Maybe try ceramic brake pads, they are only 70 bucks and worth their weight in gold for no more black dust, and i think they are alot easier on the rotors too. I love mine, it stops better and no dust.
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Joined: 12/19/2006 From: Citrus County, FL Status: offline
since you actually own a set of these pads and you know how they perform, might i ask which brand you went with?
also with rotors already having some discolored spots, i thought about getting them cut but is the damage already irreversable? if so do i just buy some ford rotors again?
its always more money i tell ya, anything i do, every day of my life
Warped rotors usually happen when a rotor is heated unevenly, if they get too hot, or if they undergo a sudden temperature change.
Changing your pads won't help warping. When you brake, you are converting the forward motion of your car into heat. Changing pads won't change that. Different pads might let you brake harder or with less dust, but pad changes won't affect how how much heat gets transferred into your rotors. That is purely a factor of your car's weight and how fast you were going when you stopped.
The most common cause of rotor warping on the street is if the rotor is hot from braking and then water gets splashed on it. Avoid puddles after braking hard. If you're driving in the rain, take it easy on the brakes.
Another common cause is cheap brake rotors. Some rotors are made of better materials and better designs than others. When you are buying rotors, try and get some with a warranty. That way if they do warp, you get new ones free! Also, if you get the chance to look at them in the store, look for ones with vanes that are curved or angled as opposed to straight. Directional-vane rotors keep cooler than straight-vaned rotors so they rotors are less likey to warp.
Also, avoid sudden hard stops.
Keep in mind that some cases of "warping" are really not warping at all...and instead is caused by having pad material transfer itself to the rotors. This happens when the rotor is very hot and you keep the car stopped with your foot on the brake. You can read more about this here: http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp_warped_brakedisk.shtml (long, beware!)
My suggestion to avoid that if you really think it could be a problem is to try a high-performance type of pad, which is less likely to transfer. You can also practice 2-stage stopping when you can. For example, if you have to brake from 50 mph to a stop, you might brake from 50 down to 20 or so (this can be hard if you want), then let the car coast for a few seconds at 20 mph (this lets the rotors cool themselves down a bit from the serious braking). Then, brake down to a stop. This way when your car is at a stop and the pads are clamped to the hot rotor, the rotor isn't super-hot.
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First, let me say thanks, too. I've seen this post before and I've got a day free (nursing my sick fiance) so I wanted to get to the bottom of this and you've definitely argued your side well.
I read your post and here is what I think from my afternoon of research...
I've now seen pics of the brakes of Formula 1 cars and they are indeed solid. Having said that, Formula 1 cars also have high tech systems designed to "cool" those brakes. I say "cool" because those brakes glow red during races and are designed to run at a 1,000+ degrees Celcius. Also, I have read that cross drilling the rotor can weaken it; which makes sense. Certainly manufacturers like Brembo, Baer, and even Wilwood, know this in advance and manufacturer their cross-drilled rotors with that in mind. Still, all else equal, cross drilling MUST reduce structural integrity. So, it makes sense to run a full rotor if you have another system that is designed to specifically cool that rotor (like in F1). You don't have to worry about the rotor overheating AND you don't have to worry about it cracking from the cross-drilling.
What it boils down to is what does cross-drilling and slotting do? Well, I've given you what Brembo and Baer say. Personally, I think they are functional (beyond weight savings) and increase performance in that they increase bite, shave/de-glaze the pad, and allow what few gases there are in modern brake pads to escape.
Having said that I think you'd need to be on a racetrack to really experience the benefits.
The Ford GT has cross drilled rotors. The Corvette Z06 has cross drilled rotors. The Ferrari Enzo and FXX have cross drilled rotors. The list goes on and on. Pretty much every serious performance car has them because I think these are cars that could LIKELY find themselves in situations where they would receive the benefits that cross drilling and slotting provide AND they don't have a seperate system designed to cool the rotors beyond maybe passive air ducts.
Ford doesn't put those brakes on a Mustang because we don't pay for them and if we want them we can get them aftermarket...
If I put on cross drilled/slotted rotors on my GT am I going to see an increase in performance on my Sunday drive in my GT over solid rotors???? Nah.... Short of running from the police (or autocross) I would never experience the temperatures and fade where it would make sense to spend that much money on them.
If I wanted to race my Mustang in autocross would crossdrilled/slotted rotors help in braking over solid rotors? I definitely think so...
