Hey all,
I just received my new Centric High carbon rotors for my ride. I went for the C6 13.4" units, and opted for the high carbon, as they are supposed to be better metal and crack less from hard use (road racing).

Rockauto didn't specify (and neither did Centric website that I recall) that they were a curved vane rotor. So of course, since there is only one part number, there is only one vane direction.

Has anyone run a curved vane rotor the wrong direction? I can suppose that's certainly not going to help cooling any! I have two 3" ducts going to each, and they are sealed off to some aluminum back plates.

Have not seen where anyone has listed a right and left fitment for the C6 Z51 brakes (J56 code I believe). I assumed wrongly that they were straight vane rotors.

All the C5 stuff (12.8") have the right and left part numbers.

Should I run it and hope for the best?

 

I believe that when stock, C6's have 2 "right side" rotors on the front.GM only has one part # for them. The aftermarket makes a drivers side for the track crowd.

 

Wow. I would never had thought that would be the case on a car with that kind of technology and pedigree. How odd.

When you move up to the sport stop or other aftermarket rotors they always feel they need to cross drill them. I don't want that since it only makes the stress cracks appear sooner. So these "blanks" seemed to be just the ticket.

Why would gm go to the trouble of making them curved vane rotors only to skimp out and make only one direction? Cost seems to be the only "logical" answer but on a vette with " heavy duty" brakes that doesn't make much sense.

 

It does not make sense, but it is the way they are. I would take a look at a replacement rotor which is non-direction or correctly directional. DBA blanks would probably be your cheapest bet.

John

 

Its only a Z51 13.5" rotor issue. All other C5/6's have L/Rs

There was a big write up about it on corvette forum

 

So if they came that way from GM, it would seem that perhaps the vane direction is not so important. NOt ideal sure, but who knows how long these rotors will last anyway.

I'll check over with the Vette crowd to see what the discussion came up with.

 

No they don't, the GM C6Z06 rotor is also only available in dr. side

 

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-t...51-rotors.html

Toward the end there's a guy that has apparently drove C5 Z51 and C6 Z51 and claims the c6 Brakes have always been as good or better than C5. And he never noticed a difference in braking from one side to the other. He doesn't say what type of driving he does (track or street).

They also claim the Z06 has the same issue on the larger 13.9" rotors as well. So it's not just the Z51. (like Twin Turbo said above)

Another thread there was some speculation that the vane direction would matter for racing. I guess I'll just have to see - maybe it will show up when one rotor cracks before the other due to higher temps from the "insufficient" cooling as compared to the other side.

I have to admit I'm kicking myself a little for not just going with the C5 12.8" unit that have right / left hand side, and are cheaper to boot. My car only weighs 3050 with me in it, so it's lighter than the typical vette to start with. But bigger seemed better. Doh!

 

It is only an issue if you are running the brakes hot. You will never have a problem on the street or auto-x. The effectiveness of cooling of a rotor spinning the wrong direction is much less. It can't pump as much air. It would be possible to exceed the temperature of your pads on the one side but not the other. Not a good situation.