i have a debate going on another forum, so i thought id see what people think here at "home"

are drilled and slotted rotors worth it over standard rotors?

 

for road racing when the brakes are used repeatedly for long amounts of time, yes

for a daily driver car, no, but they look purdy

 

question leaves alot of open areas to be answered....

 

If I had a nickel for every time someone asks this.

Most important questions are

1) what quality tires are you running?
answer; I see Michelin Pilots in your sig- 245/50-16's. This is good news. Someone who does have good enough tires that a brake upgrade will prove effective.

2) What kind of brake setup do you have? Disc drum, 4-whl disc, are they standard or 1LE?
answer; This can vary the desired result greatly. Lets say for instance you have disc/ drum non-1LE brakes on the car right now. This setup could possibly actually stop faster with stock componants than with better pads and rotors up front (back can't be upgraded with drum system to match fronts power). You increase fiction levels on the front and car will stand on its nose from weight transfer then go to lock without the rears even hardly working if you use too high of friction pads. The system can go unbalanced. You'll experience this alot more with the better tires you have because you can stand on them harder until locking.

3) Now assume you have 4-whl disc brakes and the rotors and pads can be upgraded equally with options. Now the question is, what is the car used for, How is it driven mainly, is fade ever a problem currently.

answer; Some say yes, some say no they won't help. It boils down to what combination you have with rotors AND pads and what YOUR normal operating range requirements are based on your driving habits. (Ex do you have to worry about cold pad non working conditions-In other words, pad compounds that need be warmed first before they work-If you live on a steephill this can be bad)

I highly recommend if you are staying with the factory GM brake system that you try Stillen Drilled rotors combined with their Metalmatrix pads.I ran these for years with very good tires and did very realiably until I decide to really go all out with the suspension on this car. This combo has a great sweet spot, however, the magnatude I can push the car now the stock system just builds too much heat. Hence why I'm going to 13" 6pot fronts, 12.2" 4pots rear(running drilled rotors to lighten the rotation mass of the larger rotors)

Slotted rotors really are only optimum if you a doing high speed stops, or if AutoXing or sorts. But again, they only work better with the proper pad compound. From my experience, I would only run drilled rotors for street only use, no slots. Drilled rotors give a better, smoother initial bite. The best my car felt on the street was when I only ran them on the rear.

Hope this info help everyone- This question is getting tiresome.

 

like what?

 

wow, thanks for all the imput V6TOY.

well, i have disk/drum. that will be upgraded once i have some cash and/or find a rear end. but for now, its what i have.:lala:

i live in a flat area, not alot of hills. it is a dailey driver. i drag the car on the street weekly. i also like to hit some curvey backroads and see what i can do.
the michelins are about dead, so im getting tires in a week or 2. im looking at either getting another set of POTENZAs or something else thats decent but a lil cheaper. (i really want the potenza)
does this help y'all to help me? hehe

 

they look cool thats for sure. i would save up and do all four corners at once that way your safe and you will get the full affect of four wheel disk, you could just do a napa rotor swap which is much cheaper. just get the slotted drilled direct replacement same diam as stock and it would still have the look but not the function of a 13" rotor.

Jeff

 

well i want the best i can get 4 now. i have drum in the rear at the moment, and i wont have the money to swap the rear and rear brakes soon. i gotta do the fronts now, so im just tryin to do the best i can with what i have.

 

i hated my drilled rotors way to noisey for my taste. but they did stop better when very hot then stock, less faid.

 

I ran AutoSpecialty drilled rotors up front while I still had the stock 10.5 rotors. Price was about the same as factory replacement rotors, so I went with the drilled.

As far performance, I didn't notice any significant improvement. This was with Raybestos SuperStop, PF Carbon Metallic and KVR pads. The car stopped the same with the various pads and didn't really stop any better than the factory stock rotors. Pad life was better though with the drilled rotors and wet weather performance was also better.

IMHO, if you can get a good price, might as well go for the drilled rotors. Just don't expect the car to stop like an Indy or F1 racer.

