So I’m gonna try this stopping and turning stuff this year and am looking at brake pads. I ordered some carbotech ax6’s for the front however no place has them in stock for the 3S’s at the moment (at least that I can find). I’m debating going with Hawk HP Pluses on the front and the HPS’s on the rear. I was less than impressed with HPS’s all around but from what I understand the pluses are 100x better.
I’ll probably hit up a few track days and a bunch of auto-x’s this year and at the same time can deal with the issues of using “track” pads on the street.
Anyone have any opinions of the hawks? Suggest anything else that’s fairly widely available?
I can deal with some noise as long as it’s not deafening.
That was one worry I had about the +'s was the being too much for auto-x but half the events around here are at the seneca army depot and from what I hear that’s basically a mini road course.
I guess I could always go with HPS’s and swap them out with HP+'s for track events. I’m doing some other brake upgrades at the same time so maybe I’ll be more impressed with HPS’s this time around.
For that pig, I’d do HP+. That’s a lot of weight to be stopping.
I had them on my Neon and they would make noise, but only when I hadn’t beat on them for a while. Go out for a few nice hard stops and they’ll shut up.
Well mine is a FWD non-turbo model with few options and somewhat lightened…it only weighs 2900lbs. I’m also putting front brakes from a 1st gen VR-4 on it.
For myself, since I was never serious about competition in the past (maybe at the end of this summer I will) what I would do is just go buy another set of stock pads. They were cheap and easy to get (for my car). I’d swap in the new pads at the track, kick the crap out of them, then swap back in my other set before I left.
I could typically get about 6 laps around Dunnville before I felt they were getting soft. So then I would come in, wait about 10 minutes, then get back out there. They lasted me several track days and only cost about $100. :tup:
Maybe I’ll give them a shot. If they’re too much I’ll pick up HPS’s for the front and keep the HP+'s around for the track days. However I might have a source on some carbotechs now though so I’ll see how that pans out.
I’m running HPS on the street right now because I would overheat the stock pads when going out for a spirited drive on the back roads. Since switching pads and going to a DBA 4000 rotor I haven’t had any street issue. I wouldn’t trust the current setup for the track though since I could overheat the stock brakes in about 3-5 laps at dunnville.
I’ll be going EBC yellow for any track days, and stick with the HPS’s for autocross. I’m also looking into how much work it would be to pop my fog lights out and run some ducting to the back side of my brakes. A guy on the GTO forums says it’s pretty simple so the next time I’m under the car I’m going to look into it.
i was never super happy with HAWK pads (side note, they are corrosive to your wheels) i LOVE the carbotech (xp10 front xp8 rear) i have on the track miata
