Selecting and installing the right brake pads for our 997 Porsche

Drilled rotors?  Really?  You like stress risers and cracks?

Welcome to the thrill of Porsche ownership! Tim's a restorer at heart, and just couldn't bring himself to put the wrong rotors on the car. It's been interesting watching him balance the desire to keep this car original and perfect with his desire to thrash it on track.

Andy Hollis said:

Drilled rotors?  Really?  You like stress risers and cracks?

Cheap Chinese rockauto blank rotors ftw!

Andy Hollis said:

Drilled rotors?  Really?  You like stress risers and cracks?

No worries...I expect the Hawk HP+ pads will have significant fade before reaching very high temperatures  and thus not thermally crack the rotors 

fusion66 said:

No worries...I expect the Hawk HP+ pads will have significant fade before reaching very high temperatures  and thus not thermally crack the rotors 

Yeah, I tried HP+ once and decided they were the worst of both worlds.  All the noise and dust of a true race pad, but none of the high temp capacity... :)

I have pretty limited experience with these pads on track on this car, and it was under less than ideal conditions, but I can say they have really good initial bite for a pad that can also get you to and from the track. But, yeah, they're messy.

I'm actually a big fan of Hawk's Street/Race compound, which we used on the S197 Mustang project. They're also filthy, as most Hawk pads are, but they make up for it my being a pad that excels at both low and high-speed competition, so long as you aren't running tons of laps back to back.

I'm curious to see what kind of rotor wear Tim gets from the HP+. That's really the rub with any truly good pad, is how quick do they grind up the rotors. If these can sustain the rotors, while providing enough capacity for the few track laps he's even going to need them for, maybe the dirt is worth putting up with. 

HP+ won't eat rotors in a few trackdays but you may find sessions at The FIRM limited by brake fade. I like HP+ as a good pad for someone who just caught the bug, bought a CAI and some pads and is going back. For serious work, Hawk DTC and Carbotech have much better temp range. HPS is a good DD pad, better modulation and bite than parts store pads for not that much more, in the grand scheme that is. 

I have tried to use the Hawk HP + before as a one and done dual purpose use pads.  But they are simply too noisy and way too freaking dirty for street use and not capable truly enough on the road course either. Basically had to "late brake" to make them work right and minimize the grinding noise on the street and would still got lots of disapproving looks at intersections.  I would consider them as an autocross use pad.  I have used the Hawk HPS pads for my toy's street driving and on most of the daily drivers. In the past I would typically switch out the toy's pads to Hawk Blue front and Hawk Black in the rear or (Carbotech XP-10 front and XP-08 rear) for road course duty.  I am sure there are newer pad materials now that maybe better.

BTW, what are those crazy, what appears to be ceramic rollers for on the stock pads?!?

deaconblue said:

BTW, what are those crazy, what appears to be ceramic rollers for on the stock pads?!?

Mass dampers for NVH reduction. The other downside to drilled rotors is they tend to make a lot of noise.

Agreed that HP+ are a good upgrade for a first-timer. When I was going through my 2 years of HPDE's with a nearly stock RX-8, they worked great for me. But now that I can get everything out of a car, they won't last for me. Hell, it's hard to get a stock-ish car to get tires to last, either, so it's all relative.
I LOVE Hawk's High Performance Street 5.0 pads for my road cars and I think a beginner could get by on them for their first few HPDE's, as well.