2G Rotor options...

[kronus]

Alright, I've done a good amount of searching, and I know I'm going to uprgade my brakes to the factory dual piston set-up. I've got the calipers and brackets coming in and I'm planning on running EBC green stuff pads, so there's no worry there. However, I'm looking for a good rotor to use with these, but at a decent price. Most of the threads I have seen comment only on the calipers and pads. Which of these rotors would you guys choose for every day driving with some mild weekend racing?

Brembo Slotted: $174
http://impressiveimportperformance.chainreactionweb.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=33_294_296_697&products_id=3324

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Brembo OEM: $120
http://www.dsmparts.com/customer/product.php?productid=334&cat=12&page=1

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Also, does anyone know where to get good quality OEM or slotted dual piston rotors brand new? I know I could find them used, but I'd prefer to have brand new rotors in my hand. Another thing, I tried finding Powerslot Rotors for the dual piston 1g, and all I've been finding is 2g stuff. Any ideas where to find them?

If anyone is wondering, I'm choosing not to run with the cross-drilled because of the chance for heat-stress related cracks. Now I know that this is minimal, but I'd rather not take the chance. And I would like a bit more braking ability over OEM rotors, thus the reason I'm wanting slotted as well.

Any input on rotors is welcome, as well as any opinions on pads.

 

[daren_p]

Well looks like your on the right track. As far as rotors go, unless anyone knows otherwise the Brembo's that you have linked first are the same as the second rotors (as far as thickness and internal venting structure) but add slots and are coated to prevent rusting as quickly. I guess its up to you if those two options are worth $55, personally I was going to go with the more expensive Brembo sport rotors but opted to go with a larger Wilwood setup, since then I have learned alot more info on brakes and wouldn't bother spending the extra on the "sport" rotors. Slots in rotors really don't do all that much anymore, origionally they were designed to let trapped gas escape from the pad surface but with all the changes in pad materials, this is no longer an issue. Basically all they do now is clean the pad surface which obviously wears your pads faster & creates more dust. Another drawback of slots would be they reduce mass, allthough its not a major decrease in mass, the more mass you have, ther better the ability to absorb heat. I haven't checked prices but it might be worth while to get stock rotors from your local Mitsu dealer. Another option is Baer now offers a rotor, that is both cross drilled & slotted. Now normally I would never recommend a rotor with this but they offer the only 3 year warranty against cracking and worping & I believe racing is covered as well. A couple guys on here have run these & haven't had any issues.

For pads depending on your budget Hawk HPS pads are a good "spirited driving" (road and some open track use) pad or if you want something slightly more aggressive but still street friendly, with abit higher price tag look at the Porterfields R4-S's.

 

[Todd TCE]

Well said. And I might add that simply changing from brand A to brand B of a rotor is not going to alter braking performance. Short of siginificant construction changes to the parts they do the same thing- they are the same size. They have to be or they won't fit the application.

Alternates such as two piece, directionally cast parts can be agrued to be better perhaps but that's not what you're looking at. I'm not advocating the cheapest you can find but not going to say that because one costs less that it's any worse either. Compare air gaps and wall thickness, vane counts perhaps. That's a good place to begin the tech search on them.

 

[kronus]

Well, I did some checking around this morning, and the dealer is going to charge me $147 a piece for OEM rotors, and O'Reileys wants $23.95 a piece with a 1yr warranty. Now, I trust O'Reileys for lots of my parts, but I'm a little leary about getting rotors through them. But then again, they do have a year warranty, and that price would definitely save me some money since I'm getting better pads and SS lines as well.

Any thoughts to 'parts shop' rotors?

 

[daren_p]

The "jobber" rotors might work fine but personally I'd feel better with a "brand name". Most of the time dsmparts isn't the cheepest, I'd check around, you can probably pick up the brembo OEM style rotors for cheeper then $120. Thats the route I'd go anyways.

 

[DGajre777]

I picked up my slotted and crossdrilled Brembo zinc plated front and rear rotors from www.sportbrakes.com for $250 shipped. They sell regular ones too.

 

[daren_p]

I picked up my slotted and crossdrilled Brembo zinc plated front and rear rotors from www.sportbrakes.com for $250 shipped. They sell regular ones too.