Here is a very interesting article from Car and Driver. They bought 4 brake upgrade kits and put them on a Subura WRX...
since you actually own a set of these pads and you know how they perform, might i ask which brand you went with?
also with rotors already having some discolored spots, i thought about getting them cut but is the damage already irreversable? if so do i just buy some ford rotors again?
its always more money i tell ya, anything i do, every day of my life
Ah, I just saw this after I wrote my previous reply.
If you are seeing discolored spots, that is probably not actual warping. It is probably the pad material having been transferred to the rotor. Read the stoptech article I linked to earlier, it disucsses this much better than I could. A different type of pad might very well help!
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Maybe try ceramic brake pads, they are only 70 bucks and worth their weight in gold for no more black dust, and i think they are alot easier on the rotors too. I love mine, it stops better and no dust.
I would like to get rid of the brake dust too. The worst part of cleaning is tring to get the dust out from behind the spokes. What brand pads are yours and where did you get them.
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Stock rotors with upgraded pads,lines,and fluid worked great for me on a HOT June day at the track. Was so hot temp guage was going up to 3/4. No "warping" what so ever, very little fading if any. I plan on going with upgraded rotors when these are toast, but it will be totally for cosmetic, until then, stock rotors for me at the track.
ORIGINAL: timothyrw I read your post and here is what I think from my afternoon of research... What it boils down to is what does cross-drilling and slotting do? Well, I've given you what Brembo and Baer say. Personally, I think they are functional (beyond weight savings) and increase performance in that they increase bite, shave/de-glaze the pad, and allow what few gases there are in modern brake pads to escape.
Thanks to you too for the discussion!
I also feel the need to make an important distinction here. You've been gathering information from sources like Brembo and Stoptech and articles regarding aftermarket brake kits. You have to be very careful here, becasue you don't want to end up comparing apples and oranges. There is nothing wrong with that information per se, but it does confuse the discussion.
This discussion was originally about drilled/slotted rotors VS solid rotors as a general concept. When you start talking about specific brands/parts that is a different thing entirely.
I have explained how a drilled rotor is weaker and has poorer heat handling than a solid rotor of the same size. The point of that argument was to refute the claims made in the OP post regarding why rotors are drilled. (As we have discussed, drilling has nothing to do with improving heat handling capability)
The concept "of the same size" is critically important. Does it mean that all drilled rotors are inferior to a given solid rotor? Of course not.
My main point in all of this discussion has to do with the OP post. Cross-drilled rotors have nothing to do with "better cooling". And slotted rotors do not "warm up faster and dissipate heat better". My main point here, throughout the thread, has simply been that the OP post is completely wrong. Am I saying people shouldn't use drilled rotors in general? Not at all.
For example: We have a late-model Mustang GT. We swap out the OEM rotors and we install some OEM-size drilled rotors just like what was in the OP photo, keeping all the rest of the hardware stock. What happens?
We would get a very small decrease in rotating weight. We might get a little "pad scrubbing" and perhaps some resistance to outgassing. But I'd be willing to bet that these effects would be so miniscule that a typical driver would never notice them. This is exactly the kind of experiment that I performed back in grad school on the brake dyno. When testing the kind of change, the results are clearly indicitive: A drilled rotor and a non-drilled rotor of the SAME SIZE have no significant difference in braking performance (brake torque and fade). In other words, taking a rotor and drilling it does not make it a better rotor as far as braking performance is concerned. Tests like this are documented in the SAE book I mentioned above, should you want concrete proof with data and so forth.
Now then, installing a kit from Baer or Brembo or Wilwood in our Mustang (for example, the posts you made earlier and the Car & Driver article you linked to) is a totally different thing. In this case we are changing many variables at once. We are changing calipers, the rotor diameter, the rotor material, the rotor thickness, and of course the design of the rotor. In this situation we will get a lot better braking, and these kits typically have drilled rotors. Does this mean that "drilled rotors are better than solid rotors". Not at all. Scientifically, this experiment is poorly conceived. It proves only one thing: the WHOLE KIT we installed performs better than the OEM setup. But it does not explain the how-and-why. To do that you must test each part individually.
I'm not going to talk about calipers and such becasue it's not relvant to this discussion. But we are talking about rotors, so let's compare a "big brake kit" rotor like the Baer or Stoptech ones that you've brought up. Those rotors are typically 14" in diameter for the Mustang applications--that's a lot bigger than stock. A large diameter rotor like that is the best thing going brake for improving brake torque. So right off the bat, this 14" rotor (drill or no drill) has better braking performance than our OEM disc simply due to its diameter. A larger rotor like that is larger in area than the stock rotor and is also a lot heavier. This means more area for shedding heat and a larger thermal mass to better handle thermal stresses. These things are what makes a rotor durable. A bigger, heavier, rotor can better handle the thermal cycling of brake systems. Now, here's the kicker. Becasue these 14" discs are so much bigger than the OEM rotors, you can drill them quite a bit and get a lot of weight savings....and even after all that drilling they are STILL heavier and stronger than the OEM disc (becasue they are larger). The drilled 14" rotor is still more durable than the OEM rotor, but it is not as durable as the solid 14" rotor.
