Brake Discs, Most Bang For The Buck?

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Not to rain on the parade, but you have to filter out the improvements because of pads versus rotors.

Agreed, the pads help some here.



A drilled rotor will only improve performance in the case where the pads are so hot that they are outgassing to the point it affects their ability to clamp. Any pedal feel improvement you get or initial stop improvement will be purely a function of pad composition.

Disagreed, and proven wrong; a drilled rotor will run cooler in general and unless the pads perform better with higher heats like some ceramic stuff, the drilled rotor will run cooler and stop sooner. :cheers:
 
Drilled rotors do not "remove" heat faster. They have less thermal mass which allows them to heat up and cool down faster. The only way to remove heat faster from a rotor is to improve airflow over the rotor (i.e. ducting, removing the backing plates, etc).

Wrong again, how can holes NOT help airflow???
 
It isn't just outgassing, but heat removal. Braking creates friction which creates heat. The faster you can remove heat, the faster you can brake. This is the reason why vented rotors work much better than solid rotors. The drilled rotors allows faster heat dissipation.

Oh, I have the drilled and slotted DBA rotors and my LX450 can stop really quickly. I use ceramic pads.

Right! As always, real world experience will always win over those goofy googlers. :D:flipoff2::D
 
the only thing i can add to this, when i worked on a Toyota Tundra NASCAR truck team, all our rotors were slotted not drilled.
 
you guys aren't doing slalom runs or heating up those brakes on a consistent basis. The thing I would worry about is fade on a long grade or wheeling down a long descent.

Ducting to the disc would funnel debris into the brakes offroad...

Formula 1 carbon fiber discs have no place in street vehicles. They don't even stop a lightweight F1 car until they are heated up really well.

I am intersted in improving braking but am not convinced anything is better than OEM at this point... but then again, I don't have the experience w/ DBA or others...
 
Wrong again, how can holes NOT help airflow???

Airflow does not flow across the tiny holes. Vented rotors flow air because of the direction the vents run.

I unfortunately do not have the articles handy, but there were tests run 10-15 years ago by European car, and I believe Grassroots motorsports. At the time there was a lot of debate about the advantages of drilling vs. slotting vs. nothing, as well as rotor vs pad benefits. They ran a series of tests on the same car, same conditions. The conclusion that drilled and slotted rotors actually caused higher peak temperatures as their reduced thermal mass allowed the temps to raise faster. There were no advantages in stopping distances.

Most people never have a problem with cracking cross-drilled rotors because they never get their brakes very hot. When you run at the track, you will get them hot, very hot. I have personally witnessed what happens to drilled rotors, they crack and I have seen them break apart. If you go out to the road races, you will see, they are not used anymore.

For street use, there is simply no benefit to drilled or slotted rotors. You simply don't see the temperatures you see at the track. The only time you would overheat the 80 brakes is towing or on very long steep descents (especially at low speeds where there is little airflow, which is what I did one time).


Concerning the Brembo rotors, Brembo makes multiple product lines, and while some of their stuff is great, some of their stuff is crap.
 
you guys aren't doing slalom runs or heating up those brakes on a consistent basis. The thing I would worry about is fade on a long grade or wheeling down a long descent.

I am intersted in improving braking but am not convinced anything is better than OEM at this point... but then again, I don't have the experience w/ DBA or others...

This was the exact problem I had. What I did was go to a carbon kevlar pad which provided better initial bite as well as continue to function at far higher temps that the stock pads. I used the Hawk LTS which works great, BUT they squeal. If I did it again I would probably run Porterfields.
 
Airflow does not flow across the tiny holes.

Of course it does, how would it not, you've got holes with a countersink on one end and a flat face on the other spinning around at sometimes thousands of times a minute, you could not keep air out of there if you tried. The holes then additively work with the vents throughout the rotor in that instead of simply swapping air from say one edge-face of the rotor, through the rotor's inside, then to the other edge-face of the rotor you got air blasting through the holes and through the vents. I saw something on Speed Channel once where they perfectly positioned a camera to view the brake system, now this was on a racer but before going into the corners and after the pads clamped the rotor you could literally look at the dust from the pads blasting into the center of the rotor and then blasting out both in front of and in back of the pad through the holes, that was the visual proof that those holes play a major role.

Most people never have a problem with cracking cross-drilled rotors because they never get their brakes very hot. When you run at the track, you will get them hot, very hot. I have personally witnessed what happens to drilled rotors, they crack and I have seen them break apart. If you go out to the road races, you will see, they are not used anymore.