Brembo doesn't offer rotors that are both slotted & cross drilled from the factory, what many companies do is take the brembo OEM style blank, pictured 2nd above and do their own cross drilling & slotting. While there are companies that do this correctly, there are also companies that don't. We all heard the stories of cracking or even exploding rotors. Brakes are defently something you don't want to take shot cuts with, yours or someone elses life could depend on them.

 

[DGajre777]

Brembo doesn't offer rotors that are both slotted & cross drilled from the factory, what many companies do is take the brembo OEM style blank, pictured 2nd above and do their own cross drilling & slotting. While there are companies that do this correctly, there are also companies that don't. We all heard the stories of cracking or even exploding rotors. Brakes are defently something you don't want to take shot cuts with, yours or someone elses life could depend on them.

That is correct. The guy from www.sportbrakes.com takes Brembo blanks and drills or slots them as requested by the customer. Yes, we have heard all stories of cracking rotors, I haven't heard of one brembo rotor cracking after being drilled, atleast not a sportbrakes.com drilled rotor. I have been driving for about 8 months everday, no cracks. I would recommend them, but then again I don't go road racing with them.

 

[kronus]

Well I've looked and looked and I can't find any cheaper OEM Brembo's. And I figure I might just go ahead and go with the slotted; mod once. So I'm looking at $370 not including pads. Obviously this is going to be more expensive than I thought. Anyone have any sources for cheaper rotors or pads?

 

[daren_p]

Well I've looked and looked and I can't find any cheaper OEM Brembo's. And I figure I might just go ahead and go with the slotted; mod once. So I'm looking at $370 not including pads. Obviously this is going to be more expensive than I thought. Anyone have any sources for cheaper rotors or pads?

Are you looking at just DSM specific vendors for the Brembo OEM style rotor as I could have swore I've seen them for less then $100 but not from a DSM vendor. I was wondering what is costing $370, is this front rotors & new dual piston calipers?

 

[kronus]

$100 for calipers with brackets
$100 for SS lines
$170 for rotors unless I can find them cheaper

Approx. $70 for good pads...

Crap this is expensive. And I still can't find a cheaper source for brembos.

 

[PieEyedPiper]

eBay has remarkable deals on brand new brembo rotors of different varieties.

 

[drivemusicnow]

Go to Autozone/Napa/ parts store.

Ask how much their different rotors are for the DSM.

Pick the one with the longest warranty. Seriously.

I'm personally going to buy the "Duralast" autozone brand rotors as it saves a crap ton of money. Companies like that don't have the ability to engineer the rotor to perfection, so they go with a "larger safety factor" which anyone who knows engineering means they make it thicker than they could possibly need to make it to make sure it doesn't fatigue.

They come with a 2 year warranty, and I'll probably be getting a couple free sets because I'll be using track pads on them.

There is NO benefit of a brembo blank rotor over a Duralast rotor, especially on a street car.

 

[jtmcinder]

There is NO benefit of a brembo blank rotor over a Duralast rotor, especially on a street car.

Are you 100% sure that the vanes in a Duralast rotor are curved and angled as well as those in a Brembo rotor?

Are you 100% sure that the size of the vanes are the same?

In general, are you 100% sure that a Duralast rotor sheds heat as well as a Brembo rotor?

- Jtoby

 

[drivemusicnow]

Are you 100% sure that the vanes in a Duralast rotor are curved and angled as well as those in a Brembo rotor?

Are you 100% sure that the size of the vanes are the same?

In general, are you 100% sure that a Duralast rotor sheds heat as well as a Brembo rotor?

- Jtoby

Are you 100% sure that street driven car will need rotors with the exact same material properties of a brembo rotor?

Are you 100$ sure that the size of the vanes on a brembo rotor are optimized in such a way that they provide superior performance on a street application?

Are you 100% sure that the 90$ difference couldn't pay for better pads, and better fluid, both of which would make a MUCH more significant difference in braking than the rotors.

JTM, I hold an extremely high level of respect for you knowledge about these cars, and I appreciate the way you stated your post. But in all seriousness, trying to convince someone who will probably never even autocross their car that they need to spend 90$ more PER CORNER on rotors that they will never see ANY improved performance from is a bit ridiculous. On a track car, or a car that has significantly improved performance over stock, you might have an arguement.