So:
An OEM-replacement style drilled rotor (PowerStop) is essentially no better than the OEM rotors, which is the whole point I have been making the entire time.
Of course, a "big brake" rotor like the Baers, Brembos, and Stoptechs that you have mentioned are clearly superior to the OEM rotors. These rotors happen to be drilled. But the drilling is not WHY they are better. They are better becasue they are larger. And they are so much larger that they are ABLE to be drilled for weight savings, while maintaining good thermal-handling ability.
But, as always, drilling the rotor does weaken it. In the very serious braking applications like Nascar and Formula, etc, they use solid rotors becasue in these situations the loads are so extreme that they are NOT ABLE to drill them. (As we have discussed before, drilling a given rotor decreases that rotor's durability).
OEM rotor: baseline OEM-type drilled: effectivley the same. Big-brake kit drilled: Significant improvement. Big-brake kit undrilled: Even better braking, but overkill.
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Black 2006 GT Coupe Dynatech LT headers & X; Borla catback C&L CAI; 93 oct tune Full BMR, Spohn & Steeda suspension D-Specs; Alum driveshaft Second Skin Audio damping; Infinity spkrs; Goodyear Eagle F1 255F/295R - FR500 wheels
CrazyAl. If your last post was your first post you would have no reason to apologize. You were correct that My first post was a cut and past but that’s no reason to say, "Actually, this post is one of the biggest piles of BS that I have ever seen! " The post was cut-N-paste but just like your information it was put out there for discussion, You don't want to comment, don't, you don't want to read it, don't, A topic is just a topic, Your last post made since, and I have never been for any slotted or drilled rotors, it was (again) for discussion. So when you start a thread I should come to your thread and state, "Actually, this post is one of the biggest piles of BS that I have ever seen! " and then I could post in a few days that "crazyal , if I offended you, I apologize. " and every thing would be just fine? Some people on this site are so narrow minded that there OPINION is the only way that should ever be considered, that’s sad, Hears a good example from NicksEZ. "I can't even understand why this post was started. At least be right about the topic if you start it. I only know the basics about brakes and I knew that the first post was b/s...." Be right about the Topic? The topic is Slotted and drilled Rotors, and that’s what the post is about, so? and He can't understand why the post was started? AHHH why is any post started? Crazyal, just switch my name with your on the first two post and you can understand. But maybe not.
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Joined: 12/19/2006 From: Citrus County, FL Status: offline
quote:
ok you guys are making me read way too much stuff
your doing it again!
Al, thank you for the advice, i do use incremental braking. the occasion that led to the discoloration "spots" was a brake from 130 to 80 or 90 and then another down to about 45 (the speed limit was 55 and everyone goes 60, of course when i haul ass i run up on the slowest person alive)
before the flaming starts about how i shouldnt be driving 130, for the record i didnt really think it was gonna get that fast before shutting off and i wanted to see what the car would do. i dont normally drive around at these speeds, though i kinda wish we all could
i'll take a pic of the rotor, and if its transfer its pretty darned transferred cause its been weeks and its still there, and i have a very slight shimmy/shake in the steering wheel, and a slight pull when braking which is why i thought it was warped. photo coming soon, opinions welcome
Thanks!
*edit* heres the pic, running my finger across the rotor the spots actually feel slicker/smoother than the rest of the rotor and appear shinier.
< Message edited by my77stang -- 1/14/2007 9:34:00 AM >
Try a can of brake clean, that will at least tell you that the parts are clean. those marks are in the same place all the way around? That says something on the pad maybe.
If your rotors are warped you will have to replace them, but if youre not getting pulsation through the pedal theyre fine, i wouldnt worry about their appearance if they dont pulse. I put Bendix CT3 ceramic pads on mine and love em, quiet and no dust, great braking.
Posts: 6878
Joined: 12/19/2006 From: Citrus County, FL Status: offline
ok so im leaning towards getting the rotors cut just to gimmie a clean fresh start and throwing on a set of quality pads. maybe some stainless brake lines and flashy caliper paint is in order while im messing around =)
is ford using dot 4 on these now? guess i could just look but im lazy and you guys seem to have all the answers LOL
im guessing the local auto part stores carries the bendix stuff, are any of these pads better than the others? another big Q i have is should i be replacing the rears with these at the same time to keep braking power better equalized?
