My 2 cents:
I am a HUUUUUUUUGE believer in slotted rotors. I have my front wheels off right now, and the rotors are smooth. The slots serve THREE purposes in my book, well OK, only one. The keep the brakes clean from debris, suck as stones, ie self cleaning.
Drilling weakens the rotors unless they were designed fpor drilling. You can't afford those.
The Powerslots that I use can be turned several times. Most can't. The slots are milled to minimum thickness, and when you can see the slots worn, you know it's time to replace your rotors.
I drive a lot. Average 38K/yr. These Powerslots on the Intimidator SS , well the rears now, came off my '01 SS LE when I bought this car, among other things. They had 35K on them. At 85K I replaced the fronts with the same. At 135K now, my rear rotors have 170K on them, and still look good. Fronts would've except to be turned for some warp cleanup. (Slots are supposed to help, but ???)
Hawk HPS pads if you can get them. Cheaper than NAPA's top brakes, and SUPER clean compared to many. Great feel to them.
And if you can't get plated rotors, paint the visual areas with high temp silver paint 1st, to eliminate the rust problems with most all after market rotors. Factory rotors are plated.
Total cost about $500, but if done properly, you'll probably never buy brakes again, at least for quite a few years.
BTW, you MUST hand torque the lug nuts carefully to 100 lbs exactly. Rotor warpage's #1 cause is from improperly tightening the wheels, ie mis-mounts.
Hope this helps, at least a direction. And no matter what you get, paint the visual areas before mounting them. Prep good 1st. Doing them when used doesn't work. Doing it new does.

 

Hey, great info man! I had no idea about the torquing correctly, or you can warp the rotors.

 

Took your advice Michael. Last week on the way to work I had to get on the brakes hard and it sounded and felt like i was driving on rumble strips. Figured the rotors were warped and since I have also heard some scary scraping noises at times as well I figured it was about time. Ordered these:
and
EBC Slotted and Dimpled Rotors, I just got their Ultimax pads. Not into autocross or any "real" racing but need something to bring the car to a halt at highway speeds and that seemed like the best as far as performance/cost. Just under $400. Cheaper then my insurance deductible and increased rates if/when I rear end someone on I-26!



Got an e-mail that they are finally on the way, due in on Monday. Talked with a tech @ work and he'll put them on for me for very little $... didn't mention what he felt very little was but it'll certainly be done better and quicker then if I did it myself!

 

Those sure are purrdy..

 

Is that all the way around for just under $400???

 

IMO there is too much hype about drilled and slotted rotors (or one or the other), I've noticed much more performance gain/loss from changing pads than I have from changing rotors. I'd just assume get some good quality OEM replacement rotors (ie none of these thin ebay junk rotors)- and spend the money you save there on a quality pad set.

 

Hoping to keep the front end looking purrdy, after the other day I wasn't too sure that it would!

Both sets of rotors and pads for $389.39

I can see that, however I've heard from a number of people that the front rotors warped... much like it seems mine have. Assumed that it was an OE thing, so I thought that paying more for the extra confidence was well worth it. If it turns out I was wrong, meh! Live and learn! Besides they look cool! :p

 

"they look cool"
Other than the fact that I needed to get rid of that shaking from my rotors being so dam warped, thats the reason I got the ones I have.
Bumpin, you say to stay away from the cheap THIN ebay brakes, I did a live chat with andys auto sport and asked what the OEM thickness is for our cars, then called the guy at brake motive, all matched up good, even the same material. I just dont know why on earth people have problems with these rotors, mine were just perfect and Im going on, well Ive lost track now, but a friend of mine has about 130K on his with the same pads. Anyway, I wanted to ask you (bumpin), what pads do you reccomend for the best performance?

 

Awesome Brian! I have the EBC Ultimax Black Zinc coated, slotted rotors sitting in my garage right now! I just need to install them eventually...I am going with plain ceramic pads.

Post pics when you get them on!

 

If you're paying more than OE replacement price; you'll likely end up with a rotor thats about the same as stock in terms of reliability- its when people get into these super cheap rotors that they end up with more problems than OE -even with all the special slots and holes.

Just because the measurements are the same doesn't mean that there is the same amount of material there. The R1 concepts rotors I bought a while back for my monte looked identical in every way to my stock rotors- however when I installed them; I realized that the hub area thickness was smaller (I all of a sudden had a clearance issue from my aftermarket wheel to brake caliper bracket that I didn't have before)- and upon further inspection it looked like they had a few other areas where they had a little less material too (although I never did measure or weigh them). I was stupid at the time, but I should've figured that's what I'd get for paying for the same for 4 drilled and slotted rotors as I would've for just 2 cheap solid replacements at the local parts store. I also thought that they'd give me some sort of braking performance increase- which I later learned isn't the case. Plus, I got that custom heat cracking around the drilled holes- that's pretty neat too.

It's one thing if you buy the more expensive, quality rotors- and absolutely have to have the "performance" look- but going cheap on brake parts is never a good idea.


As far as pads go- I'll admit, I know very little when it comes to pads. I haven't went through enough types of performance pads to give A-B comparisons. On my daily driver Impala (as with my last Impala and GTP)- I just went with the upper quality ceramics from the parts store since I put so many miles of just basic stop and go traffic on them.

With my GXP, I took off the stock pads for the Delco ceramic version because I couldn't handle the brake dust of the OEM pads anymore- literally 1 night of cruising and my wheels would be filthy again.

On my monte, I upgraded all the pads when I did my rear disc brake swap and rotor swap- I put on EBC redstuff; but I haven't put a significant amount of mileage on them- nor do I have any way to compare them to other performance pads since they're the first set of "performance oriented" pads I've put on my car. I will say my GXP seems to stop about as well (using the OE replacement ceramics)- but it has 13" front brakes compared to my monte's tiny 11.25"s; and it has wider and more performance oriented tires; so its hardly an A-B comparison.


Its also hard to say you want the 'best performance' pads- because that really depends what you do, and how you drive your car. The best performance pads will be more track oriented, and won't work as well cold driving around on the street- so you've got to make some compromise based on what you do with the car most of the time. With that said, there are plenty of good performing pads out there designed for street use.

The other thing you have to consider also is- say you slam on your brakes full force- does it engage ABS/try to lock the front tires? If so, upgrading to a higher friction pad will be useless (unless you're talking about resistance to fade from doing multiple hard stops) in all out braking until you upgrade to more sticky tires.