feel. I don't care about dust, I wash my cars all the time a little dust between washes I never notice.

Any scientific explanation for the above experience?

deanhavie

Yep - see what I wrote earlier. The 'softer' the pad the more dust (dust = pad crap). Ceramics are very hard and hardly dust because they are made from ceramics vs. carbon metallic. Because of the different formula, they 'grip' less. THink of it like sand paper on wood - you can get a super duper fine grit paper and it takes a lot of effort to wear down the wood (ceramic), other sandpaper makes the wood go away very quickly (med grit).

Maybe not the best analogy - but I hope you follow.

yeldogt

If you are racing you need to make sure your pads are going to last the race - at the end of the day you don't care what the pads and rotors look like. Hard pads lots of pressure.

Placing hard pads on a car and not increasing the force on them will decrease the braking. Soft pads are like an eraser on glass -- hard pads are like glass on glass.


Manufacturers spend a lot of time picking the rotors and pads for proper performance

LeX2K

Yep I get the analogy, makes perfect sense. Dusty pads for me.

yeldogt

For as long as I can remember -- and unfortunately thats a while - Mercedes Benz has had dusty disc brakes. My dads 62' had 4 wheel disc (kinda rare) and they were dusty -- he drove MB his whole life -- I drive them -- they have dusty brakes.

People are always trying to better MB by putting low dust pads on MB's -- drive a Porsche .... Dusty brakes. The best brakes on a regular production car -- people are always thinking they can do better by changing the pads that thePorsche designed to be on the car.