MY Z is mostly street driven. Are teh hawk ceramic pads race pads necessarily? Race pads need to be hotter to work obviously. If this isn't the case with teh Hawk ceramics, then i'll just get those, since they will dust less.

 

HPS are sufficient for street driving.

 

I can get the ceramics for roughly $15 more total. Do the ceramics actually act differently (more like racing pads)?

 

bump

 

Today almost every pad formulation has some amount of ceramic material [microspheres] in the secrect formula............not so secret since every pad manufacturer KNOWS each others composition and tries to make things just different enough to avoid a lawsuit.

Typically a ceramic pad will have a lower top working temperature vs a semimetallic.
http://www.ornl.gov/~webworks/cppr/y...etype%3Apdf%22

http://www.ae-plus.com/Journals/Mate...etype%3Apdf%22

Research: Cashew Nut shell/oil plus Barytes

 

The Hawk Performance Ceramic pads are not a race pad. They are completely a street pad. I would not dare take them on the race track as they don't have nearly enough temperature range.

My experience w/ the ceramic pads is that they had less dust than the HPS, yet had a little more initial bite to them.

We tell our customers to focus on the characteristics of the pad rather than the pad's chemical composition.

 

A lot of people trash the Hawk HPS pads but I used them for street use as well as track use and found them great. I also changed the brake fluid to DOT 4 and this combination cured any brake fade. However I found that the back brakes did overheat and so have just now fitted ceramic pads along with slotted and dimpled rotors as well as cutting off the backing plates. Am anxious to try it out on the track but I have to run the rotors in first so it will be late September before I can find out if this all works.

 

It would be so helpful if Stoptech would test and publish the friction vs temperature and friction vs application speed of pads they recommend [find somewhat acceptable] for use with their equipment.

Forcing potential selectors/buyers of pads to become mini engineers and learn how to select compounds properly for their applications.

 

Check out the new catalog when it comes out. There's something similar

 

""Why don't you recommend Ceramic Brake Pads?
Let's start by saying that ceramic brake pads have a place in the automotive industry. They were designed to be a low-dust, noise-free brake pad. They came into popularity after the discontinued use of asbestos-based brake pads. At that time, semi-metallic pads exhibited problems with higher noise and dust levels.
That being said, I can tell you that Ceramic Brake Pads were NEVER designed to be a performance brake pad! Some companies have done a terrific job marketing their higher-priced, ceramic pads to the consumer as a performance pad. Ceramic brake pads typically have lower friction coefficients, and act as an insulator - raising rotor temperatures in cast-iron disc systems. When you have a vehicle that has persistent braking problems- the last thing you want to do is install components that have a LOWER friction coefficient and that RAISE effective operating temperatures! See our section on how this can cause ' Warped Rotors "
Premium-grade semi-metallic or hybrid pads are more effective for handling elevated temperatures and dissipating heat away from rotors. Most, if not all, semi-metallic pads have a degree of ceramic content ALREADY IN the brake pad.
Premium-grade, semi-metallic pads can offer LOW-DUST, NOISE-FREE Performance without sacrificing stopping power and increasing rotor temperatures!
Most organizations with fleet vehicles and other extreme-service applications already know what we're telling you: High-quality semi-metallic pads offer the best combination of stopping-power and extended-wear of any brake pad type on the marketplace today!"""

In the middle of web site they have a somewhat conservative JAVA rotor temp calculator....add 10% to number just to be sure just to be sure! Note that this is the increase over previous before the stop. As you double the speed the heat goes up by a factor of 4...........4 x 60 mph = 1 - 120 mph stop.
http://www.raceshopper.com/tech.shtml

 

Are the ceramic pads rotor freindly?