Jeff h. advice on brake pads
Jeff H.
Advice on Brake Pads
I’m writing this for the
street & everybody else that wants to do track days.You should use the stock pads for street driving. They
are easy on rotors
and have very good grip and dust is tolerable and they are reasonable in
price. anything else of higher performance will be a waste of money and
will tear up your cross drilled rotors. The next pad ‘I’ would choose
would
be the Hawk HP-S pads.
The S stands for street compound. They work well
for street use and are similar to the stock pads. Those are also the same
pads Brembo sells with their cross drilled rotorsAlso IMO you wasted money on your brake lines and fluid if
all you are
going to do is street driving. The lines are not visible and Dot 3 fluid
would have also been fine for street use. The Cross drilled rotors will
also be fine for street use and will look great. If you ever brake hard
enough to need the motul 600 then you will crack those rotors for sure.
The street is the only place for those rotors because they will crack.
Trust me I have done it.
Supra brakes are awesome but you do have some compromises
depending on
what you want to do with them. The stock rotors are so cheap that for road
racing they are the way to go and use a harder more expensive pad.
Consider
the stock rotors disposable and use a pad like the Hawk
blue compound. The
car will out brake anything with that combo and will not fade assuming your
fluid is up to the task. You will replace the rotor with the pads (with a
slight chance at turning them) after 2 to 3 track events depending on the
track and braking needed on the particular track. Next consider cryo
treatment of the rotors to prolong the life of the rotor. Pads I hated
for
street or track? I hated the TRD pads. Hawk
black pads were OK but took
too much time for me to warm them up. Hawk
HP plus are a street / track
combo pad. I had trouble getting them to hold up under hard braking and
after a day of hard braking at a track day they would come apart and
crumble. They were OK at TWS but you don’t use the brakes much there
compared to some tracks like Hallett.
I don’t think the big brake upgrades are cost effective
because if you
are using them for track days you will continue to need to replace the
rotors and pads which are MUCH more expensive. Remember the stock brake
components are cheap. I have no experience with the big brake upgrades and
I have no doubt they stop very well but with the right pad rotor combo you
can also. I already worry about collecting some Porsche, corvette or viper
that underestimates their brakes and rams into me in a tight corner after
the pass of course 🙂Jeff Hood
jkhood@cableone.net
Some Cryo links:
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