Frozen Rotors Cryo for the GX 470
04-08-09, 08:04 AM
#1
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Frozen Rotors Cryo for the GX 470
After much hemming and hawing, I finally bit the bullet and ordered new pads and cryogenically-treated rotors from the guys at Diversified Cryogenics (aka frozenrotors.com). It's my opinion, that I think is shared more/less universally on this board, that the GX470 is rather under-braked for how heavy it is. I've been thoroughly unimpressed by the OEM brakes on the 470 and experienced warping like almost everyone else.
So last week, I put in a call to Bill at DC (888-323-8456) and ordered up the following for my '03 470 (w/~70k miles):
Front Rotors (Frozen & Slotted) $196.50/each
Rear Rotors (Frozen & Slotted) $159.82/each
Hawk LTS Front Pads $ 70.37/set
Hawk HPS Rear Pads $ 62.91/set (since they don't make LTS pads for the back)
It came out to nine hundred and change with the shipping for the parts. They were very helpful & nice guys to deal with. They process over the weekend and ship out the following Monday. The parts are due via UPS on Friday, to be installed by my local shop next Tuesday. I'll report back next week with my impressions.
Also, some other interesting tidbits. The PowerSlot Cryo rotors from Tire Rack have received some decent reviews so I did a bit more digging. If I'm going to drop that kind of coin, I like to know what I'm getting. (Disclosure: I've found in my experience that Tire Rack is somewhat of a hassle for what little money you save so they're usually the last place I turn to if I need something.) I wasted a good 45 minutes on the phone with various people over there and still never got my questions answered. Read on...
(Lifted from one of the Nissan Titan forums)
Would you be able to tell us all the difference between the Frozen Rotors slotted rotors and the Powerslot Cryo rotors? We know about the standard rotors, but the slotted frozen vs. cryo has some wondering.
I decided to go with the Frozen Rotors product for a couple of reasons. First, I value experience, and these guys have been doing this for a long time. They have the references to prove that they make a good, reliable product.
Second, I work in sales so I really appreciate knowledgeable sales people who understand exactly what it is that they are selling. I went through a number of people on the phone at Tire Rack trying to get just some basic questions answered. No dice. If it can't be rattled off of a spec sheet, they can't help you. (Thanks but I can read it online myself, thanks). Bill took the time to 'splain each feature of the FR rotor and what benefit it would bring to my vehicle, all in layman's terms without treating me like I was a moron. (Just because I'm not knowledgeable on a certain topic, doesn't mean that I'm stupid!).
Hope this helps and I'll let you know what I think once they're on and properly bedded in. Disclaimer: I'm in no way affiliated with frozen rotors, btw.
So last week, I put in a call to Bill at DC (888-323-8456) and ordered up the following for my '03 470 (w/~70k miles):
Front Rotors (Frozen & Slotted) $196.50/each
Rear Rotors (Frozen & Slotted) $159.82/each
Hawk LTS Front Pads $ 70.37/set
Hawk HPS Rear Pads $ 62.91/set (since they don't make LTS pads for the back)
It came out to nine hundred and change with the shipping for the parts. They were very helpful & nice guys to deal with. They process over the weekend and ship out the following Monday. The parts are due via UPS on Friday, to be installed by my local shop next Tuesday. I'll report back next week with my impressions.
Also, some other interesting tidbits. The PowerSlot Cryo rotors from Tire Rack have received some decent reviews so I did a bit more digging. If I'm going to drop that kind of coin, I like to know what I'm getting. (Disclosure: I've found in my experience that Tire Rack is somewhat of a hassle for what little money you save so they're usually the last place I turn to if I need something.) I wasted a good 45 minutes on the phone with various people over there and still never got my questions answered. Read on...
(Lifted from one of the Nissan Titan forums)
Would you be able to tell us all the difference between the Frozen Rotors slotted rotors and the Powerslot Cryo rotors? We know about the standard rotors, but the slotted frozen vs. cryo has some wondering.
Originally Posted by Frozen Rotors
Okay so here is how the story goes...
about 3 years ago we (Diversified Cryogenics, Inc. / FrozenRotors.com) approached TireRack.com to sell our product line Frozen Rotors. After many talks they finally decided that they vary much wanted to sell cryogenically treated brake rotors, especially to their huge following of autocross customers, but that they didn't want to take-on another supplier. Thus they told us to hook-up with Power Performance Group A.K.A Power Slot and treat rotors for them to then be sold on Tire Rack. We agreed and partnered with power slot to create the power slot cryo.
We did this for about two years until one day the owner of power slot got greedy and decided to buy his own cryo processors and cut us out of the deal
We continue to buy power slot rotors and cryo treat them with OUR 13 year tried and true process to sell on OUR website, however if you buy a power slot cryo rotor from anywhere other than FrozenRotors.com they are being treated by a company that has only been doing so for about a year now. It is also a different process than ours (i.e. inferior)
SO... the big difference between a power slot cryo and a frozen rotor slotted on OUR website comes down to four things.
1. Price (sometimes the power slots are cheaper and sometimes they are more expensive)
2. Slot design (the slot design on the frozen rotors slotted is a 5x3 slot design which is superior to the straight slot design on the power slot cryo, the 5x3 design takes more time to machine which is why the Frozen Rotors Slotted are sometimes more expensive but it is a much better design and is much more recognized in professional racing)
3. Plating (All power slot rotors come with a silver cadmium plating, while Frozen Rotors Slotted come sometimes with a Black e-coating and sometimes come with no coating at all... this depends on where we source the rotor blanks from i.e. Brembo = no plating while Raybestos = black e-coating. unfortunately most of the rotor blanks that we source for the Nissan's come from Brembo and thus have no plating or coating of any kind. We can paint and bake any rotor by request, and I think it runs like 5-10 dollars per rotor.
4. Finally, the big difference comes down to the rotor blanks used. Power Slot was recently purchased by Centric Parts Inc. which is the largest Chinese rotor manufacturer in the world, so all power slot cryo rotors are made in China, which is not necessarily a bad thing because they are still premium blanks. As for the Frozen Rotors and Frozen Rotors Slotted, we source some of our blanks from Raybestos, which are made in China but this is mainly for domestic vehicles. We also source blanks from Brembo which is what we use most of the time for import vehicles like the Titan.
At the end of the day, both product lines are very similar and are both going to preform about the same, it really comes down to which slot design you like better and the price.
Sorry for the novel but I wanted everyone to be in the know since this has always been a big confusion. Also here are a couple pics to show the difference in slot designs, and the last pic shows the difference between a cryo treated and non cryo treated rotor after about 100 laps at Road America on an E46 M3 BMW... se if you can guess which one is cryo treated
Cheers,
John Brick
FrozenRotors.com
Okay so here is how the story goes...
about 3 years ago we (Diversified Cryogenics, Inc. / FrozenRotors.com) approached TireRack.com to sell our product line Frozen Rotors. After many talks they finally decided that they vary much wanted to sell cryogenically treated brake rotors, especially to their huge following of autocross customers, but that they didn't want to take-on another supplier. Thus they told us to hook-up with Power Performance Group A.K.A Power Slot and treat rotors for them to then be sold on Tire Rack. We agreed and partnered with power slot to create the power slot cryo.
We did this for about two years until one day the owner of power slot got greedy and decided to buy his own cryo processors and cut us out of the deal
We continue to buy power slot rotors and cryo treat them with OUR 13 year tried and true process to sell on OUR website, however if you buy a power slot cryo rotor from anywhere other than FrozenRotors.com they are being treated by a company that has only been doing so for about a year now. It is also a different process than ours (i.e. inferior)
SO... the big difference between a power slot cryo and a frozen rotor slotted on OUR website comes down to four things.
