[Argonaut]

Gassed up with driver, rolling into staging what do think the S197 weighs? I should put it on scales but I'm thinking somewhere in the 3600 lb range.

That is a whole lot of car to stop from high speeds and I was wondering what you all are using for pads. NOTE: lets not turn this into a caliper debate, I don't care what caliper or rotor you are running (that subject has been beaten to death), I'm interested in the brand and formula for the pads you use.

My experience:

Pad 1 - HT-10/HP+
Last year on the Mustang I started out with Hawk HT-10 in the Front and HP+ in the rear. For the first few events, the night before, I bedded the pads in on a lonely stretch of highway. At the tracks the pads performed perfectly. They came up to temp very quick. There was no fade during repeated brakes from triple digit speeds (also due to other factors). Never developed any sort of shimmy or weird pad deposits on the rotors. They grab quickly and apply lots of torque without having to jam on the pedal. I didn't have any issues with them "eating" the rotors, rather the cheapy chinese rotors crack long before you will ever wear them down with pads. They do dust something horrible. As I went thru last season I got a little lazy with swapping street pads for track pads and eventually just left this combo in all the time (note the car is not a daily driver). I didn't find this to be a problem at all. Lots of conventional wisdom suggest don't do this because the stopping power cold is too low and it increases risk of accident. Honestly, I thought they stop just fine cold, although I can't say I made any measurements. The only drawbacks on the street were dust and noise...lots of it. Over the course of last summer, the rear HP+ wore out and I replaced with HT-10 (so at this point I was HT10 front and rear). This combo proved to be equally good, can't say I really noticed much of a difference. In the end, I got 13 track days out of those front pads (keep in mind these were my first 13 track days ever and newbies use less brake than advanced). I thought that was pretty darn good.

Pad 2 - Carbotech XP10/XP8
This year I switch cars and brake pads. I had heard a lot of good things about the Carbotechs so thought I'd try them. This is on a 3200 lb car and the pads are a little bigger (~same rotor size). Only two track days thus far but I like them equally well. Initial impressions are: same sort of consistent feel, high torque, good release, no fade. Still very dusty. The track I used them on was not all that high speed, one hard brake from ~125 and only 4 additional lesser brake zones, thus I can't draw too many conclusions about them yet but so far I like them. The one thing that has me a little concerned is the wear, they seem to have worn down quite a bit (I should have measured thickness before and after). But this is a different car, different brakes - the jury is still out. One thing I really like - on the street they are quiet!

As the summer progresses I'll try to report back. In the future I will try some other brands/compounds as well.

OK - so lets hear your experiences with pads - stock or otherwise - on tracks or AX or even hard core canyon carving.

Brad