Where to buy good pads locally?

[violacleff]

Anyone know where I can get some axxis hawks or pf's locally in southern cali? I'd like to try and pick them up tommorow.

[Guest bastaad525]

I'd like to know this one as well. When I was having all those brake problems, I ended up 'settling' for some factory nissan pads, but their performance is only okay. I abhor ordering stuff though if I can pick them up locally.

 

Violacleff aren't you relatively close to Motosport Auto? What performance pads do they have??

 

Maybe Upgrade Motoring over here in Northridge can get good pads? Not really close to you though.

 

EDIT: Hey, Motorsport does have the Hawk pads available

 

http://www.zcarparts.com/store/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=PBC04

 

$57.80 for a set of front pads for 70-78 Z. Might order those myself. And I think it's just about time to upgrade to stainless lines too.... the pedal just hasn't felt the same since putting in rebuilt calipers.

[violacleff]

Thats funny. Everytime I ask they say all they got is stock and some other metallic whatever pads that are supposed to be better. I specifically asked for hawks too! What a surprise at MSA. Wont be the first time I actually had to find the part myself in their store after they said they didn't have it.

[violacleff]

Yep just called them again. They don't actually sell them.

[JMortensen]

Just so you know Axxis is one company and Hawk is another. For the longest time Axxis Metal Master were supposed to be THE good street pad. IME they suck donkey balls. They warp rotors and start to come apart in big chunks when they get too hot, which is way too fast. I know Axxis makes a bunch of pads, but the Metal Master was supposed to be the one for the Z. I have also used their organic pad on a friend's Z, that was fine for an organic pad. Wouldn't put it on a car that is driven hard though...

 

Hawk makes about 10 different pads, and only 2 of them are for street driving, the HP and HP+. The rest are full on race pads.

 

Porterfield makes the R4S which works good on the street but they aren't up to high stress track day type situations. I believe you can get R4S shoes as well.

 

KVR supposedly makes good pads/shoes. Haven't tried them myself, but I hear good things.

 

If your car needs pads NOW, I'd just go get some some crappy organic pads from the auto parts store. Then order your good pads and swap the pads out. You don't need to turn the rotors to swap the pads, and it will keep you from going metal to metal now, and lucky for us a brake pad swap in a Z is a 30 minute deal.

[Guest ON3GO]

BIG fan of KVR!

 

have them on my blue Z and had them on a few other cars i owned.

 

Metal Masters is the sux's.. had them on my Z32, and at track days/auto-x's/ even drag events they just didnt stop that damn car.

 

Have KVR in the rear of the green Z and wilwood pads in the front.

 

mike

[Savage42]

I've never had a problem running the Porterfield R4-S pads on the street and for track days, but I guess they work for both on my cars because they had enough brakes to start with. If stock is kinda marginal, then they still won't do dual duty. On my 510 with '82 ZX brakes, 510 with RX-7 brakes, my '97 Maxima and my newly acquired BMW 540i 6 speed car, they have very good brakes. I would think that with an upgrade of some sort, you can most likely get to run them for both. I ran Thunderhill Raceway in mid July with R4-S pads on my BMW that I put on a few days before and it was 105 degrees outside, 117 degrees on the track and didn't have any probs with brakes while pushing that 4000 lbs V8 tank around the track! The only car to pass me with 40 cars on track was a 300ZX twin turbo on race tires, I was on street rubber. So, that's my experience and they are the only pads I'll ever run. The Metal Masters where "the stuff" over a decade ago, but not so much anymore.

[JMortensen]

I've never had a problem running the Porterfield R4-S pads on the street and for track days, but I guess they work for both on my cars because they had enough brakes to start with. If stock is kinda marginal, then they still won't do dual duty. On my 510 with '82 ZX brakes, 510 with RX-7 brakes, my '97 Maxima and my newly acquired BMW 540i 6 speed car, they have very good brakes. I would think that with an upgrade of some sort, you can most likely get to run them for both. I ran Thunderhill Raceway in mid July with R4-S pads on my BMW that I put on a few days before and it was 105 degrees outside, 117 degrees on the track and didn't have any probs with brakes while pushing that 4000 lbs V8 tank around the track! The only car to pass me with 40 cars on track was a 300ZX twin turbo on race tires, I was on street rubber. So, that's my experience and they are the only pads I'll ever run. The Metal Masters where "the stuff" over a decade ago, but not so much anymore.

I don't doubt any of that. But you hit the nail on the head, Z brakes are marginal for track duty. Here's the R4S that I saved from a Buttonwillow track day. These pads had maybe a couple thou street miles before this day and were at least 90% when I left that morning.

 

I think the pad material got so hot it totally delaminated. There is no pad material left on this pad whatsoever. The piston went right through the pad. The calipers weren't stuck or anything like that. I think the pads just got too hot.

 

[Savage42]

Yep, stock sucks for any real road racing. With a 4 piston caliper and vented rotor, odds are good that they'd work. The only time that I see that there might be a problem is at a track where there is a long *** straight to a hairpin, combined with acceleration & top speed of a V8 Z, this would be pushing it. On most road courses, they should work. The ZX stuff on my 510 gave me awesome brakes.....larger vented rotor, big piston with lots of pad surface area and only a 2200 lbs car! That car stopped like nobody's business!

 

BTW, that is one fugly backing plate!

[Guest bastaad525]

I'm loving the Nissan factory pads so far, actually. I bought some cheap auto zone pads a couple months ago but a) they squealed like crazy, they made tons of dust, c) they sucked at stopping the car, and d) they also had started to come apart, after I'd only had them on for like a month, when I got tired of them and pulled them off to replace with the Nissans, three out of the four pads were missing large chunks from the edges.

 

The Nissan pads so far are silent, have not gotten my wheels dusty at all, and do stop decently. However, there are other issues with my braking system now that I think need adressing, so I dont think they are performing as well as they should be. My pedal is still softer than I would like it to be, so really want to upgrade to braided brake lines, and see how they perform then. I believe they will work and feel great with just that upgrade.

 

About MSA... that is really retarded for them to advertise a product they do not carry... I hope you told them as much, and that they really should remove that listing from their online catalog.

[JMortensen]

I have a mail order business and I advertise a BUNCH of products I don't stock. You order from me and I drop ship from the manufacturer. Nothing retarded about it. In my case for me to stock these things it would cost literally thousands of $$$ just to put one of every size and color on the shelf. Then there are some size/color combos that I sell maybe 1 every year. Buying one of those expensive and bulky units and then having to house it for a year before it got sold... now that would be retarded.

 

MSA might not be the best business out there. I have dealt with them once or twice and haven't had problems. VB screwed up my last order. Modern Motorsports is hard to get a hold of sometimes. But a parts supplier specifically for Z cars is a VERY small niche, and I'm just glad there are people out there who sell this stuff at all. Talk to some 510 people sometime. They'd LOVE to have a crappy MSA to deal with.

[tube80z]

I don't have much to add to this thread but I thought of a few things I'd pass along.

 

If you get race pads for track days beware of the dust if you have nice wheels. I use a very aggressive PF pad on my race car. The performance is great but the dust must be removed quickly or it is a real pain in the *** to get off.

 

Almost all the new high tech pads require a transer layer to be built up on the rotor. And this layer is seldomly compatible with other manufactures pad materials. I can tell you for a fact the wilwood polymatrix and PF are not friends. I would suspect that to be the case with some of the others.

 

I just helped a friend put some of the new ceramic based bobcat pads on his car. So far they appear to work work well and have little dust. This isn't a track day car but it looks like they make special versions. Heed the advice not to mix and match these.

 

A lot of people swear by the porterfields. I guess I'm one of the few along with Jon that swear at them. I had a similar experience trying to use the R4S on the front of a Z and I'm just a lowly autoxer.

 

Cary

[Guest bastaad525]

I have a mail order business and I advertise a BUNCH of products I don't stock. You order from me and I drop ship from the manufacturer. Nothing retarded about it. In my case for me to stock these things it would cost literally thousands of $$$ just to put one of every size and color on the shelf. Then there are some size/color combos that I sell maybe 1 every year. Buying one of those expensive and bulky units and then having to house it for a year before it got sold... now that would be retarded.

 

MSA might not be the best business out there. I have dealt with them once or twice and haven't had problems. VB screwed up my last order. Modern Motorsports is hard to get a hold of sometimes. But a parts supplier specifically for Z cars is a VERY small niche' date=' and I'm just glad there are people out there who sell this stuff at all. Talk to some 510 people sometime. They'd LOVE to have a crappy MSA to deal with.[/quote']

 

yeah but in this case it's retarded... I can understand advertising items you don't stock, I too was in the mail order business for a couple years and I didn't stock ANY of the products I advertised. But MSA is flat out saying they don't sell those Hawk pads... if I'm understanding right? So not only do they not stock them, they can't even get them for you.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not on the MSA hate bandwagon that some people are on around here... they do piss me off sometimes, but I definately appreciate having that resource available. I have ordered stuff from them many times, and have found great technical support from them as well in the name of one rep by the name of Sal who seems to be the only guy there who knows his stuff.