Best brake pads with bite?
 

I am changing brakes after my turbo install so I figured I would ask if there is anything new out? I have tried I think all of ebc, hawk hps, and hawk +. I do not drive my car much but when I do it gets driven hard. I do not care about dust or longevity. I want a pad that will produce the most aggressive bite and stop in the shortest distance the best.

I do not track the car, just mainly high speed pulls and hard braking is what I want pads for. Suggestions? Otherwise, I will just get some hawk +'s again or hps pads and be done with it.

Have you tried Carbotech? A lot of road race guys like them. The XP series is good for high speed stops. If you only ever do a couple runs with a lot of cooldown time, maybe the AX6. It's for Autocross and street, so they have a VERY LOW heat range, but man they stop super fast. Fantastic bite when cold. I've had them on my car for several years. They bring me down from 100mph darn fast- but I dont' do it repeatedly. Also you might need new discs b/c Hawks compound is not friendly with other brake compounds, so either a cut, or some good sanding to get the Hawk material off the surface. Call Carbotech and talk with them and I know they will give you a pad for your needs.

Have brand new rotors waiting to go on as well. So these would be fresh rotors for new pads. So you said the AX6 pads are great from high speed stops? I'm not looking for something I need to have heated up for good bite (aka track or autocross pads) but looking for something like you suggested, good bite from 100mph stops, and allowing it to have a long cool down time to work again and great bite cold.

Look at tirerack.com. They carry a bunch of perf pads and have a good rating system to help you understand what you're looking at, as well as customer reviews of said pads.

Tirerack has like 3 brands to choose from lol. Plus, all it says is stopping power and brake dust basically. Doesn't help with explaining if the stopping power is cold bites or great stop when warmed up on a track etc.

I would say just your regular ceramic pads then, if you want "cold bite". I always buy drilled and slotted rotors from Brake Motive on ebay, which come with "ceramic" pads. They have great cold bite, as well as good bite after they're warmed up. I bought those because I was tired of smoking the auto parts stores shit at 100mph. I used to buy ceramic from Advance with their rotors. They always bit good up to 100, ONCE, but if I tried again hard on another consecutive high speed run, they would smoke and go to the floor on the second attempt. But the brake motive set does not do that, even though they have the same type of pads; so it's mostly to rotor, not pads that caused the other shit to fade. So I would say for what you're wanting, just some good ceramic pads pads will work fine.

I used Porterfield Racing pads on my '96 Z/28 for a long time....

I'll mention the Hawk DTC-30's...if you truly don't care about dust or squealing. I ran them as a daily driver a few years ago as a trial. Both the pads & rotors needed swapped every 3-4 months, and the pads will groove the shit out of your rotors. On a DD you must be willing to clean wheels at least once a week, or more often... or risk the dust embedding into your wheels, unless you don't care about your wheels. I stopped using them because it rained, then the sun came out and baked the dust into my wheels, and the brake job frequency to a lesser extent. But those pads stopped something fierce, even cold.

The R4Ses??

No to that. Got fikse polished fm5's lol.

Yes...........and I was very happy with them. They had significantly more "bite" than the pitiful OE pads, yet didn't destroy the rotors.

From a performance and application standpoint, the DTC-30 is the same pad I would recommend....I ran them on the street and the track for years and they're a good (not perfect, good) dual purpose pad.

The HP+ would be 2nd in line (similar operating temp range, less torque than the DTC-30 but has a strong initial bite).

Understanding your concern for dust on a really nice set of wheels, I would sacrifice a bit of braking torque and initial bite in exchange for easier maintenance. The HPS 5.0 is a good upgrade from stock and is manageable from a dust and rotor wear standpoint.

If the wheel situation is the "tail wagging the dog", I would just go with a set of performance ceramics and be done with it. You're not going to run into heat/brake fade issues with drag strip stops to the point where you need to step up to an aggressive "track" pad.

I am partial to the Hawk HPS pads, Sara (2001 Z28) likes them also ;)

I would look at G-LOC Brakes pads. The 2 brothers left Carbotech and started a new brake pad company.

Website: http://www.g-locbrakes.com

http://www.g-locbrakes.com/about-us/

I've never had good luck with ceramic, especially as far as cold bite. $20 part store semi metallics beat them by a wide margin.

I recently switched to Hawk HPS and cold bite is similar but they have much more bite hot and the hotter I've got them the better they have worked for me.

I'm shocked to read this. Perhaps you haven't been on the right compounds. If you like hotter the better and more bite there are several compounds well known better than middle of road HPS that fit that bill well. I like the same characteristics, it is different for everyonen but you should try the G-LOC R18, it is exactly what you want then about 4 versions more bite and heat combo you describe. Easy peasy.