My first set of OE pads lasted 10K miles and the dust turned my wheels black just driving around the block, but they stopped good. Then I got smart and went with HAWK HP pads. I just changed them cause I installed new rotors, they had 24K miles on them. These pads leave very little dust, stop well and make zero noise if you use the bed/break in process after they're installed....SEARCH (brake bed in)
Gary

 

BRAKES is what's STOPS you.........Tire don't !!!!! 80% of your stoping power come from your front brake. That's why you see HUGE Calipers and Rotors on the front wheels of super cars.

 

wrong, tires and brakes is what stop you. Tires have a larger influence on stopping power then rotors and cailpers.

Usually you see larger rotors on sports car because they tend to spend more time on the track and a larger rotor surface can dissipate heat better and thus reducing brake fade. Larger rotors also increase the braking surface the pads can grab onto, they help but at the end of the day the tires is what make keeps the car on the road not the brakes.

The 80 percent you mention is just braking bias which isn't a reflection of stopping power of the car but rather a distribution of the braking to account for the front engine setup since the majority of the weight in the front.

Any decent brand pad will not suffer from brake fade when your driving on the street unless your driving like a complete douche bag. Racing and tracking situations then thats a different story.

Here's a example of just lower thread tires can increase stopping distances when the car and brakes are the same.

http://www.tirerack.com/videos/video_popup.jsp?video=5

 

I agree with the tire is what keeps the tire on the road but nothing else. If you outfit two identical cars with the same tires but have different brake pads. Let's say the first brake pad is an Akebono ceramic pad and the other is a Ferrodo brake pad. You are saying that the Ferrodo won't make a difference over the Akebono and they will stop the same since they have the same tires? Your thought process is entirely wrong . It is caliper, not cailphers. It is hydraulic, not hydraluic. Do you have any idea how powerful hydraulic systems are? Probably not.

 

See the red text highlighted above? YOU wrote when the "brakes are the same". We aren't talking about having the SAME brake pads on the car. We are talking about having BETTER brake pads on the car. Therefore, if you have the same tires on two cars, the car with the better brake pads WILL stop quicker. Your argument states that a BBK or better brake pads makes no difference in stopping power. Your argument = FAIL.

 

Your reading comprehension is fail. Read my previous posts. I said tires have a larger influence on stopping power then brakes and rotors. Brakes and rotors do have a influence because of brake fade and larger braking surface.

But if you take a g35 with crappy brakes and best tires and take a g35 with the best brakes and crappy tires and everything else is the same. The g35 with better tires will have a shorter stopping distance.

What goes into stopping a car is a whole system not one part. Tires, brake pads, rotors, calipers, abs, all have a influence on the stopping distance of the car.

Its just like a motor and transmission. Your car isn't going to go anywhere without a transmission. They work together in tandem to move the car.

 

You and I are going to agree to disagree on this subject. I'm never going to have ceramic pads on my car b/c they suck. I'd hate for others to buy ceramic pads for their car and get into an accident b/c they were too cheap to get decent pads. Ceramic pads don't have the coefficient of friction that better pads have when cold. Emergencies happen when you least expect it and when pads are cold. I don't skimp on the brake components or my tires. I drove a mustang that had glazed brakes fly right through a stop sign. You can never tell me that the best tires in the world would have made a difference. If you were driving across my path, would you want me to have better pads or better tires? If you picked better tires, I would have t-boned your car.

 

As I said before most street ceramic pads are semi metallic, thats why they heat up quickly produce low dust and bite similar to regular metallic pads, but still produce lot less brake dust then regular metallic pads.

Pure ceramics produce almost no brake dust at all but at a cost of losing a little bit of braking power but you get less rotor wear, hence your rotors tend last longer.

I had akebono street ceramics on my 3700lb 450hp mercedes for 3yrs while going on canyon runs and normal street driving. They stopped the same as stock and never had brake fade even in a canyon running situation, but basically had no brake dust. I would rinse my rims once a month.

Just check the mercedes and bmw forums, they have positive reviews about akebono ceramics.

