Originally Posted by gimp

Makes sense, newrock!

If you want cheap, there are some ebay/amazon kits floating out there, where you get a full set - four blank rotors, eight pads - for like $170. It's so cheap as to be suspicious, but multiple forum members report no issues with them after a few years, and they've been for sale for a number of years at this point.

If you want to "keep it simple," a stock pad and stock blank rotor will be appropriate for you.

If you want to have some "room for activities," there are a number of street pads that will be okay. A bunch were already mentioned here.

You really can't go wrong as long as you don't try to spend a bunch of money on features you don't need. Then you will end up annoying yourself with a bunch of squealing and dusting

Originally Posted by gimp

Stopping power for a pad almost does not matter for a street car unless it is so horrible that it's worthless.

Assuming your brake system is properly operation - you have a working master cylinder, hydraulic lines, power brakes, non-leaking calipers and lines, etc --
Any pad you get, unless it's made out of tin foil and prayers, is going to work well enough with your rotor and your caliper to lock up your street tires.
The stock pads? They will lock up your tires.
EBC Reds? They will lock up your tires. Yellows? Yep. Stoptechs? Yep. Hawk HPS 5.0? Yep. Hawk track pads? Yep.
So if a brake pad is capable of locking up your tires and activating ABS, you don't need more stopping power. You have enough to stop the car as fast as it physically can stop, given your speed, the friction coefficient of your tires, and your ABS system working properly (or you threshold braking perfectly).
If you drive on the street in a manner that will cause the stock pads to fade or the recommended fluid to heat up and lose effectiveness, you're driving like a maniac and you should get off the road and away from me and other humans.
Discussions of stopping power are only useful in the context of track use, and stopping power versus heat -- in other words, repeated deceleration from high speeds.
On the street, it's much more useful to consider cost, longevity (a different part of cost), dusting, and noise. The pad will stop you just fine.
This is why the first thing I asked OP was what kind of driving they were doing as it is by far the most relevant question. They said street, nothing too fast. So beyond just stock or stock-equivalent hardware, I recommended a basic all-around pad that I think (check, don't quote me on this) is cheaper than stock, offers good manners as far as noise goes (use brake quiet on the back as you're supposed to), though it does dust, but offers confidence that you won't ever fade it on the street if you decide to drive a little more spiritedly. That, or an equivalent pad, is by far the fanciest stuff that makes sense to put on a street car.

Originally Posted by Newrock

For the type of driving we do, the Hawk High Performance Street look good. Moderately priced. Particularly since there are other issues to resolve, but that's another thread.

Originally Posted by sbo76

There is much more to the equation than will any given pad lock up a wheel or actuate the ABS. I'm sure there are may tests online that will show 100-0 stopping distances with different pads\compounds. Like you said I'm sure any pad will work and has the ability to lock up a tire but not all pads are equal. I have had a few manufactures that I find to be better than others for both street and track conditions. I do track a corvette and M3 and agree its a totally different animal but there are also compounds that are designed to address the added heat and stress of track duty. I would not run my full race set up on the street (EBC Yellow) but my street set up (EBC Red/Stoptech street strip) do just fine on the track and in normal bumper to bumper driving. There is no autozone\checker ceramic pad that comes anywhere close to the pads I mentioned with respects to stopping power.

Originally Posted by gimp

Your stopping distance is limited by your tires and the frictional coefficient of your tires rolling against the ground (or, if you lack ABS and press the brakes too hard, sliding across the ground).
If your brake pads pressed against your brake rotors can generate enough force to reach that limit of the tire, that's it. Whether through ABS engagement or perfect threshold braking, your car will stop in the distance dictated by the physics of your tires and the surface they ride on. There may be some small improvement in perfect braking over ABS engagement but that's all.
There is no autozone or "checker ceramic pad" that will give you the stopping power you need on the track or in other high heat applications. If you are repeatedly stopping hard enough on the street to hit those high heat applications, reconsider your driving style. I will give some allowance to traffic that keeps stopping from highway speeds, that does happen, if you live in an area like that, get higher end pads. Otherwise, for street driving, save your money.

Originally Posted by gimp

Feel free to try it. You won't fade your pad or boil your fluid stopping from 100.

If you want to stop repeatedly from 100 in a street-driving scenario, with only some seconds between each acceleration and stop, I have no idea what you're doing, but I hope you are doing it far away from me.

I've autocrossed stock pads before, which requires multiple hard brake applications, often going around 60 mph to around 25-30 mph, which could be representative of a very annoying day in traffic. You know those days, speed up on the highway, slow way down, speed up, slow way down. You probably aren't hitting, say, six braking zones within 50 seconds. But you could be if you drive like an insane person, I guess. I had zero issues doing autox.

I don't buy autozone-branded anything but if they sell a stock-style pad for $30 for the corvette (feel free to drop a link, by the way, for other people to consider buying it), I imagine you would never have an issue street-driving that.

Originally Posted by Newrock

...they said there were two designs for the C5. Design One was no longer available. They were not sure if Design Two would fit (!) as it was not shown for my VIN. Apparently the pads part numbers are different starting at VIN 35128924...

Originally Posted by voda1

The 1st des vs 2nd des is not about fitment but rather the compound. i.e. semi-metallic or ceramic.

Originally Posted by gimp

So if a brake pad is capable of locking up your tires and activating ABS, you don't need more stopping power. You have enough to stop the car as fast as it physically can stop, given your speed, the friction coefficient of your tires, and your ABS system working properly (or you threshold braking perfectly).