 

[jtmcinder]

You have totally missed the point of the search button.

Really good posts don't just answer the question at hand, but also provide useful information to those who lurk and those who search.

I have no idea if Duralasts are as good as Brembos, but that's what you asserted. You didn't say that they were good enough for tootling around town. You claimed "NO benefit" with the only proviso being that this would especially be true for a street car. Well, my street car sure as heck depends on the ability of the rotors to shed heat, so I called you on it.

I have serious doubts about the equality of Duralasts and Brembos. I do not want anyone reading this (now or in the future) to think they can slap on some PepBoyz specials and get away with it.

- Jtoby

 

[Caithness]

So, the general consensus is that there could be a performance benefit to running Brembos over parts store rotors. The question now- does anybody know for sure that the parts store rotors are inferior parts? If anybody has any personal experience with them I'd love to know it because I sure as hell don't want to spend Brembo money if it's not going to provide significant braking performance improvements. At the same time I don't want to spend 100 dollars on Porterfield R4-S pads to then buy inferior quality rotors that will hurt braking performance somehow.

I've been seriously considering the parts store rotors as I already have the big brake calipers and I could afford to buy the pads soon. If I went out and bought a rotor and took close-up pics, could any of you tell me if it seems to be comparable to whatever quality rotors you're using? Or would pics not convey the right info?

 

[drivemusicnow]

Tech:

Rotors do 2 things. Get really hot, and cool down. They shed heat through 2 heat transfer methods, convection and radiation.

Convection: This is the property in which the air that goes over the surface of the rotor absorbs heat through contact. This is responsible for the majority of the heat transfer from the rotor

Radiation: Property in which heat is lost without direct contact. (like the sun)

Properties that directly related to the effectiveness of a rotor:

Metallurgy
Weight
Shape (both of vents and of the rotor itself)

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that a TRUE brembo rotor is a good product. Something to keep in mind is that there is a difference between Brembos OEM products, versus Brembo's aftermarket products, versus Brembos Racing products.

Also many rotors are labelled as Brembo rotors that aren't. Brembo does not label their aftermarket product typically, therefor almost anyone can make a box that says brembo and ship the product.

Venting:
The "pillar" vents are a good design, and are effective while reducing costs by not being side specific. There are pros and cons of this design. Pros being that they are cheaper to manufacture than a curved vane, side specific rotor, and offer good performance. Cons are that there is typically not as much metal compared to a standard or curved vane rotor.

Metallurgy:
Brembo has been doing brake rotors for a long time. They have the composition, cooling, and temperature components of manufacturing down pat.

Weight:
They typically weigh a bit less than a standard vane rotor as the Pillar Vane allows cooler temperatures with less weight.

Now, You're probably wondering why I claimed that on a street application the brembo (with all of the above advantages) will not be worth 90 dollars more.

It all goes back to how hot do rotors get on the street? Now during typical "extreme duty" street driving, your rotors will probably never get above 600.. If you REALLY work at it, you might see 750, but typically that wouldn't be "street driving" as you would have to do repeated 80+ mph stops at full brake force to get anywhere close to that.


I don't have test data from a stock DSM, however I would ASSume that under moderate abuse, the stock brake system would stabalize at about 550*. This is well within the range of almost any performance pad. Adding better fluid and a better pad, you could safely increase braking force, while still maintaining an acceptable amount of heat in the rotor.

Thus, the advantage of a rotor that cools better is not needed. If beating on the car (on the street) results in perfectly normal brake temps, than a better rotor is not needed.

Now, if you take this same car to a road course, in which you are doing repeated high speed stops over and over, for 20 minutes or more, that temperature would increase to the point where a faster cooling rotor would be helpful, if not neccesary.

That Duralast rotor is a non directionally vaned, cast iron rotor. They are made with very specific metallurgical properties to A) reduce the possibility of radial cracks, and B) decrease the 'noise' that they produce.

And If anyone really wants to test this, i do have the datalogging equipment to perform such a test.

 

[drivemusicnow]

Well, my street car sure as heck depends on the ability of the rotors to shed heat, so I called you on it.