As for your mustang story, there's no full proof fix to user error. There's no way you would glaze rotors if you were driving on the street like a normal person. You were either tracking your car on street pads, which you should never do (always have race pads on the track) or you were driving like a idiot on the street.

 

Do the Hawk HP pads really grab as well as the oem pad? I'm sure it's a good balance of bite low dusting, but nothing quite grabs like stock. I'm sure there's a bunch of cheaper semi-metallic pads like Wagner, Bendix, Beck/Arnley that will "perform" as well as the famed Hawk HP and my favorite Axxis ULT and Stoptech pads. The only thing is nobody wants to gamble on them and it's better to pay a few dollars more for a proven name brand.

 

well, I went ahead with the Stoptech pads. Cost 43$ shipped for the real wheels.

I installed them last week and I'm having no issues whatsoever despite the blistering Canadian cold. They grab just as well as stock and braking distance is very good too.

 

Good choice. I recommended Stoptech Street Performance to my brother in law for his '01 Lexus IS300 this past summer. We used those and inexpensive Raybestos brand rotors. I finally got a chance to drive it around the block this weekend and the brakes feel greeeaaat. I think I will recommend those pads to everyone and all my cars will wear them until something better comes along for oem replacements.

If you decide to get your fronts replaced you won't be disappointed with the Stoptechs...

 

i just put some hawk hp ceramics and adams ar street rotors all around on my g coupe this weekend. they seem to grab just as good as stock and dont make any noise at all whatsoever. it is very cold here right now, so i we will see how they do on noise when it warms up in the spring. as far as dusting, i assume it to be low but i really cant tell as my wheels are kinda dirty from the stockers and i havent cleaned them since i put on the new hardware. no tech talk, hype or hooplah... purely based on driving experience... the hawk hp ceramic is a good pad imho. take it for what its worth.

 

I have just installed some Hawk HPS pads for my 05 G35. I loved how responsive the OEM Hitachi pads and I was worried that the Hawk HPS would not have the responsive initial bite as the OEM. But I really needed some real high performance pads. Aside from great initial bite, the OEM pads do not stand heat well at all.

After a 600 miles, after the Hawk HPS pads have fully bedded in, the Hawk pads are amazing! They bite even better than OEM even at freezing temperatures. Of course, it improves as they become a little hotter.

I read that MANY people have complained about having bad initial bites with the HPS pads. I personally experienced that as well in the past with the Hawk HPS for the G35. The problem was that I did not resurface the rotors prior to installing the new Hawk pads and I did not bed them in properly. I just installed them and drove the car as normal. This time, I used 130 grit sandpaper to clean out old material from the rotor before installing the new pad. This is what Hawk recommends and this works very well for me. The bite is excellent. They must also be bedded in very carefully at slow speeds. Hawk recommends bedding in the pads 10 times with light to moderate braking at 30mph. This recommendation is suggested with convenience in mind. If you have the time, do 20 light to moderate braking at 30mph with cooling time in between each time. Many people, including myself, have accidentally overheated and glazed the rotors while bedding in the pads out of haste. If you are patient with the bed in procedure, you will be rewarded with great braking performance with the Hawk HPS pads.

 

To Juicin and Tyau, good to know that HPS pads actually work! A lot of people on here and My350 bash them with and without new rotors. I agree with the bed in procedure. Even my Axxis/PBR ULT and Stoptechs have a bed in procedure. At least I did them with every pad change I performed just in case.

 

i must agree that the success is due to proper bed in. i also dont think there is one "proper" way to do it. what i did was cruise around the neighborhood doing light braking (20mph or less) to get rid of the zinc on the rotors and get the horrible initial noises to go away, then i got out on a higher speed road (with very little traffic ) and did a "proper" high speed bed in procedure. i used the method found on this site that has you bring the pads up to operating temperature and then do 8 60-10mph hard stops and then a 5-10 minute cruise with no stops or sitting at stoplights. thats kinda hard to do depending on where you live so you have to plan for it. this method worked really well for me. i just did it once, but the thread i found on here suggested letting them fully cool and then doing it a second time if the rotors had been resurfaced, fyi. i bought adam's rotors for my upgrade and the rotors also came with similar (though not identical) instructions.