Glad we're all on the same page. Yes, everyone who drives hard should address their brakes, no matter what wheels they have. Brake fade is majorly dangerous. It's caused by a whole bunch of different things, but they're all related to heat.

Old brake fluid can boil when brake temperatures rise, causing vapor in the lines, thus reducing (sometimes almost to nothing!) the pressure that can be applied to the pistons. (remember that liquids don't compress, but gasses do) Water/air in the lines can do the same thing (water turns to steam) as again you're left with a compressible medium. New brake fluid (by means of flushing the system) can cure this. Even more, there are race fluids that withstand much higher temperatures, and from what I've heard in the sportbike arena, is the best brake investment you can make.

Brake pads also have a temperature at which the outer layer will carbonize, resulting in a slick surface instead of the nice grippy stuff. This is sometimes called "glazing". Slotted rotors are claimed to have the advantage of stripping off this glaze, but I'm skeptical. (but hell, I bought 'em anyway...) Better is to get high temperature compound pads like EBC Green stuff, or for even higher temps, Red stuff. (note however, that the Red stuff pads take quite a bit of heat till they become grippy; basically the opposite of consumer pads.) I personally went with an Aramid/Copper composition (Aramid is similar to Kevlar) by "Performance Plus" (material from "European Friction Industries") simply because they were good while still having a lifetime wear warantee.

Slotted, dimpled, and cross-drilled rotors all are supposed to reduce heat by bringing cool air into the caliper/pad area. It's quite the fad these days, and I even bought myself a set, but supposedly, it's mostly hype. Still, I needed new rotors anyway (mine had gotten warped from my driving style), so I got 'em.

Finally, bigger rotors = larger surface area to dissapate heat. That's all they really do for you. However, since heat is the number one enemy of braking, bigger rotors address the biggest obstacle to fadeless braking.

So, I have no idea what more pistons per caliper accomplishes. The only thing I can think of is that you get a more even pad pressure, but that seems like a stretch. I've heard that some calipers apply pressure first to the trailing piston to reduce squeel and chatter. Who knows.


Okay, myth dispelling time. Bigger/better/cooler/fancier brakes do not increase your stopping power. They increase heat dissapation, which reduces fade. Any factory brake system will be able to lock up the wheels (the maximum useful braking power) the first stop. Maybe even the second hard stop. It's the repeated "full throttle/full brakes/repeat" pattern of aggresive driving (woo hoo! aggressive driving rules) that overwhelms factory brakes. Standard brakes are simply not meant to withstand the heat that that style of driving creates. If you don't drive where you use the brakes as much as you use the throttle, factory brakes will be perfectly safe. If you drive like me (or apparently legendary), factory brakes will overheat, leaving you eventually with almost no brakes at all. This is a very scary experience. If during normal stopping (even a hard stop), you're experiencing noticable fade (called "in-stop fade") there is something wrong with your brakes.

Personal story: I had a ''93 Formula Firebird a few years back that had serious brake fade problems. One time I was driving down one of those 3 lane per side highways with stoplights. I was going about 75, and the light turned. I applied the brakes, got down to about 45 at which point my brakes had faded to nothing. They were completely gone. I had to floor it and run a light which had been red for about 3-4 seconds. Very scary. New pads, new rotors, no difference. Everyone kept telling me that they were glazed. Had I known what I know now, I would have flushed the brake fluid, as that was almost certainly the culprit.

Anyway, that's way too much for one post. Hope I've been informative...