clustersnarf

Finally bought a good floorjack from HarborFreight (no laughs, ricer neighbor has 2 of them and uses them often). I got the bug to put some G2 paint on my calipers. I figured since I was going to have all 4 wheels off and doing that, I may as well replace the OEM brake pads.

Reading around, some people seem to like the HAWK pads but other opinions are that they are really built for racing only and will end up warping the rotors with their stopping power. One would assume this would be due to heat and not daily driving. I've got a bit of a squeal on the driver's side rear rotor when doing medium stopping at certain speeds, 45-55. I would like to replace the pads with something less keen to throw brake dust everywhere but not at the expense of killing the rotors.

So, a few questions for the MFers.

Have you used Hawk or other after market pads with sucess or failure to a degree?

Have there been any MFer recorded rotor issues with any aftermarket pads?

And finally, I'm torn on what color for caliper paint. I think red is a bit overdone. Why? I dunno, everyone has red calipers. Porsche, BMW, Brembo, etc. I have settled down on 3 possible colors. Blue, Green, Orange. I did some approximations based on the G2 site and shopped it up. I know the colors arent exact, but it may be close enough to see the color contrast against Vista Blue.

I look forward to intelligent discussion about aftermarket adds and their pros/cons. Not ZOMG RICE COLORS threadpooping.

Rocket Ray

I have a 2007 Vista Blue Mustang as well. Can't help you with the pads. I painted mine the G2 blue color. I must say I'm torn. I think I liked the silver better, especially with the painted Bullitts. The Ford silver seemed to be darkening, so I would recommend painting them either way. I put chrome wheels on at the same time. Every but me likes the blue calipers better than the stock silver ones, so you might want to take that into consideration.

sevenleaf

I use hawk hps pads and don't have any problems. They have been on the car for a while. This is my daily driver, I drive probably 300 miles a week or more.

Stoenr

Blue or black imo.

And hawk pads only if you plan on tracking it. I think the OE pads were just fine. I have been thru HPS and HP+ great for the track, but not great for the dust.
Current pads running is the ADO line(Adaptive One) of pads from Napa. Fairly new to the market with special pads for the outter/inner. Stopping power if fine, no noise even with slotted/drilled rotors, and hardly any dust.
http://www.adaptive-1.com/

sevenleaf

Is that statment due to dust? Mine have less dust then the stock did, and I blew through the stock in under 20 k miles, These have been only for 7k and so far so good. My car has never been to the track yet.

clustersnarf

Most of my friends (non stang drivers) think the blue looks good and not to flashy. I haven't found any good pictures on the internet that really show the color well.

Most of the Vista blue color matched stuff looks too dark. I dunno. My favorite now is green. If you could show some good pix of your blue, I would greatly appreciate it.

clustersnarf

Looks like you have aftermarket rotors that are drilled and slotted. I'm talking about the stockers and should I just buy some new OEMs or get something else.

I'm sust worried about putting grippier brake pads on the stock rotors. But, I wont be taking it to the track every week. I don't do auto cross, but I would like to join some friends that do.

Meh. I dunno. hard to decide. Convince me.

illin

Blue...if those are your three colors. The green and orange look...well...bad.

Stoenr

Its the nature of the beast, more grip = more dust. You could see the build up only after 2 days of driving. Ran them on stock and slotted/drilled rotors with the same result.
Once the front HPS' were wore out I put the stockers back on and in a few days the fronts were still clean, and the rears were dusty.

I know this pic is overkill since its after 3 track runs, but you get the idea of the dust on the rims.

clustersnarf

SO, HPS claims of less dust is basicly BS? I may as well get the OEM pads and replace even though the wear is good but the wet squeal annoys the crap out of me?

It will be about $150 to get HPS vs OEM, and it may be just a more metal content in that pad causing the noise. It only really happens when it is wet so , meh, I dunno. I'm taking the calipers off to paint. and i have 14K miles and a squeal.

Consensus is currently that better stopping power sans track isnt all that, the dust is worse or the same, comes down to price?