Breaks and rotors
01-02-2008, 06:26 AM
#1
Registered Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 100
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Breaks and rotors
Heres the thing, I'm an entry level technician going to school right now for automotive. I would like to get more information when it comes to upgrading brakes and rotors. I have a stock 96 Maxima that i want to upgrade the rims on. When I do that, would it be a good idea to get performance rotors and pads? i know i don't have to get bigger ones, but would it be better? I was thinking about drilled and slotted rotors, but like i said, just want to get information. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
01-02-2008, 08:22 AM
#3
Racetracks
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: How long is a piece of string?
Posts: 15,668
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Re: Breaks and rotors
Go slotted, not drilled. To many problems with drilled rotors on street cars, unless you get really good rotors (which are $$). Slotted are cheap and easy, and don't have the stress riser problems that holes leave. I'm not sure if AEM makes anything for your car, but they make caliper relocation kits that have larger rotors and offset the calipers to match. You get some pretty decent performance improvements for pretty cheap. You can do this at any time after you get new wheels though, so don't feel obligated to do it at the same time, unless you get massively heavy wheels.
Decent pads are always a great choice though, they'll improve your braking performance no matter what brake hardware you have.
Decent pads are always a great choice though, they'll improve your braking performance no matter what brake hardware you have.
01-02-2008, 08:37 AM
#4
Registered Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Raleigh, NC
Posts: 598
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Re: Breaks and rotors
^ I would have to disagree with slotted since they will eat your pads much faster with daily driving, they are great for race and track setting though. just look at Porsche they have been using cross-drilled rotors for how long??? They are performance no matter what model you mention. but that is my opinion!
when you upgrade your rim size just be sure to compensate for the tire circumference otherwise your speedo will be off slightly. you will also gain top speed at the cost of acceleration loss.
when you upgrade your rim size just be sure to compensate for the tire circumference otherwise your speedo will be off slightly. you will also gain top speed at the cost of acceleration loss.
01-02-2008, 08:55 AM
#6
Racetracks
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: How long is a piece of string?
Posts: 15,668
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Re: Breaks and rotors
I believe I mentioned drilled rotors that cost $$$, which you could roughly group Porsche into I believe. Cross drilled are fine, but cheap cross drilled rotors are likely to crack. The reason rotors are cross drilled is to make a gas port into the vent vanes in a vented rotor. There are also some cooling effects by moving air through the holes from the vanes. If you don't have vented rotors, it's of absolutely no use to cross drill them. Even worse, the only thing that it does (in non-vented rotors) is make nice stress risers to concentrate loads during thermal expansion and braking, propogating cracks at the holes. This is why slotting started, there are no issues like that.
The reason good quality rotors (Brembo, etc) can do cross drilling without problems is because they can manufacture the rotors well enough to minimize the effects of the stress concentrations. Basically, if the rotors are overbuilt and plenty strong, a little weakening isn't going to be an issue. Not so with cheap cross drilled rotors. The manufacturing process is very critical in the drilled holes and how they are stress relieved, chamfered, etc.
It's a myth about slotted rotors eating pads, they're a little rougher than blank rotors on pads, but they're great other than that. I'm sure cheap slotted rotors could have different problems than decent slotted rotors though, so it's probably possible that crap slotted rotors may eat pads faster due to shitty manufacturing. There are some pretty shitty rotors out on the market, both cross drilled and slotted.
Slotted rotors have most of the benefits and none of the drawbacks of drilled rotors, and usually last longer for street use.
Once you start getting into big money, good quality brakes, the differences blur and are really down to the application.
So here's my recommendation:
For the street, for normal use, slotted work great. For more extreme use, or race use, go with cross drilled, but you're looking at a lot more $$$ for anything worth having that you can rely on.
THere are very good advantages to cross drilled rotors, but you're not going to get those advantages in anything that's cheap or a stock replacement.
If you really want cross drilled, check out some of the combination slotted/cross drilled rotors, they're not cheap either though usually.
The reason good quality rotors (Brembo, etc) can do cross drilling without problems is because they can manufacture the rotors well enough to minimize the effects of the stress concentrations. Basically, if the rotors are overbuilt and plenty strong, a little weakening isn't going to be an issue. Not so with cheap cross drilled rotors. The manufacturing process is very critical in the drilled holes and how they are stress relieved, chamfered, etc.
It's a myth about slotted rotors eating pads, they're a little rougher than blank rotors on pads, but they're great other than that. I'm sure cheap slotted rotors could have different problems than decent slotted rotors though, so it's probably possible that crap slotted rotors may eat pads faster due to shitty manufacturing. There are some pretty shitty rotors out on the market, both cross drilled and slotted.
Slotted rotors have most of the benefits and none of the drawbacks of drilled rotors, and usually last longer for street use.
Once you start getting into big money, good quality brakes, the differences blur and are really down to the application.
So here's my recommendation:
For the street, for normal use, slotted work great. For more extreme use, or race use, go with cross drilled, but you're looking at a lot more $$$ for anything worth having that you can rely on.
THere are very good advantages to cross drilled rotors, but you're not going to get those advantages in anything that's cheap or a stock replacement.
If you really want cross drilled, check out some of the combination slotted/cross drilled rotors, they're not cheap either though usually.
Last edited by Fabrik8; 01-02-2008 at 09:06 AM.
01-02-2008, 11:53 AM
#7
Registered Member
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: NC
Posts: 9
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Re: Breaks and rotors
X2 ^
Slotted are good on budget but are no Cross-Drilled.
Yet, if you go cheap on Cross-Drilled, they tent to break easy and that'll be the least of ur worries once they've broken.
Slotted are good on budget but are no Cross-Drilled.
Yet, if you go cheap on Cross-Drilled, they tent to break easy and that'll be the least of ur worries once they've broken.
01-05-2008, 09:37 AM
#9
Registered Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 377
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Re: Breaks and rotors
I would have to agree. Question is, do you need to upgrade? Will you drive the car hard enough to require an upgrade? Also when it comes time to resurface those drilled and or slotted rotors. The smart guys at the shops don't like to turn them bcause they are hard on the machining equipment.
