Picking up Hawk High Performance Street (HPS) brake pads today. I will probably put them on and resurface rotors Thursday.
This is the most effective thing I've seen posted yet in this thread.
Yea, generally with Brakes, bigger is better. That is, in size of the rotors and pads, NOT, more of something is better, sometimes its worse.
Cross drilled and slotted rotors? Has anyone shown they work on a Commander better than OEM rotors? Most of the time, these things sell for looks only, and half the time, they are cheaply made and actually perform and last worse than OEM direct replacement rotors, because half the time, they are just cheap OEM direct replacement rotors that are drilled and machined. Proper drilled and/or slotted rotors are designed as such, and add mass (the most important thing in a rotor) at the right places to make up for the loss of mass in the holes and slots that also weaken and stress the rotors. Really good drilled rotors are cast with the holes already in them. Just drilling a hole in a rotor will create stress risers that will causes cracks, they have to be stress releived.
One of the Porchse racing teams would take the OEM drilled and slotted rotors off their new cars from Porchse and replace them with solid disc rotors and got better braking performance.
It varies from vehicle to vehicle and the conditions, so sometimes they are better, sometimes they are worse.
Drilled and Slotted Rotors are designed to counter out gassing of the pads and help cooling in racing where your braking every few seconds and heating up the pads and rotors really hot.
If your using your brakes in a way they aren't heating up to the point that a few holes speed up cooling (in most cases it does NOT until the rotor is glowing red) and the pads don't out gas, like driving on the street and off-road, what are those holes and slots doing for you, other than making the rotor weaker and reducing the amount of friction surface for the pads?
As well, a lot of "RACE" brake pads, are designed to work in a race, being used heavily ever few seconds where the brakes are red hot the whole race. They are designed to work properly after they are already hot. Put a set of "RACE" pads on a street vehicle, and likely your brake performance will be worse, until you start driving like a maniac for 5 minutes to get the pads all heated up.
*A good set of aftermarket performance pads DESIGNED FOR THE STREET, is your quickest and cheapest way of improving brake performance, and the most likely to actually do it.
*A whole new aftermarket set of brakes, that are bigger, sure, thats likely to work, provided the suspension and chassis can handle it. Its really expensive also.
*CrossDrilled and/or Slotted Rotors? Its possible they may work, but unlikely, unless your driving your Jeep like a race car on the street, good chance you're just throwing your money away, and if they do anything, they'll perform worse or crack and need to be replaced a lot sooner.
I could be wrong on the Drilled/Slotted Rotors for a Commander on the Street and Off Road, cause there are a lot factors that go into it. But IMO, I wouldn't even try it, unless I have some real data proving me wrong, and proving they do actually make a difference on a Commander in the way it is typically driven.
Someone mentioned brake fade, and if the Commanders Brakes are really too small for its weight, that might be a problem. But the holes and slots really don't do that much for cooling, and even then, its for inbetween braking NOT during braking. The rotors act like heat sinks, if they get too hot, you need more iron mass to absorb more heat. Again skeptical, but maybe someone could prove me wrong. I bet a good set of aftermarket performance pads designed for the street would fight fad better than drilled/slotted rotors.