Brake Rotors

[Aurora40]

What kind of pads are you putting on with the rotors Tom? They might make the most difference in improving the braking.

[tomtom72]

Hey Bob,

Happy Turkey! Yea that's a good Q on the pads. They, rotorsonline, have a reccomendation list and one pad I like, carbon-metallic by Friction performance. I'm a fan of semi-metallics for the street. I'm using a set of Raybestos Power-Stop semi's now.....yea the dust is the pits but I like their street performance and I used to use a similar raybestos pad on my 72 LT-1 back in the old days, Brute-Stop back then......man I'm old!


32valvZ, yea mon, they came day before turkeyday....that was fast, or at least to me it was, as I ordered them at night the day I started this thread....after hearing from ZediMaster Obewann.

I also bought some DRM G/S calipers for the front w/ their s/s piston option and bear lines also. I'll tell ya this about the calipers....I rebuilt mine and if you don't have shop air the far piston from the banjo hole is a pia to get out. I had to use my phoenix gun to pressurize the caliper to pop the other piston. The piston at the banjo hole ya can knock out with a 3/16" drift. Funny thing also, I flushed at least a qt & 1/2 of new fluid thru my system and the calipers had black fluid in them when I took them apart.

Jeff has M/C's for sale, check him out if ya have a mind to do it. He's giving sweet prices on them. I bought a new one from rockauto awhile back for like 170 and put the DRM bias spring into it before installing it on my car. The spring is sweet!


Tom

[tomtom72]

Okay, for what it's worth on the Rotorsonline.com rotos that I bought here is my brief (milage wise) driving impressions.

The package is the clearance stuff, C4 HD package which is four rotors and shipping, price...$200.00. They are double drilled and slotted and zinc washed. They have pads that they match to these rotors also but i had already done pads like 5k miles ago, Power stop raybestos f & r semi-metallics...dust city but they work....get black chrome wheels & you're in!

I went for about a 90 mile short joy ride thru 2 lane secondaries and some interstates....very busy w/traffic so almost like commute time conditions on them. In a nut shell, and I was not thinking that anything short of a C5 pkg or better was gonna be noticable, the rotors and G/S calipers made a difference that I could feel! I'm amazed.

Just for some context. Before the rotor & fr caliper swap my brakes worked fine. I swapped out the OEM pads for the raybestos semi-mets and installed Earl's s/s line kit and a DRM bias spring. Oh yea, I rebuilt the fr calipers too, never got to the rears.

After the above work the pedal feel improved and I almost had toe touch brakes, if you really stabbed them, you had better mean it 'cause you're gonna slow down really quickly...like watch out for the guy behind ya that ain't paying attention quickly. Oh yea, I wound up with a pedal height that lends to heel-toe brake & gas easily....sweeeet!....I was happy except that I felt that when ya wanted to haul down on short notice that there was some mush left. These brakes were, IMHO, not as solid feeling as the ones on my 72 LT-1...I know, I know.... what's this guy smoking! Those were fixed calipers, I did s/s sleeves on J56 calipers (dual pins ) w/ ray's semi-met pads....no mush....oh and some bigger than stock rubber 235's fr & 255's rear, CN36 VR Pirellies. Oh yea, no s/s lines either.

Okay, add the D'ed & slotted rotors and the G/S Fr calipers and subtract the front s/s lines...yes I f'ed them up...I must have because I found kinks on them. So on with a new front set of rubber/OEM type lines. Just to be accurate, bling-bling rotors and GS calipers and semi-metallic pads and s/s lines @ the rear calipers & OEM lines up front and a DRM bias spring & GY GS-D3's........yielded......toe touch brakes, sweeeet!
heel-toe height remains, and now you had better watch out behind you when you even put moderate force into the pedal. No more mush when you really mean to haul down for a corner or some obstacle. I don't know for sure but it feels and seems like I take less time and distance to slow down from any normal speed, less than tripple digits.

My conclusions....damned if I know why, but the brakes are more like what I expected from a C4 vs a C3 as they are now configured than when I first got my car.....and it only had 7400 miles on it so everything was factory. I guess newer technology yields improvements? One negative, proly a result of the slots, waaaay more dust all 'round...can't have everything I guess....maybe less pad life also, come to think of it...but I like the stopping power!

Sorry to be so longwinded.
I just wanted to be objective.


Tom
Oh yea, looks like no more testing till spring....it SNOWED today!

[Aurora40]

Heheh, glad they are working out! I wonder if the absence of the slight mush is just that you bled them to replace the calipers and hoses? Sometimes it seems like you could bleed brakes the same way every time, and sometimes it gets all the air out and sometimes it doesn't?

[tomtom72]

Ya know Bob I used to think that I forgot how to bleed brakes with this particular car. I've never had to spend as much time on my C3 getting the air to bleed out as with this car.

So I would have to lay better than even $ that air was a factor, now that I think about it.

This car, to me anyway, is for sure the biggest PIA to bleed manually than any system that I've worked on in any of my other cars that I've owned.

The one thing though, as compared to when the system was OE and with the new rotors, in commuter traffic on a highway, it is an improvement....pads bite quicker, or seem to. Less pedal pressure to stop it seems. I suppose that is what slots do for the equation???

I'm just happy that after flogging it on my joy ride that the rotors didn't go up in smoke.....ya know price & ya get what ya pay for kind of thing....I was worried.


Tom