Owner reviews for brake pads

Stoptech Rotors and SS Brakelines, Tyrolsport Caliper Guides and Hawk HPS pads.

Akebono ceramic pads (ACT888) - not much brake dust, good cold bite, good wet bite. EBC rotors. Rockauto will have them - great website, btw. I got EBC simply because the rotor hats are painted black. My g35 had the rotor hats with a red ring of rust on them, looked awful. In hindsight, really any rotors will be fine. Centric premiums are ok, probably around 50 bucks each - I think they have the black painted hats as well. Akenbono pads were maybe 100 for the 4. I think I got those on Amazon. They have ones that are OEM form factor. Drilled/slotted are for racing applications, not so much for dd. Not necessary to spend the money on those. And by racing, I mean you are stomping on your brakes 20 times in 5 minutes, for 10 laps. You'll end up replacing the pads and rotors pretty quickly due to the sheer heat involved in constant hard braking. So the longevity involved is... 1 track day, or two track days. Brake pads and rotors are fundamentally a wear item. The pads/rotors will wear over time regardless of DBA's "kangeroo paw" ventilation system - DBA 4/5000's are what, 200 bucks a pop. It really doesn't matter. You should get 25,000 miles out of pretty much any set of brake pads and rotors almost regardless of what brand they are. No reason to buy 800 dollar set vs 2-300 dollar set unless you are literally a racetrack driver. I'm betting my EBC rotors and Akebono pad combo will last about 50,000 miles, seeing as how my sedan is a dd that I pack my kids into.

If you never get the brakes terribly hot (single high-energy braking events are fine, I'm talking extended periods of track or track-like driving here when I say "hot"), porsche OEM pads work great. If you do run the car under track or track-like conditions, the OEM pads never fade (in my experience), but they do wear out alarmingly fast.

I tried looking at different brands of pads for my 911. Just ended up going with OEM pads. Turns out most people think Porsche OEM is the best stuff and I've learned for many aspects of these cars that is true. This is very different from every other car I owned where you could either get better performance or reduced costs by going aftermarket. With my Porsche I couldn't find a pad that offered better daily driver + some hard driving performance... or was cheaper without sacrificing performance.

Pads: there are lots of options, of course. Generally speaking, the better performance a pad offers, the harder it will be on rotors. I like Pagid a lot, as well as Mintex. Akebono makes some nice ceramic pads that offer no dust and reasonable performance. I prefer a really aggressive pad. Most people underestimate that the pads are your biggest, easiest brake upgrade. My favorite pad is Carbotech. They are out of NC. The panther pad is almost a race brake pad. Constant squealing, lots of dust, and you have to warm them up to get them to work. But when you step on it, you're thankful for seat belts.

The brakes don't inspire confidence. I replaced mine with a stoptech setup which is overkill but the feel, modulation and overall power take away one of the stock car's biggest weaknesses IMO

After the OEM's wear I'll upgrade to Stoptech pads.

I switched to Hawk HP Plus pads all around and I've been extremely happy with them

Driving with the Carbotech 1521(front) for 3 weeks,now. They,definitely,don't have the OEM grasp and power. For everyday driving, they're ok, however... The big plus,no dust,no dust at all.

The brakes are **** for anything but driving on the street, but most people know that already.