I have serious doubts about the equality of Duralasts and Brembos. I do not want anyone reading this (now or in the future) to think they can slap on some PepBoyz specials and get away with it.

- Jtoby

First, you should probably have seperate pads at least, if not rotors as well for racing rather than compromising cold braking ability (safety) for weekend warrior status. Also, I agree a brembo rotor is not the same as a duralast. But I will be EXTREMELY surprised if anyone could honestly come up with a situation that occurs in street driving in which a brembo rotor will outpreform a "pepboyz" special rotor.

 

[jtmcinder]

Venting:
The "pillar" vents are a good design, and are effective while reducing costs by not being side specific. There are pros and cons of this design. Pros being that they are cheaper to manufacture than a curved vane, side specific rotor, and offer good performance. Cons are that there is typically not as much metal compared to a standard or curved vane rotor.

You left out the most important advantage to directional vanes: they pump more air. This means they can shed heat faster.

Not that the $40 Brembo blanks are directional, mind you.

- Jtoby

 

[prostreetdsmx1]

We have had tremendous success with Centric HP rotors both on the street and on the track. Our sponsored track cars all run Centric HP rotors and we use the same ones on our street cars. We have seen that they tend to warp less than the stock or Brembo replacements and our drivers have reported serious gains with the slotted Centric HP Rotors we use.

As a shop owner i can tell you first hand that we see people that buy rotors at places like pep-boys, Advanced etc.... these don't hold up they way the average DSMer would need them too. Even more so with something like Hawk pads. I have seen some that warp so bad and so fast that it's funny.

I have always felt that brakes are the one thing you don't want to go cheap on. Your live and safety depends on it. E-bay is cluttered with garbage rotors, i know i have seen many of them and cheap rotors just don't up to the demands that most of us have of our braking system.

just my $.02 Happy Stopping

 

[daren_p]

$100 for calipers with brackets
$100 for SS lines
$170 for rotors unless I can find them cheaper

Approx. $70 for good pads...

Crap this is expensive. And I still can't find a cheaper source for brembos.

$170 for rotors, so does that mean you are going with the plated/slotted rotors? As the brembo blanks you have listed are $120. If it was me I'd go with the "reg" brembo's & spend abit extra on the pad for the reasons I stated above.

As for the price I say screw it, your spending that much, just go all out & get a nice Wilwood setuop for a few hundred more. Thats what I did & couldn't be happier . (actually I guess that would be more like double)

 

[drivemusicnow]

You left out the most important advantage to directional vanes: they pump more air. This means they can shed heat faster.

Not that the $40 Brembo blanks are directional, mind you.

- Jtoby

Most new Brembo rotors (from their aftermarket division... they've been using this design for OEM rotors since 95 or so) typically do not have directional, or non directional vanes. They have a pillar design.. Looks like the third rotor in this picture. \/

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Figure a vented rotor from a parts store will have straight vanes, some aftermarket rotors (including older brembos) have curved vane directional rotors, and new brembos use the pillar design. *I do not know if what is currently offered for the DSM is a pillar design or not. I do know that their aftermarket division is switching many of their "OEM replacement" rotors over to the pillar design.

 

[kronus]

$170 for rotors, so does that mean you are going with the plated/slotted rotors? As the brembo blanks you have listed are $120. If it was me I'd go with the "reg" brembo's & spend abit extra on the pad for the reasons I stated above.

As for the price I say screw it, your spending that much, just go all out & get a nice Wilwood setuop for a few hundred more. Thats what I did & couldn't be happier . (actually I guess that would be more like double)

Well, I think I'm gonna go with the blanks and some niiiiiice pads. At least for now. I'm assuming that the Brembo blanks will hold up under much more stress than the parts store rotors.

I digress. I saw the brakes ad on the front page, and I might go with the Centric Rotors.... Decisions...

EDIT: Holy crap. If I'm gonna be spending this much money, I might as well go with a nice kit like this:
http://www.vipgarageonline.com/store/item/1epcq/Brake_Kits/Full_Hi-Per_Kit_w/_Metal_Masters.html

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[Dream On]

I have 3 duralast rotors on my car. They're fine. I've also got SS lines, and Hawk HPS pads. So far I haven't had any problems with them.