Race pads - Hawk HP+ vs Blue vs ?

[kainam00]

I have little experience with brakes / pads on DSMs, so I'm looking for some input here.

I ran Hawk Blues on the front of my rally car for my first rally, and while the stopping power is awesome, I am kind of concerned with pad and rotor wear. I didn't feel like I was even braking that much, but the pads are ~30-50% gone, and the rotors wore down ~2mm (both sides combined). This is in one event, which is a bit excessive to me, considering that I wasn't even left foot braking at all.

So, I'm thinking of switching to HP+. Anyone have experiences on how those are wear-wise? How does the performance compare to Blue?

I'm also open to any other recommendations, my criteria are -
* Under $200
* Good cold performance (this will be on a rally car, we don't get a chance to warm up brakes)
* Good torque modulation, so they don't lock up immediately on loose surfaces.
* Low(ish) pad / rotor wear.
* As fade resistant as I can get meeting the criteria above.

PS: The car has the 93 2-pots in the front.

 

[Scott McIntyre]

Is you car gutted (ie. lightweight)? Are the pads for rally-x?

I'm thinking HP+ would serve you well. I used them for auto-x for a few years and they worked well with minimal wear. Only on very long high speed course did I experience fade.

I've also used Blues on the road coarse, and even after they're heated up they still wear both rotors and themselves alarmingly fast. If they are used in an application where they never get up to temp, they'd be all the worse.

 

[kainam00]

Is you car gutted (ie. lightweight)? Are the pads for rally-x?

I'm thinking HP+ would serve you well. I used them for auto-x for a few years and they worked well with minimal wear. Only on very long high speed course did I experience fade.

I've also used Blues on the road coarse, and even after they're heated up they still wear both rotors and themselves alarmingly fast. If they are used in an application where they never get up to temp, they'd be all the worse.

They are for stage rally. The car is gutted, but has a cage (and rally cages are complex/heavy), so I wouldn't imagine it to be much lighter than a stock 1g.

That's what I've been reading as well - cold Blues = om nom nom rotors!

My next event is a tarmac rally, so I may get a set of HP+'s and test them against the Blues at a track day.

On a side note, has anyone seen any Friction vs. Temp graphs for Hawk pads?

 

[kainam00]

Well, I went with HP+ and after my 1st track day I am not terribly impressed. They aren't horrible, but are also not amazing. The feel is very similar to HPS, the fade resistance is a bit better, but the wear is a bit worse. I went through about 1/2 of the pad in one track day (65 miles of track driving). Rotor wear is minimal however, which is nice.

So... I'm not really sure what to do at this point. I could get a couple sets of HP+ for the stage rally, and it'll do ok, or try something else?

 

[krusty_9]

Might want to look into some Porterfield R4 brake pads then. I only have these on the rear of my 1g with Hawk HP+ on the front, but they have improved my braking ability a ton. I'm so impressed that I'll be swapping the fronts to Porterfield in the near future. My experience is in autocross, so YMMV.

 

[mschlanglv]

I'm a big fan of the Axxis Ultimates. I've got about 3 hrs of track use, 2 autocrosses, 2 rallycrosses and 2k of street driving on them and they are about 1/2 used. They have great initia bite, easy on rotors, and I can't imagine you would overheat them in a rally situation.

 

[dieselsdad]

Look into Hawk's newer model of race pads, the DTC series. I have blues on my 1g roadrace car now and like them but they like the rotors. Friends who run the newer DTC series say they are even better without the bad side effects.