Slotted and/or Drilled brakes discussion thread

[Forddealz]

In cases like these hyper cars with holes in their rotors, since their rotors are so HUGE, the holes my also be for weight savings. The pad area is massive so they can give up some rotational mass by putting some holes in the rotors.

Plus they look cool.

your choice of brake pads is purely aesthetic and all about personal preference, until you decide to hit the track and push your car to its limits.

 

[dont slow down]

I agree with the original post when we talk about our daily drivers. I think pad composition has come a long way and has made the largest improvement. For the Explorer in a DD environment I don't think it would TRULY benefit from slotted or drilled rotors, the gain would be minimal or maybe not even noticeable. Obviously a track test is in order!

Now in the other realm of things like track and racing I think the slots and holes are still there for their original purpose, brake dust and glazing. In a track environment the brakes will see a much higher temperature and even with specialized pads they are still subject to glazing. With special pads (and lets say a normal steel rotor) the slots are still there to maintain the pad surface and the holes probably do more for heat dissipation than for dust evacuation. I would think that this would still hold true for carbon fiber rotors as well even though they have higher heat tolerances their high temps would bring those specialized pads closer to their "melting" temps.

I think slots and holes still have their purpose however on a DD (non sports, super, exotic car) I don't think their performance gain would be worth the expense.

 

[jimbob_sf]

Lots of great info here. Hopefully this is something new. 2013 Explorer Sport with HD brakes and Livernois tune kit. Rather than having my rotors turned after vibration, I got the EBC Stage 9 kit (slotted / yellow pads). I'm not usually an EBC fan, but they made what I felt was the best. Slotted (discussed above) and a good brake compound. I would have preferred the Hawk HP SuperDuty pads, but they aren't made in the larger 13.58" rotor size.

OH - the rear caliper design may be common on Ford or US vehicles, but it's something I've never seen after 20 years of replacing pads/rotors on German and Japanese cars I road-race. Get a caliper wind back kit (found all over the place) and avoid thinking you can easily twist the piston back

Update: 3/22/17: The rotors warped and while the EBC Yellow may be great for a lighter car, they (IMHO) aren't made for the weight of our Explorer. The "big brake" rotors leave very little options in terms of true Truck pads. I'd love the Hawk SD or even the HPS, but neither are made for the Big Brake kit. Duralast or TRW look like options, but i'm still researching.