Brake pads EBC or STOPTECH

Get EBC Red Stuffs, not Green Stuffs. The Red's will give you better stopping power with MUCH less brake dust.

I went with the Red Stuff pads and they have been noise free and stop on a dime. Very low dust, especially when used with the armor all wheel protector.

I went from stock pads to redstuff, and the brake dust is about 1/4 to 1/3 of what it was. The stock pad's dust was really hard to remove as well. The redstuff pad dust, the little that is there come off easily. I do find that the redstuff pads quickly heat up the calipers though and they tend to fade more then with the stock pads.

I had StopTech brakes on an E92 M3, they were excellent, and I recommend them. Whether or not you need them is another question, and I would only offer that it seems to be a questionable undertaking, from a cost effectiveness perspective. If you need more stopping power for \"spirited street\" driving, the solution for that is easy, and free, slow down. As for your anticipated modest track use, good pads and fluid are all you need. I have 10 years of track experience with several cars, including M3, GT3 and ZO6. Although I have not tracked the Golf R, given its modest power level, and the effectiveness of the OE brakes, I am confident they will be fine for your needs, given proper pads and fluid. The real enemy of sustainable braking is heat. Putting much less money in front cooling ducts would probably help more than bigger brakes. With all that said, I agree that fixed calipers offer a design advantage, but probably one that is beyond any real benefit to 99% of folks on this forum. Finally, being able to change pads by simply popping them out the top of the caliper is cool, and obviously faster. But as for me, I'm not sure the time saved is worth the additional cost. After all, we aren't talking about pit stops in critical competition. So, spend your money as you wish, and have fun, but the bang-for-the-buck score on this one is pretty low.

I had both Wildwood and stoptech when working on my previous sti projects. You can't go wrong with either. I really loved stoptech for cost and easiness of changing pads out.

Adam's front slotted rotors, Stoptech Performance front pads.

I used disks from JC Whitney and pads from EBC (EBC red stuff, nice, came with all sensors, anti squeak pads, a little packet of anti seize for the caliper pins).

I can tell you that after having my EBC slotted rotors and greenstuff pads on for several months, I am very happy with the upgrade. The setup I have now bites better than I could have hoped for.

I've had a couple of bad experiences with Stop Tech pads ( High Performance division of Centric ). Euro made semi metallic pads are usually very good ( ATE, Brembo, Ferodo Valeo ). Bendix Titanium II pads are very good. Akebono Premium Ceramic pads are very, very good...

EBC pads are terrible