1. Price (sometimes the power slots are cheaper and sometimes they are more expensive)
2. Slot design (the slot design on the frozen rotors slotted is a 5x3 slot design which is superior to the straight slot design on the power slot cryo, the 5x3 design takes more time to machine which is why the Frozen Rotors Slotted are sometimes more expensive but it is a much better design and is much more recognized in professional racing)
3. Plating (All power slot rotors come with a silver cadmium plating, while Frozen Rotors Slotted come sometimes with a Black e-coating and sometimes come with no coating at all... this depends on where we source the rotor blanks from i.e. Brembo = no plating while Raybestos = black e-coating. unfortunately most of the rotor blanks that we source for the Nissan's come from Brembo and thus have no plating or coating of any kind. We can paint and bake any rotor by request, and I think it runs like 5-10 dollars per rotor.
4. Finally, the big difference comes down to the rotor blanks used. Power Slot was recently purchased by Centric Parts Inc. which is the largest Chinese rotor manufacturer in the world, so all power slot cryo rotors are made in China, which is not necessarily a bad thing because they are still premium blanks. As for the Frozen Rotors and Frozen Rotors Slotted, we source some of our blanks from Raybestos, which are made in China but this is mainly for domestic vehicles. We also source blanks from Brembo which is what we use most of the time for import vehicles like the Titan.
At the end of the day, both product lines are very similar and are both going to preform about the same, it really comes down to which slot design you like better and the price.
Sorry for the novel but I wanted everyone to be in the know since this has always been a big confusion. Also here are a couple pics to show the difference in slot designs, and the last pic shows the difference between a cryo treated and non cryo treated rotor after about 100 laps at Road America on an E46 M3 BMW... se if you can guess which one is cryo treated
Cheers,
John Brick
FrozenRotors.com
Second, I work in sales so I really appreciate knowledgeable sales people who understand exactly what it is that they are selling. I went through a number of people on the phone at Tire Rack trying to get just some basic questions answered. No dice. If it can't be rattled off of a spec sheet, they can't help you. (Thanks but I can read it online myself, thanks). Bill took the time to 'splain each feature of the FR rotor and what benefit it would bring to my vehicle, all in layman's terms without treating me like I was a moron. (Just because I'm not knowledgeable on a certain topic, doesn't mean that I'm stupid!).
Hope this helps and I'll let you know what I think once they're on and properly bedded in. Disclaimer: I'm in no way affiliated with frozen rotors, btw.
04-08-09, 08:54 AM
#2
Good luck with your purchase...I'll be very interested to see how this all works out.
I was doing the same research a few months back, and ended up just going with the stock replacement stuff for various reasons.
One word of advice - make sure the shop thouroughly checks out your calipers. I also have an '03 (About 60K miles) and when my new rotors and pads were put on, I ended up having to replace both front calipers. One was completely frozen, and the other was starting to stick.
I'd hate to see almost a grand worth of new parts end up trashed due a sticking caliper or two.
I was doing the same research a few months back, and ended up just going with the stock replacement stuff for various reasons.
One word of advice - make sure the shop thouroughly checks out your calipers. I also have an '03 (About 60K miles) and when my new rotors and pads were put on, I ended up having to replace both front calipers. One was completely frozen, and the other was starting to stick.
I'd hate to see almost a grand worth of new parts end up trashed due a sticking caliper or two.
04-08-09, 08:55 AM
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Very informative post. I just wonder what the real world benefits of a brake upgrade are going to be outside of doing heavy towing or if you live in a mountainous region with lots of grade changes. In other words, are your upgrades really buying you a lot more brake capacity in terms of fade in these types of situations? Having owned a lot of sports cars where I did brake upgrades, it has been my experience that this type of upgrade doesn't actually help you stop any faster (assuming no fade yet).
04-08-09, 09:11 AM
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Very informative post. I just wonder what the real world benefits of a brake upgrade are going to be outside of doing heavy towing or if you live in a mountainous region with lots of grade changes. In other words, are your upgrades really buying you a lot more brake capacity in terms of fade in these types of situations? Having owned a lot of sports cars where I did brake upgrades, it has been my experience that this type of upgrade doesn't actually help you stop any faster (assuming no fade yet).