I'm now running 1LE slotted rotors up front with EBC Green Stuff pads and the improvement is night and day over the 10.5" drilled rotors.

 

well, i bought the raybestos brute stop slotted/drilled rotors and pads. they work well, i guess only time will tell if they were worth it.

they look cool. i payed $104 each, so it didnt kill me.

 

I bought Brembo drilled rotors back in 2003 (on a high end European car) and used EBC green pads and that car stopped ridiculously quick and fade free for years. Back when Pep Boys used to carry Brute Stop brake pads, I simply used a set of them on my Z28 with the 1LE brake package and the stopping power was impressive. I just recently purchased a set of drilled/slotted brakes for the Z28, I will be able to compare and post my opinion.

 

I talked to an engineer at Aerospace and asked him the same question, he stated that he would have slotted rotors but not drilled, he stated that they all crack

 

When the application is too small for the weight and heat generated by the car then they will, but otherwise, no they will not crack. I have run them on street applications on several different vehicles for decades and have only had one application crack on me (not a 3rd gen).

ps- I am Vsixtoy (talk about a blast for the past).

As I stated about years ago, some pad compounds are better suited for dirlled rotosr at low temps. Higher adherent friction pads tend to work better at low temps as well as initial pad bite at any temp when used with drilled rotors The drilled voids help give an edge to promote abrasive qualities for low temp use. Slotted rotors will do the same, but the pad life usually is cut in half with slotted rotors.

There is a reason why carbon rotors use drilled designs and not slots. That is because the drilled surface is better in initial bite and off gasing to reduce pad runout.

What everyone need to look at when considering a drilled rotor is the size and weight of the rotor. Lets take a 10.5"x1" solid rotor (base OEM f-body application). Let us replace that with the same size drilled rotor where the mass as well as surface area is reduced. This is the problem most OEM size applications create with undersized mass for the weight and/or desired stopping force range heat range used on that car. Now, if you consider using an 11" rotor that drilled compared to a 10.5" solid rotor, you have the same aprox surface area, the same aprox mass (overall rotor disc weight) but yet you have more brake leverage (thus more stopping power for the same unsprung weight).

The old Wilwood setup I built years ago for my car was intended to help control the heat problem I had in bending the OEM brake pad tabs in the Delco-Morraine calipers. I never had cracking nor fade, but I had a inherent problem with the backing plate retention tabs heating up too much to bend and cause pad ratle in the calipers/ Low speed clicking noises were annoying and would develop within about 2 weeks of rebending adjustment of the tabs (of course the worsened with metal fatigue)....

,,,which leads to why I upgraded and built the first and to my knowledge the only set of f-body brakes to fit under a factory 16" IROC wheel that were 6 piston 13x 1.25 drilled rotors----> the icing on the cake were they were this massive yet weighed 4 lbs less EACH SIDE then the OEM 10.5" factory setups. They had for more surface area, yet drilled for gasing and anti pad runout without worrying about mass. And no more pad rattling. I dare anyone to crack these, yet they also worked great when cold.

 

I put cross drilled and slotted rotors on my car when I went to LS1 up front and blazer brakes in the back. Why? Because they are super sweet looking.

Performance...none, I run decent street pads but the rotors dont add performance on the street.

As far as drilling, look for chamfered holes as they are less prone to cracking. Otherwise slotted like the EBC rotors.

For your paticular stock 10.5" rotors and drums, just run a good set of pads. I have heard (bench racing here) that with a rotor that small the friction surface is reduced on the small rotor and braking performance can decrease. Dont quote me on that I am definately not saying it is fact.

 

Those EBC green pads are notorious of pad buildup on the rotors. Warch out for high speed stops and then sitting with hot pads on the rotors at stop lights. They pads will hotspot the rotors and produce that warped feeling very rapidly compared to other performance pads. EBCgreen is a very good compund when considering stopping power and initial bite, but you need to let the pads cool before coming to a stop for any perdiod of time. Not a good performace street pad because of that poor transfer quality- You need to be cautious or will be turning the rotors frequently.