For street use, there is simply no benefit to drilled or slotted rotors. You simply don't see the temperatures you see at the track. The only time you would overheat the 80 brakes is towing or on very long steep descents (especially at low speeds where there is little airflow, which is what I did one time).

Again, you guys are granny driving apparently, and I am not. You really think that racing up and down Pikes Peak like I do is similar to street use? Look I stand by my basic statements despite what you guys without these things have found on Google or on fifteen year old articles.


Concerning the Brembo rotors, Brembo makes multiple product lines, and while some of their stuff is great, some of their stuff is crap.

Absolutely agreed; for whatever reason "Brembo" as a name is nebulous unless you look at actual product lines. Some of it is incredibly good, other stuff is crap. :cheers:


Ohh, after all this debate about drilling, the title of the thread is specifically stated as "most bang for buck" and I absolutely agree about the fact that NOTHING beats OEM, particularly from CDAN, for "bang for buck". However, with MSG pumping things up turbo-wise I think he oughtta consider the drilled DBA's. But mostly, I'm just arguing with all the naysayers regarding the drilling deal. Laters. :cheers::cheers::cheers:
 
My experience would be to go with Dan. I think warped rotors at 20K miles is pretty poor and would certainly not go back with DBA's.
 
I did end up going with OEM discs. If I were to go with the DBA it would have been just the slotted ones. Time will tell if the OEMs hold up.
 
BRAKE FADE.

I have a 3/4 Diesel Suburban w/ 35's. My brakes were horrendous in that thing. I replaced all of the pads/shoes, master cylinder, calipers, wheel cylinders, and even the Hydro-Boost. My braking was greatly improved, however, every time I went down a hill that required using the brakes, my brakes would fade BIG TIME from heat buildup. I finally put some slotted rotors on it and the brake fade has dramatically decreased, not completely gone, but very much improved.

I've driven a route down to Borrego Springs which was pretty steep and winding and had fade in the LC. Although my LC isn't as heavy as my Sub, I'll most likely be going to slotted rotors when the time comes.
 
BRAKE FADE.

I have a 3/4 Diesel Suburban w/ 35's. My brakes were horrendous in that thing. I replaced all of the pads/shoes, master cylinder, calipers, wheel cylinders, and even the Hydro-Boost. My braking was greatly improved, however, every time I went down a hill that required using the brakes, my brakes would fade BIG TIME from heat buildup. I finally put some slotted rotors on it and the brake fade has dramatically decreased, not completely gone, but very much improved.

The fad is improved because the gasses from the pads has somewhere to go (outgassing). If you want to eliminate it to begin with, go to a more agressive pad (Hawk, Performance Friction, or Porterfield).
 
Cary,

What about OEM rotors along with say Porterfield pads for the 100 series on an 80?

Until this thread came up I was seriously considering going with DBA or Powerstop slotted rotors with 100 series OEM pads. I guess I like others have "fallen" for the voodoo magic that the slotted rotors supposedly offer :(

So much to learn, so little time
 
corsair23 said:
I guess I like others have "fallen" for the voodoo magic that the slotted rotors supposedly offer :(
The way I (now) understand it, is that slotted rotors are NOT "voodoo magic", they are a solution to a problem; pads that create excess gas.

Get better pads and you don't need the band-aid solution.
 
just to mention it....rotors and calipers can't solve a problem if it isn't in the rotor or caliper. I had BLACK fluid and had to flush and bleed yesterday...gained back a TON of braking. I run slotted rotors, some british racing pads up front, and OEM in the rear.
 
I had my DBA drilled and slotted warp at about 20 K on my 1994 80. I then went with oem rotors and 100 series pads.

On my 1997 80, I put DBA's on just prior to the previous problem. They have about 15K on them now.

I'm wondering if you just replaced the rotors and pads or did you also rebuild the calipers at that time then? Thanks. :cheers:
 
You guys do realize that you arenot talking about a race car here right?


Yes, completely. I was just pointing out that in the super high performance arena of racing, they don't even bling out with drilled rotors. Shows to me that slotted is the way to go in high performance situations.
 
Am I the only one in here that uses cheap Autozone brakes and has never had a problem? Even if they wear faster there is an Autozone on every corner that will swap them out.
 
performance friction

The PF carbon pads from Autozone worked well on my Mustang that saw some mild track time on stock rotors, along with every other daily driver I have driven. They are low dust, low noise and don't fade.

Oh and they are cheap :)
 
Am I the only one in here that uses cheap Autozone brakes and has never had a problem? Even if they wear faster there is an Autozone on every corner that will swap them out.
Nope, I use autozone on my 40's the 60 and my 1 ton superduty Ferd..

No real problems stopping any of them..
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom