Brake pads STOPTECH or OEM KIA

I personally find the stock brakes to be too grabby for me to comfortably heel toe. I switched to the Stop tech street pads and loved them.

I run the StopTech "Street" performance pads with EBC slotted rotors and can 100% vouch for each. Outstanding quality and performance. I really push my brakes on occassion and this combo outperformed my expectations which were fairly high to begin with. Bonuses- very low dust and zero noise.

My choices were EBC slotted front rotors and StopTech "Street" performance brake pads. Major improvement over oe in stopping distance and resistance to brake fade.

Pads, lines, fluid are a lot less and make a huge difference. No need to go BBK or retrofit unless like others brought up. Track it, Auto-X it, or push it on some backroads often. If you have the Performance Pack, the PP brakes are even better. I did an OEM+ refresh on my IS38 MK7. Stoptech slotted, Stoptech SS lines, Stoptech STR600 fluid, EBC Red pads. Still non PP factory rotor size, but brake fade comes on much further out for me now. Gives me a healthy window to enjoy pushing the car before fade kicks in. Tires matter and help more for braking difference. So if that's what you're chasing. Get a really good set of summer compounds on the car.

I put Stop Techs on my previous Mazda and they were far superior in performance and longevity.

Stoptech + EBC reds is a pretty good option for street.

I'm extremely impressed with their Sport pads, when compared to their closest Hawk competitor, HPS. I ran Hawks for quite a while and they were ridiculously loud. The Sports give me similar bite, maybe a tad more, but no squeal whatsoever. These were on a Focus RS that I used for DD/autocross.

Centric Premium Rotors front and rear: left as is Stoptech Street Pads: left as is

I'm running stop-tech sport pads and easily have eaten away 50% of the pad after 1 track-day - which I skipped two sessions of.

I put stoptech pads on my 2011 hatch and they have been so beyond noisey they have been driving me insane. Gotta find something else to replace them with. Hope your experience is better!