SinghZvette

1998 MN6 Coupe 87k miles. Recently installed Baer Eradispeed slotted and drilled 12inch rotors and Z06 brake pads on all four ends. There is a lot of brake dust on the wheels. Is that normal while the brake set is settling or did I pick the wrong combination (Z06 pads + slotted&drilled rotors)? I am a neat freak and I hate brake dust

jrose7004

Unless you have ceramic pads, you're going to have dust.

cdkcorvette7

The stock pads are very good, but they do dust a lot. I would personally NEVER EVER put ceramic brake pads on my car, but if you really want to get rid of the brake dust that's the way to go.

WKMCD

Zinc plated rotors will make a huge mess until the zinc is worn off the fire path. After that, dust is a function of what pads you're running. FWIW: I'm now running Cabotech 1521's with Eradispeed +2s. What little dust there is is non-corrosive and pale gray. Braking is infinitely better than the AC Delco ceramics I tried for 1k miles before throwing them away. Hawk HPS were just too dusty and the dust from those is super corrosive.

garage-ghost

Z06 pads are really dusty. I swapped mine out for some ceramics the first 1000 miles.

cdkcorvette7

I'm thinking about trying carbotechs next time... I'm happy with my HPS (I don't care about dust) but I've heard good things. They are crazy expensive though, where did you get yours?

Sorry for the hijack...

SinghZvette

Not a problem with the hijack. The dust is way tooo much right now that I might have to change the pads. Suck though since I spent a lot of money on the pads and install. I just looked up zip corvette and they do not recommend some carbotech pads for daily use?

http://www.zip-corvette.com/ProductD...GR-SR&CTitle=&

oh1vette

Yeah, tell me about dust...put some Hawk HPS+ on for an HPDE and left them on for the street - -stop great - - but about 40mi and wheels are covered......gotta change em out

On the carbotechs...search on here theres a member whose a dealer I believe and can answer all your questions - many different compounds for various applications.

Also, hit up KNS Brakes another supporting vendor - Ken's a great guy to deal with....

Adam@Amp'dAutosport.com

The Carbotech 1521 is a low dusting performance street pad. F $144 R $124. I offer 7% forum discount, contact me at 216-780-8825. The 1521 is a light colored dust and will not harm wheels or paint.


The Carbotech Bobcat 1521™ is our high performance street compound that is our most successful compound. The Bobcat compound is known for its awesome release and modulation, along with unmatched rotor friendliness. Like our AX™ & XP™ line of compounds, Bobcat 1521™ is a Ceramic based friction material offering minimal rotor damage and non corrosive dust. Bobcat 1521™ offers outstanding performance, even when cold, low dusting and low noise with an excellent initial bite. This compound’s virtually perfect linear torque production provides incredible braking force without ABS intervention. Bobcat 1521™ operating range starts out at ambient and goes up to 900°F. Bobcat 1521™ is suitable for ALL street cars, perfect for your tow vehicle, police cruiser, and has won multiple SCCA Solo 2 and Prosolo National Championships. The Bobcat 1521™ compound has been found to last two-three times longer than OE pads you can purchase at a dealership or national retailer. Bobcat 1521™ compound has also been found to extend the life of your rotors 2-3 times. That’s one of the beauties of Carbotech Ceramic brake compounds. Bobcat 1521™ is NOT recommended for any track use.

JeepTJ

Had ceramics... worst mod you could ever do to Vette. Had brake fade three different time during some spirited driving. Not fun at all when you are pressing the pedal and the car will not slow down. IMHO they should ban ceramic pads for any car that can go over 100mph. Normal driving never had a problem. But if you ever run them hard, lookout.
Running Hawk HPS now and love them.

SinghZvette

My previous setup was the same rotors I am replacing with (Baer Eradispeed, slotted & drilled) with Hawk pads and they did produce dust but it would only show after about 50+ miles of driving and stopping power was okay. With the new setup (Baer Eradispeed, slotted & drilled) of Z06 pads the dust shows up twice more than before with only 10+ miles of driving and since pads are very soft on the pedal stopping power sucks.

The consensus seems to be that:

1. for minimum brake dust ceramics are best but they are bad with stopping power.
2. for good stopping power non-ceramics are best but they will be dusty.

As of now the Bobcat's seem to be something in between (1) and (2)?

cdkcorvette7

Which hawks were you running that didn't dust? Must've been ceramics? My Hawk HPS pads dust at least as bad as the stock ones... I think a little worse. And the stock gm pads are actually pretty good.

