Afternoon All

I need/want to change out the OEM brakes on my 93. I would really like to install a cross drilled rotors with ceramic pads...

Does anyone have any recommendations on brands? And some ideas on pricing??

Thanks

 

I purchased my ceramic pads from the Tire Rack. Rotors seem to be priced all over the place. EbaY/Internet seem to offer the best rotor pricing.

Enjoy!

 

rethink ceramic if you're after better braking (hence the reason for the brake upgrade?), rather, try a set of more aggressive semi-metallic pads like Hawk or others - and BLEED the brakes.

Along with good rubber (tires, that is), those are some of the most signifigant improvements you can make to braking. After that, a larger diameter rotor with slots (not holes) and a beefy caliper will also help.

Drilled rotors are for looks only, and in fact are somewhat detrimental to "maximum" braking performance. However, most of us get drilled/slotted rotors simply because they look cool. Do a search, there is plenty on this topic.

 

i bought mine from HERE
just make sure you know if you have the JL9 or the J55 brakes on the car now - otherwise it will be a big mess and you migh wind up doing THIS

 

DITTO on the Hawk pads! also agree on drilled roters, yes I have them but when they wear out they are history...solid roters stop better IMHO

If you want a really great up grade, go with C5 front brakes and Hawk mid range pads all around. Also install a DRM brake bias spring!
You'll love the difference

seeya

 

for rotors, check out the sale at WDF for bendix rotors... you'll find the thread in the parts for sale section of the forum

 

If I had known about the sale I would have bought these instead of stock rotors. They zinc coat the rotors so you won't get rust behind the wheels in the hat area.

Check out this post by WDP, a vendor Bendix brake rotors

 

Above, he is correct. Ceramic pads do not offer the best braking in the market.

 

What seems to be the concensus.. I had cross drilled on my old ford SVT (yes I know ford.. dont throw things at me) and they worked wonders


I drive the car about 7,000 miles a year at most and all braking is done during agressive driving (trying to keep up with the c5's and 6's of the NE forum guys)

So Bendix rotors and hawk pads??

 

Do a search on this forum. There are some for sale here with pads for $170.00 for the set. Difficult to beat that price and they have gotten good reviews.

 

The caution on drilled rotors is from track maniacs who abuse their brakes and will ruin a pair of rotors in a weekend. For street use they will do you no harm and look good if you have wheels that expose the rotors.

No one really has any long term experience with the Bendix rotors that are on sale. Significantly, these are the first good price break on C4 rotors, less than half of what I just paid for stock rotors from Superior. And they are in the range of the cost of C5 rotors. I like the idea of the zinc coating to keep off the rust.

I have used Hawk HPS pads for three years now, and though I don't track the car I do run it hard. After the three years and about 25K miles I have half the pad thickness left. They did stand up to a hard run on the Dragon. They do dust a lot with a very black dust, but they stop the car much better than stock pads.

Now, if you want to be a tester for us, try the Axxis metallic pads they also have on sale. Axxis is a brand name used by PBR, an Australian company. Repco is another brand name used by PBR. I've used Repco metallic pads on a number of foreign cars over the years and they were excellent. I also remember Repco as a sponsor of the world beating Mclarens in Canam. They have been around forever and have excellent products. Next time I plan to try the Axxis metallic pads. $45.00 is compelling, and the fact they are made in Australia probably accounts for a lot of the price difference. The US$-Aus$ exchange rate at work. The new J55 calipers I just bought are PBR, as were the original calipers on my car.

I'm ready to try both the Axxis pads and the Bendix rotors, but I just bought all new stuff little over a month ago. Maybe you can break new ground for us.

 

Thats where I plan on gettin mine from!

 

How do you determine this, without a build sheet? is it just measuring the front rotor diameter, or is there more to it?

 

The calipers look the same at a glance. You can't confuse the difference between the 12" and 13" rotors. A ruler wouldn't quite reach across the 13" rotors. You do have to pull a wheel though. Hmm, maybe you can measure with a tape from the back side with the wheel on.

If you have a stock looking caliper with 13" diameter rotors you have J55 on the car, whether it was built that way or not.

 

I upgraded to C5 calipers, installed cross-drilled rotors (for looks) and Hawk HPS pads. What a difference! Upgrade worth every penney.

Only problem was my rotors were not zinc washed. Within 2 weeks I had bright orange rusted hats which you could see easily behind my black GS rims. Looked like crap

So I had to take them off and paint the hats with some black high heat paint. Look much better now. Next time I will get zinc wahsed rotors.

 

Cross drilled brake rotors are known to enhance the braking power of any brake system without doing any major modification. Rotor surface because of cross drilling will increase the rotors ability to dissipate heat and cool down the whole brake system.
Porsche had been using cross-drilled rotors on their 911 Turbo since the late 70’s and they are still using them on their latest models. Mercedes-Benz also uses cross-drilled rotors.
The truth is, the slots on the slotted rotors act like a razor blade, it slices the brake pads every time you step on the brakes (thus, the pads won’t last long). They are only good for road course racing, where brakes had been over heated and form a glazed surface on the pads. The slotted rotors will give a "new" surface every time. That’s why they are only good for racing.

 

My reasoning:

Cross-drilled reduces rotor/pad surface contact area (thus less total braking force available).

Cross-drilled rotors also are more prone to cracking under the high-heat environments that you claim they are better in due to "heat dissipation."

Just because Porsch, Benz, and most people on this forum use drilled rotors does NOT mean it is a braking "enhancement," rather that type of rotor is used primarily because it looks cool. Those porsches you speak of have nice, open-wheel designs and want a "performance" look to their brakes. Back in the 70's, the drilled rotors were used in racing because the pads back then were literally glued together - this glue created gases under racing temps and wound up forming pockets between the pads/rotors. THEN, the drilled rotors allowed these gases to escape and was an edge in racing. NOW, those glues are not used, and modern pad materials do not gas - hence no gain from cross-drilled rotors. Any thermal benefit from a few extra holes would be seriously outweighed by the reduction in strength and surface area.

IMHO of course.

 

Do a search in the roadrace/auto-x forum regarding Hawk pads and the horror stories of cleaning off the brake dust. The pads work fine for the street, but if you let the dust accumulate you'll need large caliber weapons and hand grenades to get it off the wheels.

I personally like Carbotech pads.

RockAuto.com sells some nice Raybestos J55 front rotors for $45 each.

 

The dust cleaning mess is with the full race pads, it is not a problem with the street HPS pads. I've driven my car through rain with dust on the wheels and have no problem washing off the dust from HPS pads. Of course I don't drive the car through a whole winter then tried to clean them like I've done with some DD cars.

SRG didn't indicate she's going road racing. The advice I've given is for street driving with occasional hard driving like Mojo does.

 

there should be an option sticker in your center console. look for JL9 or J55.



another reason for drilled rotors on race cars is also for weight reduction