On the flip side, you probably would have spent the same (or more?) at the lexus dealership. At least these look cool.
04-08-09, 09:34 AM
#5
When I researching different aftermarket pads & rotors, my goal wasn't to improve the braking performance of my GX. I was simply looking to find a combination that would last longer before developing pulsating problems.
04-08-09, 09:44 AM
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And thanks for reminding me about the calipers. I mentioned that to my mechanic as a possibility. They must love me when I show up with all of my print outs and go up under the lift to instruct them about things I learned on the internet
04-08-09, 11:03 AM
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slotted rotors on stock rotor size and stock caliper isn't going to improve braking performance. it does help with gas build up between rotor and pad surface. it looks good tho.
honestly, i would have suggested centric blanks. centric also makes stop tech bbk which uses centric blanks. stop tech brakes are tried and true. many m3 guys swear by them for track/race.
honestly, i would have suggested centric blanks. centric also makes stop tech bbk which uses centric blanks. stop tech brakes are tried and true. many m3 guys swear by them for track/race.
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04-08-09, 12:07 PM
#8
Although I am an owner of cryo treated slotted rotors I am not sold on the benefits of the technology as it relates to brake rotors although conceptually the story is compelling. I have yet to see any independent data to support that cryo treated rotors are better then a slotted blank. There is probably more benefit in the fact that they are slotted since slotting can help to remove any glazing on pads and help dissipate heat which can help reduce brake fade, which even the Stop Tech engineers agree with. [I]"Unfortunately the drilled holes also reduced the thermal capacity of the discs and served as very effective "stress raisers" significantly decreasing disc life. Improvements in friction materials have pretty much made the drilled rotor a thing of the past in racing. Most racing rotors currently feature a series of tangential slots or channels that serve the same purpose without the attendant disadvantages."
There is a common misconception regarding so-called "warped" rotors. Run-out or so called "warped" rotors are the primary cause of pulsing or shuddering under braking. Run-out is the result of an uneven transference of pad material to the rotor. What this means is, the actual rotor itself is not warped. Causes range from improperly bedded pads, rotors, stress on the system that falls outside of design perimeters and or using the wrong brake pad material for certain applications. Here's a link to a good article that everyone should read.
http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp...rakedisk.shtml
As Nix suggested depending on the intended uses of your truck you probably would have been better served by upgrading your pads and I would further that by suggesting stainless steel brake lines, unless of course you were already experiencing pulsing in which case replacing the OEM blank with a slotted rotor in combination with an upgraded pad would further improve braking performance and by that I mean a reduction in brake fade and improved peddel feel. All that being said, if the pads and rotors are not bed in properly and or your brakes are put under routine and prolonged stress transference will occur again, even on a cryo treated slotted rotor.
There is a common misconception regarding so-called "warped" rotors. Run-out or so called "warped" rotors are the primary cause of pulsing or shuddering under braking. Run-out is the result of an uneven transference of pad material to the rotor. What this means is, the actual rotor itself is not warped. Causes range from improperly bedded pads, rotors, stress on the system that falls outside of design perimeters and or using the wrong brake pad material for certain applications. Here's a link to a good article that everyone should read.
http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp...rakedisk.shtml
As Nix suggested depending on the intended uses of your truck you probably would have been better served by upgrading your pads and I would further that by suggesting stainless steel brake lines, unless of course you were already experiencing pulsing in which case replacing the OEM blank with a slotted rotor in combination with an upgraded pad would further improve braking performance and by that I mean a reduction in brake fade and improved peddel feel. All that being said, if the pads and rotors are not bed in properly and or your brakes are put under routine and prolonged stress transference will occur again, even on a cryo treated slotted rotor.
Last edited by cssnms; 04-08-09 at 12:34 PM.
