Cobra4B

Lots of misinformation here...

drilled & slotted rotors are for looks only! Go to VIR with me and see what everyone is running. Porsches and Ferraris come with the hols cast into the rotor when constructed not actually cross-drilled like most of what you can buy on the AM. The cross drill holes add stress to the metal and will crack very quickly. Even the Porsches and Ferraris get crack sooner around the holes. Furthermore, the cross-drilled/slotted rotors havel ess meatal to them to absorb and dissapate heat.

Older pads used to "gas out" hence the need for slots in the rotor to give that gas somehwere to move to to keep better contact with the brake rotor, but new pad compounds don't need that and slots aren't needed anymore.

What is nice to have is a 2-piec rotor with an aluminum rotor hat. This reduces mass and allows for thermal expansion of the rotor disc. I buy my rotors from NAPA for $25 each and just bring a spare set to to the track b/c I usually crack one or two. The one piece rotors don't take expansion/contraction as well as the 2-piec.

Don't waste your money on the Brembo name... there's only a few major mfgs of brake rotors in the country. Brembo buys them, then stamps them w/ brembo, then sells them for quadruple the price. In the Corvette world the Brembo blanks have the same part number (one letter changed) from the NAPAS.

As for pads... you really can't have your cake and eat it too. I run a specific set of HPDE pads (Wilwood H's) and use generic ceramic pads for the street. The difference in performance is literally night and day. The race pads squeal and balk until hot, they chew through rotors, and they make a mess of your car's paint. The ceramics are silent and dust free, but the don't stop very well (fine for the street).

As for fluid... look into Ford (yes blue oval) HD fluid. It's cheaper then everything else, most Ford parts deps carry it, and it has a dry boiling point of 550, not as important for auto-x.

Bedding the pads to the rotors is very important... most performance pads will come with a mfg reccomendation on how to do it, but the general idea is the do 5-6 40-5mph stops never fully stopping and resting the car between each one for a few seconds. Then do 5-6 100-0 full ABS lockup stops (harder to find a place to do this on the public roads) then let the car sit overnight. Your rotor and pad actually create a transfer layer of molecules... very intersting but stop-tech's website has some great articles.

Good luck!

mnchvgs79

Just go to Auto Zone or Advance and buy "The good ones".

Just ask for the best pads they have and they will be OE equivelant or better and are very good.

dave22

In the Honda world, Brembo blanks cost about $20 apiece

mAydAy

Akebono ceramics....I've heard some negativity about them so far. What are people saying about em? I know Bap started carrying a LOT more of them a few months ago, I haven't asked Jamie what people are saying about them since right after yall started carrying more of their product line.

Get some Castrol GT-LMA fluid. Long life and low moisture absorption, and a pretty high dry boiling point, plus its cheap. Fresh fluid always helps.

I have Metalmasters on my 850R, I don't like em too much. After a nice "spirited" drive, I'll come back and then sit there and watch smoke pour out of my wheel wells for 5 minutes as I let it idle to cool down my cherry red turbo. Next pads will be Porterfield R4-S's, Hawk HPS, or Axxis Ultimate's. EBC Greenstuff's are OK, but dusty. The Axxis's are nice because they aren't too dusty and are a very well balanced multi-purpose pad.

On my racecar, I'm using regular ol Vented Brembos, SS lines, Axxis Ultimate Ceramics up front, Axxis Semi-metallics in the rear, and ATE Super Blue fluid. Soon will be upgrading calipers and will start running Porterfield R4-E (NOT a good street/multi-purpose pad. Pure race pad there....)

mAydAy

Look at any sort of rotor that has been through a bunch of heat cycles, such as the ones on the cars at VIR. You'll notice they're literally COVERED in cracks, everywhere on the rotor. A couple days of track use, and the rotors will be nothing but cracks throughout EVERYWHERE, no matter what brand. The problem wiht crossdrilled rotors, is their tendency to have LARGER cracks, instead of hairline cracks.

A big reason that the crossdrilled/slotted ones are bad is because of the surface area decrease. Less contact/friction area means greater wear on the part that is there, and increased heat over the part that is biting. Also, the slots/holes can sometimes increase pad wear by the edges of the holes scraping away at friction material. They all come out about even, in certain circumstances a slotted or a cross-drilled rotor will outperform, but they have to be properly designed and used in the proper circumstances.