What Are The Best No-dust Brake Pads Out There, Were Can I Get Them And How Much Do They Cost!!!!!

 

GMPartsDirect-----$125.42-----GM ceramic.[front&rear]

 

Do They Really Work, Do They Have No Brake Dust?

 

They work. Some people here report a slight loss in braking efficiency. Why do you have so much of a problem with friction? Everything in the world works on friction.

Good luck.

 

man oh man i love the title of this thread! i was just thinking this same thing the other day when i was spending yet another half hour of my night in a hot garage cleaning the dust off the front wheels. the Z06 wheels are NOT fun to clean. i swear... i can drive my car for 2 days, and when i return it to the garage, i have to clean the wheels. don't get me wrong... i love the stopping power of this car. but good grief the dust is getting very annoying. i've read on here that some like the "HPS" pads. are these ceramic? i don't race, so i'm not interested in repeated high speed stops. but i don't mind the dust if someone can suggest a better way for cleaning wheels other than a rag and water. suggestions? opinions? thanks!

 

Yep, ceramic pads. I've not gone back since switching.

 

They're called "DuraStops" and they work great. No noise, no dust, and they still work very well. I wouldn't autocross with them but for the street they are my choice.

 

i use 2 coats of nxt wax also on the rims, is lets the dust fly off. very little dust after days of driving.

 

I found a product called Wheel Wax carried by Tire Rack and Auto zone, works great.

http://www.wheelwax.com/



Jeff

 

Ceramics for the street. Carbon Metalic for the track.

 

If you are looking to eliminate the dust, ceramic pads are the way to go, however, braking efficiency will suffer some. I, like you, would drive my Z for a little cruise and when I returned the front wheels had noticeable dust on them. I did not want to give up good braking, so I went with HAWK HPS pads and have been very pleased. I can drive the Z several times with only minor dust that I can wipe off with a rag and the braking performance improved significantly over the OEM brake pads. They had 11,000 miles on them when I changed to the HAWK pads.

FWIW!

Ed

 

Ditto...they work very well for street use only.

 

I will try the wheel wax 1st. I am also interested in pads with less dust, but I do not want to lose any braking. I do track the car a few times a year and braking is very important to me. Any suggestions?

 

Park car on side at the bottom of Niagara falls every once in a while. Do driver side first; then do passenger side. Wheels will be perfect if you can arrange for most of the water to hit wheels.

Might want to cover engine, etc with some 'sad wrap.'

 

Hahaha yes no doubt! But the way I hear that these cars leak, might want to cover the whole car as well. So far I've noticed no leaking on my car though.

I've tried wax on the wheels, even have Zaino on them now, but the dust is sooo fine it's almost sticky. It really does take some rags with a bit of water to fully get the dust off. I thought about using the Mother's powerball thingy, but geez it would get so dirty even just after one use, and I'm not sure how well brake dust would clean off of the red foam.

I think I will try the Hawk HPS pads. Question is do I have to change the rotors when I change pads? Are there any good instructions on this website on how to change the pads? They were easy to do on my '96 Impala, but I dunno how different this Z06 will be with changing pads. I wonder if when changing pads, it's also a good time to flush the brake fluid. I read instructions somewhere that seemed very complicated.. mostly with getting fluid out of the ABS unit. :

 

I have had one coat of rejex on my new wheels for a couple of months. It hasn't kept all the dust off my wheels, but there is noticeably less on the wheels. I am also able rinse off most the brake dust using a strong stream of water between weekly car washes.

 

Changing pads is very easy on the Z06/C5. Remove the top bolt from the caliper (you need to use a wrench on the bolt and one on the captive nut in the caliper, all bolts are metric sizes). Let the caliper hinge down on the bottom bolt and support the end of the caliper with a bungie cord to prevent putting too much stress on the hose. Remove the old pads. Put in the new pads. Use a clamp to push back the pistons (remove some fluid from the reservoir to avoid overflow). Put caliper back in place, insert bolt using some blue Locktite, and tighten bolt. Pump brake pedal after both sides are done and then top of reservoir if needed.

No need to replace the rotors if they are in good condition, but you do have to bed the pads to the rotors (Hawk provides bedding information with the pads).

Bleeding brakes is no problem. Use the standard method -- one person pumps the brake while the other opens/closes the bleeder valve. Remove as much of the old fluid as you can from the reservoir, put in fresh fluid (DOT 3 or 4 -- do NOT use silicone/DOT 5 fluids), bleed, keep topping up reservoir with fresh fluid. Order: Left rear, right front, right rear, left front. No special procedure for ABS, just bleed them like you would any other car.

As for the Hawk HPS, I've used them on mine, and they dust a lot. I used them on the track and they coated the wheels black. If you are just doing street driving, go with ceramic pads. If you do the track, go up to HP Plus pads, at a minimum. HPS are great stopping pads on the street, highly recommend them, but don't expect them to be dust-free.

 

I have CCW 505A wheels. There a non coated aluminum wheel. There a brake dust magnet! I polish the wheels and then coat them with Rejex. Rejex works very well BUT,,,,,,once the OEM brake pad dust gets WET (from rain) HOLY CRAP,,,it's like chipping off concerte! I might just have to try the Ceramic pads. Where is the best place (least expensive) to purchase them from?

Bill C

 

If you feel the need to remove the Z06 pads due to dust. Instead of the Hawk HPS look at their Performance Ceramic pad. The HP+ will be worse than a Z06 pad for dust. HPS in the middle. Or get the GM Durastops.

I tried wheel wax, rejex, duragloss, all that. Just to help cut down on the dust sticking and taking a hold on the wheel. The rejex works pretty good.

As far as not wanting to loose any braking power. Well you can't have it both ways. Performance pads dust. The more aggressive the pad the more dust. Run the ceramics on the street. If you're going to the track (road course) then get separate pads and swap them in before you go.

The difference between all these pads, simply put. The ceramics will give you 1 really good hard stop then they heat soak and fade. Z06 pads give you a few of them in a row, then they fade. Track pads let you do those stops over and over without fade (at least 30 minute sessions worth anyway).

There is no such thing as a pad that does everything. Pick what is most important to you and deal with the downside. It's all trade-offs.

 

Try having an 2004 GTO...the stock wheels are brutal to clean. Going from that to cleaning z06 wheels is like a wet dream come true.