04-08-09, 12:29 PM
#9
Amen to that! I'm on my 2nd set of oem rotors that have warped. And even though we have the largest brakes in the Toyota 6 lug class...they do feel pretty weak
04-08-09, 01:05 PM
#10
Wow, brakes. One area where there is always contention. First question that always should be asked is: what is it that I'm trying to achieve? Is the truck going to be used primarily for towing or only occasionally? Is the truck going to be used for racing? ,or most commonly driven in rush hour traffic on your local parking lot ... I mean highway.
Replacing pads with racing pads or high performance pads has real draw back. Most of these pads are designed with high material stress in mind. There is so much more energy release during racing, constant high speed and hard braking. The temperatures reached would melt your regular pads. They outperform the stock pads in repeated high speed braking (brake fade), and they have a much better pedal feel during repeated stops. But, the increased performance of the pads comes at the cost. They don't perform well when they are cooler, they take longer to reach their optimal operating temperature, they are louder and rougher on the rotors, and they don't perform well in the rain (temp related). OEM pads reach operating temperatures much quicker, and they are design to operate well in a wider range of temperatures. Not saying that OEM brakes are perfect on the GX. Far from it. But replacing your OEM with high performance pads and rotors will really not help much, it may even hurt the regular on-street brake performance. The only real way of improving braking would be to give GX larger rotors, calipers and pads. Which would also probably lead into larger master cylinder, which I don't know if it's possible.
You have to remember that the companies that sell after market brake parts are interested in selling their products. They will always underscore how their product performs in the high performance car on the track or in some other race type situation.
If you are planning on using you GX primary for towing, than using higher performance pads and rotors will make sense, as added weight will help to heat up pads much quicker and help them reach optimal operating temp.
As far as pulsating pedal feel, I agree with cssnms. It's usually caused by improperly seated pads (bed in) and subsequent material transfer.
Remember, GX is not a race car. What works for corvettes, M3s or other sports cars, does not translates well to the truck.
Just a food for thought.
Replacing pads with racing pads or high performance pads has real draw back. Most of these pads are designed with high material stress in mind. There is so much more energy release during racing, constant high speed and hard braking. The temperatures reached would melt your regular pads. They outperform the stock pads in repeated high speed braking (brake fade), and they have a much better pedal feel during repeated stops. But, the increased performance of the pads comes at the cost. They don't perform well when they are cooler, they take longer to reach their optimal operating temperature, they are louder and rougher on the rotors, and they don't perform well in the rain (temp related). OEM pads reach operating temperatures much quicker, and they are design to operate well in a wider range of temperatures. Not saying that OEM brakes are perfect on the GX. Far from it. But replacing your OEM with high performance pads and rotors will really not help much, it may even hurt the regular on-street brake performance. The only real way of improving braking would be to give GX larger rotors, calipers and pads. Which would also probably lead into larger master cylinder, which I don't know if it's possible.
You have to remember that the companies that sell after market brake parts are interested in selling their products. They will always underscore how their product performs in the high performance car on the track or in some other race type situation.
If you are planning on using you GX primary for towing, than using higher performance pads and rotors will make sense, as added weight will help to heat up pads much quicker and help them reach optimal operating temp.
As far as pulsating pedal feel, I agree with cssnms. It's usually caused by improperly seated pads (bed in) and subsequent material transfer.
Remember, GX is not a race car. What works for corvettes, M3s or other sports cars, does not translates well to the truck.
Just a food for thought.
04-08-09, 01:33 PM
#11
Which I would only add to that by stating that to truly see a benefit from adding a new system it is critical the system you are adding be specifically designed and engineered for your car to not only ensure proper bias, but also ensuring that it is compatible with the factory ABS program settings/tolerances otherwise braking performance and stopping distances in an emergency situation could be compromised.
04-08-09, 04:10 PM
#12
Which I would only add to that by stating that to truly see a benefit from adding a new system it is critical the system you are adding be specifically designed and engineered for your car to not only ensure proper bias, but also ensuring that it is compatible with the factory ABS program settings/tolerances otherwise braking performance and stopping distances in an emergency situation could be compromised.
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