I was looking for anyone opinions on running drill and slotted rotors stock replacement for a third gen. Hoping for some info before I buy.
Can't beleive I am the only one on this forum !

 

There may be a reason for that. You actually decrease the area where the pad touches the rotor. You want smaller brakes than stock? Go ahead. Want drilled/slotted go bigger first.

 

I'm running drilled and slotted rotors but as iansane said I also went larger with 12" all around (up from the 10.5 discs and drums). I got mine from Summit (their brand) and have had no issues with them.

 

IMO there's no need to do both. It's too big of a reduction in braking meterial.
Either one or the other should be suffient for a street or weekend racer, even maybe a light track car. If you really like the look Powerslot makes rotors with slots and "dimples" that look like drilled holes after a bit of brakedust gets in them.

 

Go with biggerbrakes of the drilled/slotted rotors because the drilled /slotted ones will warp and once they do they are done because they cant be cut.

 

What? Why would you think they can't be turned?

 

ok guys i am confused about the cross drilled and slotted having less contact area for the pad and it being bad....now i know you go bigger the better...thats why i have cross drilled and slotted c5 stuff on my iroc. but on my crotch rocket it came stock cross drilled....i up graded the rotors(same size) but they are called wave rotors, lot less surface area thats why they are around a pound lighter per rotor, and they stop alot better then the stock ones did. why? i know its a bike not a heavy car but same concept isnt it?

 

From what I understand about bikes, the wave design keeps the rotor cooler (prevents warping on a solid rotor like that).

 

Bike rotors that I have seen are all solid while the car rotors are almost all vented to begin with

 

Slotted rotors help dissipate gasses that build up between the rotor and pad during braking but drilled rotors are mostly for show and mostly just weaken the rotor.

 

the people that make them say drilled and slotted allow for the most heat and gas release. Now you do loose some area and they theroretically are not as good at stopping BUT in my 91 when i drive it hard 115 to 60 to 115 to off ramp 20 i wished i had them.

My fully ceramic brakes actually smoke they get so hot and you get the numb pedal from the gasses and heat. So then the slotted rotors would help. I would say drilled would be for severe duty (like grand prix style racing). SO slotted ya cross drilled sure but not really needed unless you drive a suburben at 100mph and have to stop fast a bunch of times.

 

You run a ceramic rotor? Where did you get that and how much did it run you?

 

i replaced my worn out stock rotors witha set of drill/slot rotors with a zinc wash. they looked alot better. and they did stop much better, but that's based on the prevoius set of old warped rotors which they replaced... now i have a BAER setup and i'm no longer worried about rearending someone

 

I have the c/d and slotted. i bought mine b/c the originals were warped. I see alot of rain down here, havent warped yet. Zero probs. I did go with ceramic pads. a little pricey but worth it... all the tourists with there heads up theyre ****.

 

bike rotors are pretyt thin

they dissipate heat into the air very quickly

plus they are steel

car rotors are iron

weaker/softer and so have to be so much thicker


drilled or slotted technically does remove material from the rotor, and thus you would presume would equal weaker


basically the same concept as 2 bolt vs. 4 bolt engine blocks

a stock disc/drum brake in good working order should be able to perform flawlessly

look at taxi cabs and 9C1 cars

they run for hours and hours stop and go no problem at all

just because its stock should not excuse it from performing more than adequately
of course however those vehicles are equipped with larger rotors stock :P

 

I think we've established what drilled/slotted do.

The point of larger brakes along with drilled slotted (originally) isn't that our brakes don't stop the car. It's heat dissipation. Take a stock 3rdgen out onto a road course with a decently hopped up motor and the stock brakes will leave you very quickly entering turn 6 skidding towards the wall.

 

ha ha no not ceramic rotors, ceramic pads. and yes taxi and others don't use them but that is b/c of price. They also don't drive like we do.... well me at least.

Now go to a city with a hot pursuit police car and they will have C/D and slotted rotors. I know the one in my area does. (which is a 98 camaro with NOS and tons of add-ons :drool: )

 

Eeks, some of you guys need to read a book, and undrestand braking systems.

A few points. A lot of this talk covers brake fade, and heat disapation. The cross drilling is NOT for heat disapation. The brake fade that we get, is from the heat generated by the braking, being tranfered to the pad, rotor, and brake fluid. There is lot going on here, 1) Guys who race, often spend a lot for really good brake fluid, with a very high boiling point. This helps reduce spongy feeling brakes, and fade, since the fluid does its job at the higher temps. 2nd, all this heat has to go somewhere. That is the rotors job. It first has to absorb the heat. This is where size comes in. Think of your rotor as a great big heat sink, the more MASS there is there, the more it can absorb the heat. This heat then gets disapated into the air through the vanes. This is why a good curved vane rotor is best, it does the job, the best. Pad compound also comes into play, different compounds have diffrent ranges of operation.

The idea behind C/D rotors, was that before pad tech got really good, the pads did create a lot of gasses that needed to be disposed of, modern pads DO NOT have this problem. All that you are doing with C/D rotors, is giving yourself another failure point, a chance to crack the rotors easier, and removing the mass to absorb heat.

The "wave" rotors on bikes, are a take off from the dirt bike guys. They did that as a way of cleaning mud and grime from the pad and rotor sufrace. If you think your wave rotors are stopping better, it is only because you have new rotors, and likely new pads. You lose swept area, its a fad, and one that was taken from the dirt bikers. You will notice you don't see moto-gp bikes, or WSB bikes running wave rotors, for the same reason you don't see cross drilled rotors being used in the upper levels of raod racing.

Case in point, here is a shot of a F1 cars brakes, notice the HUGE ammount of metal in them, the vents are there and designed to do their job, and they allow for as much metal in the rotor as they can.



--John

 

Notice the CF housing and realize the venting system aside of what you can see.

2 purposes to a rotor. Accept heat, dissipate heat. Ignore either one and you have a failure. Run those F1 brakes on your thirdgen and you'll have a problem from inadequate cooling. I could post up some racing brakes that are crossdrilled, but as with anything in racing there are other factors going on and they're usually quite specific and have no relevance to our cars whatsoever. Good for generalities, I guess.

I'm torn on a crossdrilled factory size thirdgen rotor. Our braking sucks for any serious use, thats why there are factory 1LE brakes. I'm still waiting for my crossdrilled rotor to crack to support the cracking theory (and it should since its below minimum thickness too), but its not happening. Cracking is an overheating problem. I've seen a lot of vented rotors cracking lately with ceramic pads. The ceramic is holding heat that the rotors cant handle. So if you want better brakes, might want to rethink the holes. Holes=less surface area, which = less heat transferred, so then you lose braking power to help cool a rotor that most of the time isn't running too hot anyway. If you want the look, well go ahead. If you want decent brakes too, might want to upgrade to some larger rotors while you're at it.

 

You also need to know on those indy cars and formula 1 cars run full metalic brakes. They also replace them after every race because after 1 race they are junk. If you have ever seen a still shot of an indy cars rotors during a race you will notice that the rotors are glowing red.

 

I just put SP performance rotors on my car and they work really good, they are slotted with the diamond shaped dimples in them. They are just the 10.5 inch rotor but i think they work quite a bit better then my stock ones.