< Message edited by my77stang -- 1/14/2007 11:15:22 AM >
i'll take a pic of the rotor, and if its transfer its pretty darned transferred cause its been weeks and its still there, and i have a very slight shimmy/shake in the steering wheel, and a slight pull when braking which is why i thought it was warped. photo coming soon, opinions welcome
77, judging by your picture, I would guess that your rotor is not warped, but instead you have pad materialy transferred to it. Of course, the only way to know for certain is to measure the runout of the rotor--nobody can make a certain determination by just looking at it. If the rotor is true, then you've got transfer. If the rotor isn't, it is warped.
Assuming the problem is transfer, you might be able to fix it by swapping on a set of brand new semi-metallic pads...something that is pretty abrasive. That often times will scrub off the transferred material. If that doesn't work, you have to have the rotor replaced or resurfaced (turned or ground). Brake cleaner will not remove transferred material.
As for preventing it in the future, as others have suggested some performance-oriented pads are a good idea. I personally use the Hawk HPS pads. These offer better high-temp performance compared to stock but they are also very good "cold". Be careful: some competition brake pads are only effective once they are warmed up. That is OK on the track, but it is dangerous on the street. A ceramic type pad would also be good. They also have the side-effect of having less dust.
< Message edited by CrazyAl -- 1/14/2007 11:22:04 AM >
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I gotta Love ya Al, You got your ducks in a row! You rock! Thanks for all your time and the lengthy posts you make as you endure us of little knowledge.
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I brought this up because people hear need to be informed not just someone’s opinion on a subject. I started the thread and Crazyal, started his posts which said my info was not accurate, And proceeded to give his opinion on the subject, and why his opinion is any more accurate , is beyond me. 100s of thousands of people out there, use, manufacture, sell, and engineer slotted and drilled rotors. There are many race teams that have no interest in Brake or rotor companies , and yet they use them. Wonder why that would be, maybe they haven't talked to Al? Crazy al says something and all the sheep get in line and praise the sheep dog. You people can certainly believe whatever you wish and follow and be lead around by whom ever you wish , if I would have done that I'd be driving a Chevy now and so would most of you. I got a PM from one of the Moderators BILL who said he didn't see anything wrong with the whole thread, so I guess my post to Crazy al threads or post will start out with, Actually, this post is one of the biggest piles of BS that I have ever seen! And then I'll give my opinion.
I brought this up because people hear need to be informed not just someone’s opinion on a subject. I started the thread and Crazyal, started his posts which said my info was not accurate, And proceeded to give his opinion on the subject, and why his opinion is any more accurate , is beyond me. 100s of thousands of people out there, use, manufacture, sell, and engineer slotted and drilled rotors. There are many race teams that have no interest in Brake or rotor companies , and yet they use them. Wonder why that would be, maybe they haven't talked to Al? Crazy al says something and all the sheep get in line and praise the sheep dog. You people can certainly believe whatever you wish and follow and be lead around by whom ever you wish , if I would have done that I'd be driving a Chevy now and so would most of you. I got a PM from one of the Moderators BILL who said he didn't see anything wrong with the whole thread, so I guess my post to Crazy al threads or post will start out with, Actually, this post is one of the biggest piles of BS that I have ever seen! And then I'll give my opinion.
Here's the deal. You're a less experienced poster that cites only knowledge accumulated by companies with vested interests in the street racing underground. Whereas CrazyAl cites references located within tomes of the braking industry, and commutes technical jargon of the reasonable sense into everyday vernacular. Try not to piss on the posts of someone who is actually trying to enlighten the masses about a subject. Either refer to a source more experienced and reliable than yourself, or simply admit that you were wrong.
Many people come to this website to learn further about the technology that powers their cars, and they don't need self-righteous pricks dictating which information they should consider and which information is irrelevant. Especially from those who base their opinions upon data compiled by organizations who make a profit upon performance parts, and not from individuals who make a living based upon racing technology.
< Message edited by NoOriginalNamesLeft -- 1/15/2007 3:04:58 AM >
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Yes, I'm the guy who drove his Explorer off of a cliff.
I have an idea: instead of compressing the disc from the axial sides, have a rotor with a wide outer surface and compress form the outside of the rotor inward.
...wait, that's a dumb--err, I mean "drum"--braking idea!
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RE: Slotted and drilled Rotors - 
