Brake pads TRW or STOPTECH

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 have always followed a similar technique that I found from StopTech but it's cool to see what is happening while doing it. And for anyone doing this, it takes a good long drive to cool down everything before you come to a complete stop. I didn't watch the whole thing but heard the guy touch on it briefly and that is if you have to come to a complete stop do not leave your foot on the brake pedal as you will surely leave a big blotch of pad material in that one spot and then you will get the "warped rotor" feeling as that bit of the rotor will be extra grabby.

When I upgraded my brakes I had to measure them myself and give the information to StopTech so they knew what I had.

I've been using stock pads on the GTI; TRW and Ate brands from the parts counter at my dealer. That was not a pre-planned choice but one I made after being completely surprised at the track performance of the pads. Yeah, they're soft, but they're remarkably consistent as long as I am too. They come back quickly from being overheated if I do miss a mark.

Have your brakes been broken in properly? It could be that, I replaced the brakes on Face's car and they had the metal on metal sound for abit till they got fully broken in. The creaky type noise could be your wheel bearing.

but i want the brakes though! mmm.. StopTech.

This is why I'm switching to Stoptechs up front!

As for Wilwoods - they are good but require more maintance due to the lack of a dust boot/seals on the pistons - unless they've changed that now. I had StopTech's on my TT and they were excellent. Of course i'd use Porterfield RS4 pads rather than the stock Axxis that comes with them, but I was very impressed with the fit and finish as well as overall power and modulation of the StopTechs.

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...