 

SlickSixGodToy - one could have fun combining those names.
Not the only one, but I did copy you! -- years later. I would not have attempted it without knowing it had already been done.
And technically, I don't have drilled (slotted for high-speed) and my two piece rotors are 13 x 1.1 curved vein (don't underestimate the curved part). The bridge bolt is great for pad changes!
(I know the mock-up pic has the rotors backwards.)




I'm currently looking into duct work to keep them cool for those 160 --> 40 brake zones. Blaine Fabrication has these listed as 4th Gen, but I'm sure they'll work.

Thanks Mods for not locking old threads! You never know...

 

This is what I've Got:

It is a tock rotors size slotted and drilled:

if I har de money would go WillWood because they are bigger and filled the back of the rim better.

 

"Slick Track God" derived from the movie Cool Runnings and John Candy being dubbed "Sled God" as in "Bobsled God"


So now we know. I have so many nicknames though, The two I most endear are "Rook" and Doc Sake' in my personal life. True nicknames are earned, not choosen.


To stay with topic- I have never bothered finishing the theme on my 5000lb truck (Vetruck)by upgrading the front brakes to C6 Z06 calipers just to fill the wheels up---why?---because the factory sized front brakes actually work extremely well with Stillen Pads in them and OEM solid rotor(maybe someday, but I have just not justifyied to need being a "want" just for looks). With all the track use that heavy truck has seen I have never had brake issue. I converted the rear from drums to a currie 9" rear with Mustang SVo calipers and Lincoln MarkV rootrs two decades ago. Just rebuilt them recently. My point? I don;t waste money for looks. I put the bigger brakes on the Camaro because it needed them due to the inherent pad defect I desribed in an above post. The truck OEM fronts have always worked great so no need to waste money. I should also note though that I upgraded the system to a Hydroboost for better pressure because the OEM booster setup was crap for performance in that vehicle- as a result it has much btter modulation. The Camaro MC and booster worked fine. Every vehicle has its strong and weak points.

Here's the frankenstien laundry list rearend in my chevy

 

I like STiG. You must own a white helmet, right?

 

If this counts as a helmet then yes

 

I have a Ferrari Red helmet of course

Here is the inherent pad tab defect. These tabs will not stay chiched 90* when higher brake heat range develops in the OEM system. The tabs start to unbend and the pad develops a low speed rattle in the caliper when the brakes are not deployed.


ps- That's a Hollywood stuntman friend to my left- we work together at IL events

 

The above pretty much sums it up. If we look at a C6 Z06, we have a 3100 lb car with 14" brakes up front and 13" brakes out back. A Z06 with cross drilled brakes shouldn't have an issue with cracking unless you really beat on them extremely hard.

On the other side of the coin, we take my GTA at 3600 lbs and 10.5" up front and 11.6" out back (stock sizes). The 10.5" front if they were cross drilled would have a much better chance of cracking the fronts than the Z06.

I run solid 10.5" rotors up front and cross drilled rear rotors....... Very tiny chance that I could ever crack an 11.6" drilled rear rotor because the backs just don't see the heat that the fronts do. If I didn't do the solid front/drilled rear method, I would have gone for solid all the way around.

You can see my brake setup here. Not much point in making the small 10.5" front rotors act smaller by drilling them. I want bullet proof front brakes.

 

You could probably modify them to fit but those 4 bolts are for the central bearing/hub that 4th gens have. They have a sealed bearing/hub assembly that bolts to the spindle and that plate just sandwiches between the bearing and the spindle.

In my case I'd have to put the shield between my brake brackets and my spindle... not sure how I feel about that, but there should be some way to make it work.

 

When I had the stock size and configuration brakes on I ran a drilled front rotor because it was the same cost. Then one day I drove the car in the rain in town, lots of stoplights. The rotors, both of them developed a crack that day. Rotors heated up and the water tried to cool them too quickly. For sure, 10.5" rotors on these cars should be solid.

 

Yup.

 

TrackGod, with those calipers u could stop a small navy jet. With a pbj for brake pads no less.

 

Slotted rotors do not crack in daily driving like drilled or drilled and slotted rotors.