A couple of things:

Bigger brakes do not directly equate to better stopping. The main upgrade is in repeated stopping as a larger rotor will dissipate heat more quickly. You do get some advantage with more pistons, but I'm guessing most of the kits people buy are a four piston caliper set-up, which isn't that much of an advantage over your PBR's. The stock C4 caliper is a capable piece for the street.

With that said, you will want to look into pads. A good set of street pads will be fine for the occasional high speed run. If you get into more aggressive pads (track pads), you run two risks:

1. They squeal and cover your wheels in dust
2. The more aggressive compounds do not work well until they reach temperature. This means that your initial bite will be lower than a high quality street pad. This is NOT what you want!

Slotted and drilled rotors upgrade nothing on a street car except appearance.

Get some good pads, clean your rotors, and bleed your brakes. You'll safely be able to stop from 100+ without drama.

 

In answer to your original question. As you are still running the original equipment, new rotors & pads will not hurt anything and are a very good investment.

And as noted above unless you are road racing the car the 13" brakes are all that you need until you have money to burn

And get it off the street. Take it to a road racing course and enroll in a one day school. Believe me, by the end of the day you see why there is just no proving anything unless you can do it on the track. You know 10 laps; best time wins $500.00 from the loser you don't even compete against each other, you simply run your *** off on a (relatively) safe track for 10 straight laps and if your car is fast (and you are good) you win your bragging rights and can post them here. And if can't drive for ****, no one gets hurt but you.

 

What he said.

 

Take your car to Maxon, or Bonneville. or Texas, or Nebraska, or Nevada - or any road track - or drag strip - theres lots of places to be safe and go fast - you have no right endangering innocent people because you feel the need to overcompensate for an exceptionally small *****!!!

The more I race my car - the more convinced I am about how incredibly stupid someone is to take chances in an environment which they have very little control over!

Oh BTW - brake rotors don't warp! It's a myth!

carl "safety ****" Johansson

 

You know, I've been on this website for a few months now and I've noticed there are a lot of people who are willing to give out valuable information. That's awesome. But I've also noticed that a lot of people are very quick to start preaching and name calling. Does anyone think that someone is going to take advice put out there like that? I don't think so. If you want to get a point across, I would recommend being constructive about it instead of destructive. There's no reason to talk down to someone about something you don't agree with. The biggest point I took out of this comment was just "****"!!

 

Damn Lambo swing up doors.

 

Every man has to know their limitation

 

Every man has to know their limit

 

 

I have J55 brakes with NAPA gold (supposedly their best) and I have to say the braking is terrible....Yeah, no fading ever when they get hot but I dont feel real secure should a panic stop occur. They were lousy before I changed them (new rotors, too), bleeding helped some.
Hopefully some Hawk pads that are on the way help out.
-Could bedding the pads in wrong contribute to this?

-Carl, interested in your comment on the warping bit..?!

 

Ever seen a "warped" one on a brake lathe?

 

Which Hawk pads did you get?

Bedding the pads on a street car isn't as much of a concern as a track car. Bedding is intended to immediately get the gasses out of the pad that are trapped during the manufacturing process. New pad technology has made this much less of an issue, the only thing is that your pads will probably stink and the pedal will be slightly softer feeling until they get hot a few times.

If you do want to bed them in, just take the car to an empty street and do a few 60 to 0 or 40 to 0 stops until the brakes fade a bit. Drive home without using them (as much as possible, anyway), park the car overnight and don't set your parking brake.

What most people think is warping is typically different pad materials bedded into the rotor, or a build up of pad material embedded in (causing the shudder you feel in the steering wheel). You often notice this if you switch pad materials, especially when dealing with aggressive compounds. Cuisinart, you might want to have your rotors turned if you're switching compounds, just to get all of the old stuff out. This could also be why you have poor braking now.

Rotors can get hot enough to "warp", but like anything, it's less and less of an issue as technology improves rotors. Track cars (or tow vehicles) are typically the only ones getting rotors hot enough to cause the metal to weaken.

 

OK, lets start off with some forum violations.

As we all know, the forum has some rules. Some that were broken here are as follows-insults, street racing and just basic illegal activity.

EVen though someone can't prove that yiou yourself didn't type something on your computer, the forum still has a liability since it was published on this site, so be careful what yousay and how you say it, or this place won't be here and if by some chance it does, you won't.

While I do appreciate everyone who tells others about right or wrong, it is generally better to report it rather than reply.

This keeps the thread a lot cleaner and leaves a lot less for me to edit when I get to it.

And for those who want to preach to those who are preaching to others, take a step back and look at the big picture. It may not be their place to interfere, but they are simply trying to do that person a favor by telling them to either edit or delete their reply before I see it.

Now back to the subject, take the advice of those who actually posted an answer to your situation and then get back to us.

 

It's the transfer of brake pad material from the pad to the rotor that causes much of the problem.

 

Some rotors will deform as they heat up and expand. It could be either.

 

When you chuck up a rotor and its out .020 on one side and almost exactly .020 the other way 180 Deg from it, thats pretty convincing. Aint trying to argue, sorry for the hijack. Back to the subject.

 

I did a bunch of 155 mph to 50 mph stops yesterday...no warping or fading.

Damn, Mosport is a fast track. Check out the Speed GT race there when it airs. Of course the Aston Martins were running a couple of seconds faster than we were...

 

Let's not get the thread locked, because I'm fighting the same problem. I can't tell if it's coming only through the steering wheel, though.

I first noticed the vibration while coming down from the mountains in weekend traffic, so I was certain rotors had gone bad. Put on new rotors & pads and there was no change at all.

Made sure the wheels were balanced, again no change.

Made a big checklist of FSM troubleshoots & forum advice, put the car on jackstands for two months to inspect, measure and wiggle things and found nothing obvious. Right front rotor acts like it has a high spot, brushing ever so slightly against a pad once per turn - but I measured that damn thing every which way and I'm sure it's in spec for runouts & thickness. Bushings, ujoints, ball joints, tie rods all feel tight. Rear wheel bearings were a "slight maybe" so I changed them. Still vibrating, but one old bearing was leaking its grease so not much wasted effort.

Next steps: refurb all calipers since I was going to do it anyway to install GS calipers up front, and then do u-joints since I'm noticing a slight vibration at cruise now. Maybe shocks since one had leaked a little more than the others.

Hopefully someone can help keep me from throwing too many parts at this.

 

Did you try putting the rotor/rotors in a lathe and check them that way. I've seen brand new rotors that were "warped" out of the box. Doesnt happen often, but once in awhile we see it. Surface the rotor in question just slightly and your problem will probably be cured.

 

The new ones are slotted/drilled rotors and I thought they couldn't be turned? If not, I can try putting the old one back on to see if it does the same thing. I was thinking that the bearing hub could also be suspect.

Symptoms were exactly the same with the old rotors so except for measuring runout & thickness for anything out of the ordinary, I put on the back burner most items that are rotor-specific. Now that nothing else obvious has turned up they are back on the table, I guess.