Brake pads Hawk Performance or WILWOOD

Brake dust difference between stock Akebono pads on the front and Hawk Performance Ceramic on the rear. The backs would usually be about 70% as dusty as the fronts and now they're essentially clean

I've been tracking my 335i for a few years now, ive used ebc yellowstuff, and bluestuff pads. But they dont even hold a candle to the hawk ht10 pads I have in my spec e46, easily my favorite part of that car.

hawk hps 5.0 pads all around

I use Hawk HPS 5.0 pads. Definitely an improvement over stock and I haven’t had any issues with dust.

Depending on the track the factory pads may be adequate for your first day, but a more aggressive and higher temp pad would be my recommendation because nothing will up the "pucker factor" like your brake pedal going to the floor. A pad like the Hawk HPS 5.0 is what I'd consider to be minimally acceptable for street tires on an average track. I'm a big fan of GLOC pads and I can confirm their R8 compound on all 4 corners works great on the GTI/R/A3/S3 for street tires.

Hawk makes the DTC series for the 718 base. Can't go wrong with the DTC-30 for a pad that you can drive back and forth to the track and will perform very well on track. The dust is nasty and corrosive though, so I'd recommend cleaning the wheels and changing the pads out for street duty.

I had Hawk HP+. They were extremely noisy and dusty, very strong bite though. I now have the standard Hawk HP pads, no noise and far less dust. Not as much initial bite, but still really great performance. I wouldn’t swap back to the HP+ after having both.

Have used these for a while now and will be getting them again to pair up with some DBA t3 rotors

They are absolutely not track pads. They fill this awkward in-between in which they have the coefficient of friction and modulation of good aggressive street pads but also dust and make tons of noise in street usage.

Complete ripoff. Subaru tried that years ago on my STI, I bought Hawk track pads and did it myself (as I would have done anyway). The dealer tried the ol' "These are high end calipers and the pads are much more difficult to change". I just said "Please stop lying to me, you're eroding trust between us" and left. Easiest brakes ever.