sumo04

I don't mind the brake dusting and I don't track my car, but I was wondering from anyone's experience with aftermarket pads, which pads do give better stopping than stock? Or would rotors be a better choice for better stopping? I know with my old car, oem size cross-drilled brembos with cheap autozone pads stopped way better than stock. So would this apply to the S as well; say if I were to get slotted rotors using stock pads?

iam7head

there's so many brand out there, like i said do your research on axxis/hawks/ebc, they have different line(for most import at least) taht you can pick from

axxis ultmate was the pads i am using now, it felt better than stock to say the least.

rotor hardly make any different on the street, sorry but may i ask what was your last car? or the car you talking about?

most of the drilled rotor you see on the market is drilled instead of casted(like spoon's), they just drill random pattern on a disc that was casted in one piece from the factory. all the oem size honda disk are most likely to be "altered" with by some mechanic.

not to mention it crack on hard use, just search it up on google.

the only reason to replace the oem disc for street use that i can think of is the thickiness reaching the service limit. and when that happens just pick up a oem size aftermarket disc. brembo blank or napa special, it's your call.

sumo04

old car was a civic ek stock everything with 16" rotas. I changed the pads with cheap autozone pads along with the OE-size Brembro cross drilled rotors. So you're saying the pads made the difference, and not the rotors? It's kinda hard to believe that because I've done brake jobs before on my wife's old Acura TL ... (turned rotors and changed pads) and noticed no improvement over stock pads. These pads were the same brand as the one I had on my civic. How do you explain this?

terahertz

it is explained like this:

oem ek pads do NOT = oem tl pads just because they are both oem.

Fongu

The S2000 pads and rotors are fine for street driving. I doubt you'll feel any fade on the street and if you are you're severely braking the law or riding the brakes downhill in the Rocky Mountains. The OEM pads do degrade gracefully when they overheat and still provide good braking, and just wear very fast. Unlike some hot street pads or combo street pads that I've tried on the track that turn into grease when they overheat. There is no performance reason not to stick with OEM pads.

A stock S2000 (and most modern cars) are not limited by the brake system for stopping distance. They are limited by tire grip. Any brake upgrades are only for improving fade resistance from multiple hard stops, I'm talking racetrack conditions, or improving braking feel. Aftermarket rotors or brake pads will not give you more "braking power".

S2-3456789-K

can someone explain brake fade for a newb?

ruexp67

When your pads overheat they do not impart enough friction to the rotors and do not stop as well, this is known as brake fade.

A secondary example is when you get enough heat into the brakes to "boil" a small ammount of fluid and create a gas bubble near the pistons. This means when you go to brake, your pedal goes deeper in before it starts to really engage the pads, and if severe enough can cause signficantly less brakeing pressure. This is a form of brake fade, sometimes referred to as "pedal fade."

S2-3456789-K

interesting...thanks for the info; i appreciate it.

ruexp67

Here's a good (and relatively short) article on brake fade:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_fade

iam7head

oh, yes. you read me right, rotor wouldn't do a crap, of course i can't pull out number out of my arse and give you anything useful for your old ek.

long story short, i talked to a guy that runs a race team(honda btw), he datalogged abunch of number and corner g and the expensive drille/slotted rotor didn't do a jack. it did not improve temperture(since there's no pad gas, unless you are still in the 60's). the car was a 5th gen non abs accord.

now with the ek and tl comment: consider this, the MFG design the brake size, torque, disk size, brake biased and tire size to acheive the over all package that what we called "braking power"(slang of course, those geek will kill me for calling it something like this)

let's isolate everything and focus on the pad change itself. let's say you swap the oem pad with brand A pad, and lets assume the friction of pad A>mu of oem pad.
so you should get have short stopping distance and braking power right? the answer is yes and no, remember what i said about the tires being the utlimate thing that stop the car? if the brake power over come the tire's grip, it will not do anything than overwork the tires. behind all the brake pad, disc, brake torque, dot4 fluid, radius and arm, there's something called brake balance, which is unique for all the car.

of course i can't send you out without give a real world example right?

now hear this, you can stuff a high friction co-ef pad in front for a non abs 1.6 miata and not having increase brake power. but how is that? isn't 75-80 percent of power of the brake is transfer using the front brake?

the 1.6 non abs miata is a good example of how a mismatched brake balance will make the seemingly universally truth "tuner myth/rule" turn into a pile of dog poop. the early first gen miata suffered from a unbalance brake, long story short, the best way to get more brake power and shorter distance for that car is to run a much high friction agent in the rear(if we leave the other mod out of this, in order to keep it simple).

so what am i saying? that there is not universally truth rules that work on all car, even you are swapping the same pad, same brand, same line, it doesn't mean the result you have on car A will transfer to car B.