GreenGrandPrix Posted March 7, 2005 Report Share Posted March 7, 2005 Who makes the best brake pads and rotors for our w bodies ? Gonna do all 4 wheels soon and i want the best Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenGrandPrix Posted March 8, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2005 Thanks for the info. I really like those cross drilled rotors. Had my 94 for 5 years and went thru 2 sets of cheap rotors. It's paid for now so time for some upgrades ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitzel Posted March 8, 2005 Report Share Posted March 8, 2005 So far I'm happy with these pads: Drilled/slotted rotors will eat your pads up quicker. Are you sure you need new rotors? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
z34_nut Posted March 8, 2005 Report Share Posted March 8, 2005 Drilled/slotted rotors will eat your pads up quicker Untrue you have other problems if thats the case the drills and slots allow the gases and dust to escape, thus preventing excessive wear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HokemBokem Posted March 8, 2005 Report Share Posted March 8, 2005 Drilled/slotted rotors will eat your pads up quicker Untrue you have other problems if thats the case the drills and slots allow the gases and dust to escape, thus preventing excessive wear. Thats what I was thinking the same thing :? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HokemBokem Posted March 9, 2005 Report Share Posted March 9, 2005 Its wierd too. SOme people on here were telling me if I got the "white box special" rotors(20 bucks a piece or so) they would warp in alike a month. Ive had mine over 6 months and they still work great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartonmd Posted March 9, 2005 Report Share Posted March 9, 2005 All the data I've seen on them says that, in theory, they are for gasses to escape, so they don't "float" the pads on the gas and the pads get better contact. This is true in VERY high use (right before they start to fade, like road-racing) situations, and is only on some brake pads... really good pads are baked after they're put together to get most of that gas out of the pads before they're installed, but there is still some. They also cool the brakes down ONLY whey they are REALLY hot, by the extra airflow... What they do in real life (street) is a tradeoff... They literally shave the very top layer of pad material to get the brakes to heat up quicker, so you're basically trading swept area for heating brakes up quicker. This also wears pads quicker, but when you're driving on the highway and haven't touched your brakes for miles, then you have to cram them in a pannic stop situation, that's where they shine on the street. About cross-drilled rotors, by the way... DO NOT do this yourself on your stock or stock style rotors... sometimes it works OK, and other times the rotors will crack at the far side of the hole (like the "down-wind" side for lack of a better word) when they get heated up... Just buy them and be done with it... the slotted/drilled ones aren't much more $$ than GOOD smooth ones anyway. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGBULS Posted March 9, 2005 Report Share Posted March 9, 2005 I'm rather a big fan of Performance Friction brake pads. EXCELLENT fade resistance..........a bit more dust though (and it's BLACK due to the high carbon content of the pads). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartonmd Posted March 9, 2005 Report Share Posted March 9, 2005 BTW, I've heard good things about EBC Green Stuff pads and drilled/slotted rotors... and have had very good luck with SBS brakes on motorcycles, and they do car apps, but I don't see any for the W body (at least non my '92 euro) Also, stay away from Hawk pads, especially on the rear! Literally every DSM I saw when we were rallying who ran Hawk pads on the rear would crack and/or frag rear rotors... they stop awesome, but put the heat into the rotors instead of keeping it in the pad. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGBULS Posted March 10, 2005 Report Share Posted March 10, 2005 Also, stay away from Hawk pads, especially on the rear! Literally every DSM I saw when we were rallying who ran Hawk pads on the rear would crack and/or frag rear rotors... they stop awesome, but put the heat into the rotors instead of keeping it in the pad. Mike Weird.............my girlfriend's Neon R/T has Hawk HP's up front (soon to be on the rear too) and I had her front pads on FIRE and NO rotor damage at all (they are finally starting to warp a little over 1 year and 10K miles after the fire incident). Here's the video of the pads on fire: Neon Brake Fire Video The reason the got so hot is because my roomate (Canada...also posts on this site) had just swapped a 3400 into his Beretta, and we were doing multiple runs against the Neon from various speeds up to the Beretta's governor (107mph) to document how much of a difference the swap made (since he'd raced the Neon before). About 8-10 runs in, the not quite fully bedded in pads (they'd been on the car ~500-700 miles) decided to catch on fire (the rotors were glowing orange too). The funny thing is, while the pedal was a *little* soft, I (I was driving the Neon) still had brakes left. So apparently Hawks don't mind the heat. We'll have to see how they work out back........ I should also point out that Canada was using Performance Frictions on his Beretta at the time, and they didn't catch on fire (he was a little nicer to his brakes though). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartonmd Posted March 10, 2005 Report Share Posted March 10, 2005 Buls, I've never heard of problems on the fronts with them, but I have seen repeated problems with them on the rears (like non-vented rears) of people's cars rally racing. As stated before, the pads seem to put the heat in the rotor instead of into the pad material itself, which is OK in the vented front rotors, but in the rears, there's nowhere for the heat to go, so they overheat and crack. This seemed to be specifically a problem with the DSM guys, but a higher %age of them ran the Hawk pads than anybody else and their rear brake rotors are about the same as most other cars' rears... Also, this happened with the factory, as well as the factory style Brembo, etc. units. A bunch of them would frag at least one rotor per race until they stopped using the Hawk pads, then they would start to get whole seasons out of rotors before they were even warped... So, yes, the pads don't mind the heat... but I wasn't talking about the pads fragging either... I've also never heard about the EBC Green Stuff pads (or any EBC pad for that matter) fragging a rotor... The reason I am so addamet about this is, do you know what happens when a rotor frags? A large piece comes off (obviously) then while you're still on the brakes hard, the fragged (missing) part comes around again and your caliper has nothing to push on, pushes the pads in farther than the rotor, then that wheel is locked, even if you let off the brakes... this is obviously very dangerous on the street! Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canada Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Brakes turn momentum into HEAT. Therefore, I’d say the destroyed rotors proves that the pads are BETTER…….more heat into the rotors means the pads are more efficient at creating heat.......and that the OEM rotor design is quite shitty for race use (Who would of thought that?). I'm sure the Chrysler/Mitsu engineers never planned on those brakes ever being used quite that hard. If I owned a DSM and rally raced it………..I’d buy an upgrade kit for the rear. It is a race car afterall….. As far as which "performance" brake pads to buy? Well........I've had great experience with my Performance Friction pads. My roomate with a 1993 Beretta GT has a set of EBC Greenstuff pads on the front of his, he likes them, but plans on getting a set of PF pads for autocrossing this summer. If you are looking for just OEM spec pads......well, the BEST pads you can buy (as well as any part for a GM) are marked AC Delco. Whatever you do......remember to lube your slider pins and to torque everything to spec if you have a torque wrench. Also, if your rotors have any cracks, heat spots, or excessive groves....replace them. For the front, caliper mounting braket bolts are 148 ft-lbs......caliper sliders are 80 lb ft. This is pretty much a W body standard. For the rear, caliper mounting bracket bolts are 81 lb ft.....sliders are only 20 lb ft. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartonmd Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Brakes turn momentum into HEAT. Therefore, I’d say the destroyed rotors proves that the pads are BETTER…….more heat into the rotors means the pads are more efficient at creating heat.......and that the OEM rotor design is quite shitty for race use (Who would of thought that?). I'm sure the Chrysler/Mitsu engineers never planned on those brakes ever being used quite that hard. If I owned a DSM and rally raced it………..I’d buy an upgrade kit for the rear. It is a race car afterall….. ... not quite on part... Yes, they convert kenetic energy into heat, but there are pads that soak up the heat instead of putting it all back into the rotors while creating the same amount of heat. As stated before, putting the heat into the rotors is OK on a vented rotor, but on the solid rear rotors, it's... um... not the thing to do These guys were running Hawk pads on every kind of rotor that would fit the stock brakes... stock rotors, Brembo stock-style units, EBC slotted/dimpled rotors, everything... They would all frag rotors, at about one per race. We raced an Isuzu Impulse XS, it had the factory rotors, raced a whole season, no problem... The DSM Guys who figured out the Hawks were the problem switched them with EBC red stuff, and other good pads and would go whole seasons without even a warped rotor compared to fragging one (at least) rotor per race with the Hawk pads... the brake design is fine, unless you are running an open class, group 5 car weighing 2500lbs and making 400 horsepower... then they're not fine. None of these guys were really modded because in order to drive an turbo/AWD DSM and not compete with the factory teams, you have to be in Production GT, which the only mods can be a CAI and exhaust... that's it. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canada Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 ... not quite on part... Yes, they convert kenetic energy into heat, but there are pads that soak up the heat instead of putting it all back into the rotors while creating the same amount of heat. As stated before, putting the heat into the rotors is OK on a vented rotor, but on the solid rear rotors, it's... um... not the thing to do I guess I don't see how heat can simply move where ever it wants to go....heat transfers from hot to cold. So if somehow, the pads where to magically soak up all the heat it would transfer to the rotors and outside air anyways. These guys were running Hawk pads on every kind of rotor that would fit the stock brakes... stock rotors, Brembo stock-style units, EBC slotted/dimpled rotors, everything... They would all frag rotors, at about one per race. Those rotors where still soild rotors correct? We raced an Isuzu Impulse XS, it had the factory rotors, raced a whole season, no problem... The DSM Guys who figured out the Hawks were the problem switched them with EBC red stuff, and other good pads and would go whole seasons without even a warped rotor compared to fragging one (at least) rotor per race with the Hawk pads... the brake design is fine, unless you are running an open class, group 5 car weighing 2500lbs and making 400 horsepower... then they're not fine. None of these guys were really modded because in order to drive an turbo/AWD DSM and not compete with the factory teams, you have to be in Production GT, which the only mods can be a CAI and exhaust... that's it. Mike RedStuff pads are not designed for street use.....they require to be warmed up, whereas Greenstuff/EBC/PF/Hawk do not. I gues I fail to see how a brake pad's compound can warp a rotor..... Also......they guys that switched brake pads.....did the notice a better stopping distance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartonmd Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 I guess I don't see how heat can simply move where ever it wants to go....heat transfers from hot to cold. So if somehow, the pads where to magically soak up all the heat it would transfer to the rotors and outside air anyways. Heat goes to whatever will take it... For example, heat goes into aluminum better than, say, wood... This is because aluminum has a MUCH lower specific heat than wood does... If you make brake pads with a very high specific heat, they will let the rotor take all of the heat (sometimes resulting in the fragging I'm talking about), but if you make pads with a slightly lower specific heat, the pads transfer the heat from the rotors to the pad packing plates... Especially in non-vented rotors, cooling is very important right? The more surface area you can heat up, the better it will cool... In the case of the pad with the lower specific heat, you're also using the pad packing plates, and therefore, the caliper as a heat sink instead of just the rotor... Those rotors where still soild rotors correct? Correct, but I was making sure to note that they weren't just the "white box" rotors that come from AutoZone. I'm not saying don't use them on vented rotors... I know several people who run them on the fronts with no problems... I'm just saying don't use them on the rear, non-vented rotors... RedStuff pads are not designed for street use.....they require to be warmed up, whereas Greenstuff/EBC/PF/Hawk do not. Yeah, I know Redstuff are not designed for street use and have to heat up before their coeficient of friction gets high enough to work well (so does the Hawk HP+ by the way)... Redstuff was just one of the pads they were switching to, and none of the other pads would frag rotors (along with Green Stuff, and any # of other pads... including the regular Bendix pads) ... this is what I'm getting at... the only pads that would frag rotors were the Hawk pads... EVERY other pad anybody was using would work just fine, even on the white box rotors... I gues I fail to see how a brake pad's compound can warp a rotor..... Heat warps rotors... if the pad compound makes the rotors over-heat, they will most likely warp... especially if they are really hot, then you stop before driving around to let them cool... this leaves like 75% of the rotor to cool down at a normal rate while the other 25% has the pads over it and cools down slower... Also......they guys that switched brake pads.....did the notice a better stopping distance? Actually, I didn't think to ask, but a couple of them volunteered that they didn't really notice much of a difference, which would make sense because the rears only do... what, maybe 20% of your braking anyway... Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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