Soft grippy compounds are excellent for stopping power, bad for longevity and dust.

Hard compounds (like ceramics) are F***ing awful for stopping but they don't dust much and they last a while... So at least your rims will still be shiny when you t-bone the idjit that ran through the red light in the intersection in front of you because you couldn't stop in time...

SinghZvette

I was running Ceramic Hawks, not the HPS or HP Plus. Right now I am tied between Carbotech ($268) or Hawk ($200).

0Brakemotive

Since there are no industry regulations for what comprises a "ceramic" compound, I wouldn't write off all ceramic compounds. MOT, mu, and wear life can vary wildly from one ceramic pad to another. If you saw test data from a duralast pad compared to an akebono you would see a marked difference.

Evil-Twin

I have been telling people for years not to use ceramic pads.. but like most things the word" ceramic" is a buzz word... the percentage of ceramic is not regulated.. 1/10 of 1 percent constitutes ceramic.. IN testing the C5 braking system we found that our original brake system was the second best braking system of any production car on the planet. Only to be beaten out by BMW, which system we tested thoroughly. BMW brake bade dust more than any pads made, but that why they have the highest coefficient of friction.. ( the stop without fade every time ) If you ever pull up along side a late model BMW you will notice a lot of brake dust.. When we made the final design compound for the C5 brake pads we choice a slightly harder compound..because the BMW pads were just too soft... Ceramic is a very hard compound they use it on the space shuttle to protect against reentry... this HARD compound does not dust because it is so hard.. but it has a very very poor coefficient of friction.. So its your choice, less dust or the ability to save your life in a panic situation.. I take the high coefficient of friction every time.. making a panic stop where you may need 130 feet to stop, will cost you 150 feet with ceramics.. reaction time is critical...a jack knifed tractor trailer around the bend will put you about 20 feet into the back end of this trailer at 60 mpg using ceramic pads... Ill choose the better stopping pads every time. it takes 30 seconds to dust off my wheels.
These wheel and rotors are 8 years old in this photo and have 80,000 miles on them. the brake pads are AC Delco original compound.

$$$frumnuttin'

I run the Hawks now and have very high confidence after scaring myself with the durastops. As far as brake dust, I solved that problem by switching to black wheels. When I clean them they go from flat black to gloss black....either way they look fine.

mcm95403

This has me thinking I should return the Raybestos Ceramics I bought last month and just get a set of stock pads.

Ultimate ride

I am in agreement with Evil-Twin about ceramics. My HPS pads seem to dust a bit less than the original and I have been pleased with their stopping distance. It takes just a few minutes to clean the dust off the wheels and it gives me the opportunity to check for potential wheel or rotor problems, paint chips, road tar deposits, etc. on the lower parts of the Vette's body panels. Plus cleaning off the dust gives me an excuse to spend more time admiring the car without the neighbors thinking that I am totally nuts were I just standing there staring at it.

DeeGee

My stock pads were very dusty but the stock fit had great performance. I fitted drilled and slotted rotors (mainly for looks) with Hawk HPS pads. At first I didn't notice any degradation at all which surprised me. I'm just seeing a very slight drop off as the bed in fully. I must admit, the Hawk HPSs are, so far, almost dust free.

Evil-Twin

Very low percentage ceramic pads are fine.. they us a very small percentage so they can call them ceramics. But here is the trick,,, if your newly purchased ceramic pads are still dusting, they are good . If you do not see any dusting i would recommend you get rid of them... you may only get once chance to save your life or someone else's. I would not want to be in this situation with ceramic pads, knowing that I could have made a much better choice in compounds by not choosing ceramics. The uninformed consumer doesn't like brake dust on their pretty car, and think that ceramics will cure their dusting problems without any trade off. think about a low coefficient of friction like a ceramic tile... imagine using a ceramic tile cut to fit in your caliper and pressed against you rotor... not much chance of stopping. Another point with hard ceramics is because of the low coefficient of friction it raises the rotor temperature because it requires much more force to stop the car, you don't feel this extra force because you have a power brake booster.. Ive seen many people with ceramic pads have discolored rotors.. when they heat up and heat soak the rotor they further cause brake fade. when you add up the one positive of ceramic pads.. its trumped a thousand time by softer brake compounds. Ones that keep the heat low because as the pads dust they remove heat. OK, Ive beat this horse for the thousandth time. One of the reason my rotors look so good is because they have not been exposed to a hard compound and actually polish my rotors ..