Guys, I just got a new set of pads and my rotors turned. It was about that time. I am having huge problems with rotor warping or whatever causes the shimmy when braking from a decent speed. Any thoughts. The mechanic says that it happens with these cars.

 

are those stock rotors? and are you using oem pads? i thought most stock oem brakes on the Z are pretty reliable. i changed my fronts pads at 16k miles (good for at least another 3k miles) and the rotors were like new.

 

usually the OEM rotors are already too close to min-tollerance to turn...

 

Sounds like you need new rotors. FWIW, on some cars the mechanics demand to change the rotors rather than turn them. Maybe the Z is one of these cars.

 

Hmmm. I don't want to buy new rotors if 20,000 miles will warp them again. What aftermarket rotors do you guys suggest?

 

What do you do with your brakes ?

Do you have the Brembos or not ? AT or MT ?

 

http://www.stoptech.com/products/rotors.shtml
http://www.stoptech.com/user/SearchResults.asp

not cheap, but they have a reputation for having good products and good service. If nothing else, their website is easy to get around and has a huge amount of information.

I've also looked up Wilwood, who's website is terrible (I could find the price list, but there's no explination as to what product goes with what car: http://www.wilwood.org/racerpricelist.pdf), and Brembo, who doesn't directly sell, and so far none of the vendors have prices published. Tire Rack has prices for the entire kit, but you just need rotors.

Oh, yeah, as a general rule, slotted discs are much more functional than drilled, until you get up to extremely expensive sets.

 

You have an uneven pad deposition, and the rotors are probably not warped. Since you recently had your rotors turned, they're obviously not recoverable.

http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp...rakedisk.shtml

You have to pay attention to how you drive. If you heat the brakes up very hot on a canyon drive, etc., don't come to a complete stop and sit with your foot on the brake pedal.

Your best bet is just get some inexpensive new rotors, rather than the dealer ones. We sell slotted or drilled ones with a nice black hat through our authorized resellers on this forum. They're about $100 per rotor, although we do sell pad, rotor, line, and fluid packge for not much more...we call it our Stage II kit.

 

J Ritt,

Last week I purchased a set of slotted Brembo replacement rotors from you guys along with Pagid orange pads, bed-in using procedure on your website, and drove @ the Portland International raceway. Everything was good at the track and off the track, however on the way back from Portland the next day (I live 6 hours away) on the highway, when I brake there was severe vibration that is more obvious at high speed and not so at lower speed. would this be due to uneven deposit of brake materials? I took extra care when I finish my hot sessions (gave it a good cool down lap, and obviously did not stay on the brakes for complete stop and instead put it in gears to park).

What is the problem?

Gary

 

J Ritt,
I have a question, is it actually worth getting the Stoptech Stage 2 2-piece rotors over the one piece rotors you offer for a car that will never see the track, just maybe spirited street driving?

 

Gary,
It sounds like you spoke with Howard regarding your issue...yes, it definitely sounds like you have a pad deposition.

SilverJDMCoupe,
In terms of performance for the street, you aren't going to see much benefit from the 2-piece rotor.

On the track however, the difference between one and two piece floating rotors become significant. First, you'll be saving a couple of pounds of unsprung weight per corner. Weight is the enemy on the track, period. Floating rotors prevent coning, which leads to tapered pad wear. You can read more about it here: http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/fa...rsystems.shtml

Again, to answer your question...you aren't going to notice any great benefit in day to day driving with the 2-piece rotor...other than they look a lot cooler!

 

J Ritt,

My local mechanic suggested me to use "Garnet" sand paper to polish the rotors to get rid of the pad materials, because he said machining the rotors (or turning) will result in a thin rotor which maybe dangeroous on the track. Can you share your experties on this?

Thanks

Gary

 

We have the Stopech replacement rotors in stock, drilled or slotted. Shoot me a PM if you need a set.

 

Gary,
You can give the garnet paper a shot. Our first recommendation though is to run an aggressive race friction cold around town. The abrasive nature of running race pads cold can 'cure' the deposition issues in many cases. See this link: http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp_padremoval.shtml

If you want to try this, you need to go with something more abrasive than the Pagid Oranges...we typically recommend Hawk Blue. I know for sure we have PFC '01, and Hawk HT-14. Basically, you pay full price for a set of Hawk Blues. We send them out to you. You follow the procedures in the link above, then send the Hawk Blues back. We then refund you all but $50 of your money as payment for the service. As I said, normally we only do this for our BBK customers, but since there are quite a few guys running the factory Brembos on the track, we can probably set it up.

If people are interested, we can get this program going with the Hawk HT-14.

 

JRitt,

I tried the Garnet paper yesterday and it didnt help. My mechanic took out the rotors and we sand them. I am planning to take the rotors out and have a machine shop machine them. Being slotted and the fact that I will be hitting the track again soon, is doing this ok? the cost to machine them is $20 per rotors, so it maybe easier than having to send the hawk pads back and forth since I live in Canada.

Gary

 

If you have the stock one piece rotors, just have a very light skin cut taken off the rotors. The method that Jritt described above is usually used with our big brake kits, but can also be used with stock brake systems. The reason why turning rotors usually isn't good for track because it takes more metal off the rotors. Taking more metal off the rotors reduces the amount of heat capacity of that rotor.

When you head to the track, just make sure you have a nice set of race pads on, and you should be fine.

 

J Ritt,
Great response time, sorry i didn't reply back sooner. I will be picking up the Stage 2 Single piece rotor upgrade, thanks.