Details: My car is a daily driver. It's cold and wet occasionally here in Seattle. I started autox this year and will continue a couple times a month 'til end of the season. I'm hooked, so same thing next season. I've got a set of crossdrilled/slotted rotors waiting to go on my stock Brembos.

I'm trying to find a good pad to use. Pads I've looked into are a few from Carbotech, Porterfield R4-S, EBC Redstuff & Yellowstuff, Axxis Ultimate & Metal Master. Right now I'm mainly trying to decide between the Hawk HPS and the HP Plus. I know the HP+ will be better on the track, and I'm not concerned about the extra dust.

Will the HP+ be completely safe on the street when it's not completely warmed up?
Will it make too much noise? I can't stand squealing...
Anybody have experience with any of these pads on your daily driver/weekend racer?

 

FYI -- changing to drilled or slotted rotors will bump you out of Stock class in autocross. This is one of those rules that people scratch their heads about, but rules are rules.

Stay away from Hawk HPS pads -- I had them on my S2000, and they didn't have any more bite or fade resistance than the stock pads, but they dusted a lot more.

What are your goals? Fade resistance? Low dust? Higher initial bite? Almost all high-performance pads will screech to some extent, so if you can't stand noisy pads, and just intend to use your car for autocross, the stock pads may be your best option.

Steve
- uses Porterfield R4s, which squeal like a city bus

 

Do you mean R-4's or R4-S?

I need something that's extremely streetable, meaning it needs to work very well at colder temps. Dust doesn't bother me. My old Wilwoods w/semi-metallic pads dusted like crazy, so I'm used to it. I don't mind certain types of noise, just not squeal. You know, the sound that stock pads make when they need to be replaced...that fingernail on chalkboard type thing...

What's better between the Axxis Ultimate and Axxis MetalMaster? Same question for the EBC Redstuff and EBC Yellowstuff. I got confused reading their crappy websites...

 

I run a combo of HPS and HP+,can't recall which is more aggressive (+ I think) but that is on the front, with the less agressive on the rears. Stopping power is great, and they're also great for safety, when coming to a stop everyone in a 1/2 mile radius can hear you. They'll all be looking for the school bus though, so they probably won't notice it was your car making all the racket

 

Yeah, HP+ is the more agressive pad. I'm saddened to hear how loud they are...

 

I'll also be replacing my front rotors, here in the next week or so, as the pads appear to have worn them down. Though I do have 57k miles on the car, with probably ~10k on the Hawk Pads. (enthusiast rotors)

 

I have the brembo factory rotors and calipers, which with factory pads have survived a season of autox and one track day at Reobling with more than half the pad left when I replaced them just this weekend with the Red Stuff from EBC along with SS brake lines and Motul brake fluid. I have a track day coming up Friday @ Roebling road and then an autocross the next day as well. I will report back on how well they do.

 

I've run several different pads in search of the ultimate Solo2 compound.

HP+ has a very nice initial bite and are excellent for Solo2. Unfortunately, the dust like crazy and are noisy. They also don't make a rear pad.

I'm running HPS right now and am not really impressed. They're a good stock replacement for street use. Very little dust (especially compared to stock) and no noise. I did noticed that when it's wet they're quite poor until the rotor heats up. I won't be getting another set of these - despite their cheap price.

I also tried Ferodo DS2500. Better high end heat range than the HP+ (they can handle light lapping) and little noise. Dust wasn't too bad either. The bite wasn't as good as the HP+ but better than the HPS and kept and very consistent level of friction regardless of temperature. Unfortunately, they don't make a non-Brembo rear pad.

Ideal pad would be HP+ bite with less noise and dust. It's higher heat capacity is not really necessary for the street.

I'll likely try a set of Axxis Ultimate pads next.

 

I'd also recommend Cobalt Friction's Sport-GT compound. After two years of combined street use and multiple track days, it has worked quite well.

 

Definitely let us know. From their site, it seems like the Yellowstuff actually has better intial bite, even at cold temps, and better at high heat as well. This confused me, since they position their Redstuff pad as the more agressive one?

 

I use the R4, which screeches like there's no tomorrow. The R-4S is quieter, but still squeals a bit.

 

Has anyone tried pads by project mu, or the nismo pads?

 

...or ebc GREEN stuff come to think of it... I thought that was the common one by ebc... i know its the least aggressive but ive heard good things over stock.

 

Doesn't work for my purposes. I autox. I have crossdrilled/slotted rotors on the stock Brembo calipers. Stuff like Hawk HPS, EBC Greenstuff would suck for my application.

 

Well, I am happy with the performance of the Red Stuff pads. Zero fade from braking after 110 minutes of track time. Maybe used 1/6 of the pad, granted Reobling only has two hard brake zones turn one and turn four. But coming off the straight at 140 mph and braking at the 350' mark left about 100' of braking on the table to slow down to roughly 80-85mph for the first turn. The brakes have a light squel when cold but still grip well. I did do a nice job of blueing the rotors but no vibration so I will continue to use them for some time. Hard to comment on the dust as it rained on and off all day so the car is pretty dirty.

One thing, if I just used the brakes for track I might up grade to the Yellow stuff. A friend is using them on his 350Z with stock brakes (non brembo), sayed it took a little to get heated but was braking harder than I was. Although he could only do this about five laps before his brakes would fade from the fluid becoming over heated and have to let them cool. His set up was slotted, SS lines, Motul fluid, Yellow stuff and Stock calipers.

My take is the reds are slightly better than factory, for my use as a dual purpose pad I am happy.

 

isnt the order of least to most agressive with the ebc pads - green, yellow, red? i may be wrong... everyone does seem to talk about the yellows and reds... im pretty curious about those greens... if they are better than stock.

 

green-red-yellow is the correct order. greens are nice do to low dust and noise for the street.

 

That's what their site says too. Which is weird b/c their graphs show that the yellows actually work better at cold temps than the less aggressive reds?

 

This was my friends observation of the yellows, I would like to try them but will not till the reds are shot.

 

Whatever pads you chose, try to stay clear from full race pads. They will never have the time to get to full temperature and won’t have the chance to do a full bed-in. A good sport street pad will be better for ~60 sec runs.

Solid discs are always better for maximum braking power. But if you get pad fade, slotted discs will help counter that. Slotted discs also help against glazing.

Drilled discs will crack within a few sessions, I don’t recommend these. (Yeah, Porsche use them. I wonder how much these discs cost…)

Finally, keep the sunny side up and the rubber side down !