legacycentral bbs

For those in the know, I am debating between Hawk HPS and HP Plus for my rears, using FHI 2 pots. Front's are the Racing Brake 16" kit which uses the same pads as the FHI 4 pots. The fronts currently have HPS's in there, but they have about 1/3 material left. The HPS's have been good thus far. 120 to 10 in a serious hurry with them smoking and they still worked quite well. I wish I had a pic of my rotors that time.

My debate is whether or not to get something a little more high temp biased for the rears, and the same for the fronts not long after I get the car going. The car will not be a winter car what so ever, so I'm not that worried about the braking performance in -20 degree temps.

I'm looking for an all-around car, that I can go to some events and not cook the pads, yet have somewhat decent day to day drivability. Noise and dust need not apply, as a performance car has said accepted drawbacks, so I'm not worried about some squeaking and dust. I'll get over it. Also, eating the rotors a little more is not the end of the world. I've got three years on this front set, so I won't be mad about replacing them. Rotors are a wear item and need to be replaced anyways.



Thoughtful input?

Go for higher temp pads.

Even the mintex pads I have do alright, but can definitely tell they don't have the bite the PFC's I had when they got some heat in them.

I'm assuming the HP Plus's are still a "street" performance pad, and not solely racing. If so, you should be fine. What kind of reviews are you seeing on nabisco?

I've kind of been out of the brake scene for a while since I like my setup for the most part. I've heard good things about the EBC yellow pads, same goes with the hawk & carbotech.

Other thing you should look at is wear. I've heard of people going through some of the hawk pads in a single track event....which seems pretty quick....but maybe it's not.

the HP plus is a decently cheap street performance pad, but it's not anything special. If you aren't cooking an HPS though there's no reason to move up to an HP plus. On the other hand it's not that hard to toast an HPS on a weekend canyon cruise.

In auto-x I think an HP+ would be detrimental as it wouldn't stay at operating temp so you'd end up with inconsistent brakes.

Hawk also has a new pad out called the DTC-30. They have the low temp range of an HPS, the high temp range of an HP+ and a higher coefficient of friction. We put these on my friend's STi and they are some of the best brakes I have ever felt. Great initial bite, great feel, great temperature range. They cost about twice as much as an HPS and might not be available in your pad shape though.

You may also want to look into the Porterfield R4-S and Ferodo DS2500.

Thanks for the input guys.

I don't routinely cook the HPS's but I can if I want to.


It sounds like the HPS's will be better for Auto-X since I won't get that much heat into the brakes in one run.


When I get to the point of running in a high-speed event I should probably get some dedicated pads for that application. I use the same pads as the Subaru 4 and 2 pots, so pad selection seems bountiful.