Best Brake Pads for Under $50?
 

Peeps - I need to buy a set of good pads for track use, with a budget of $50 for the front set. What is the best pad/compound under $50? Insight would be greatly appreciated based on experience.

AC Delco

guys I wanna turbo my car, only have $28.75 in my pocket, please recommend best kit on this budget


Seriously, look at a Hawk DTC-60 or a Hawk Blue. Those are the budget track pads. You won't be able to buy a decent street pad for $50.

autozone

Alright, here's a better approach..

I found a set of Akebono ceramic pads that I think is the same material as the Hawk Ceramics for $20 cheaper per set. $59 shipped.

I wonder how the Hawk HPS pads ferro-carbon compare to those?

wordlyphe. I'm going to try the 60's out soon. Unfortunately you will not find a track pad for a Mazda caliper for less than $80 or so. I recommend Hawk blue with cheap rotors, the last forever, never fade, and get the job done.

You're comparing HPS and ceramic pads...for track use? You have a thing or two to learn dude. Start with Hawk blue and go from there. I've used HP+ (90whp), dtc-30, xp-12, PFC 97, PFC 01, blue, ht-10...and now I'm moving on to dtc-60. If those don't work I'm back to Hawk blue. Go ahead and tell me I'm wrong and that HPS ceramic pads will work, I know you're smarter than us.

I almost want to bolt a set of 1.6 brakes up to the front of my race car and see how many laps it takes me to burn through a brand new set of Hawk ceramics. I'd put a wager on 7 laps.

lol...

what compound do you run on the wilwoods?

I'm starting to hate anyone with a 2010 registration.....

Yes.... Dec 2009.

I love you long time.

You're within striking distance with that 12/9 and are French-Canadian........or you can paypal me $25 for a lifetime free from me ever harassing you on here.

Haha... did you call me French-Canadian?

West Coast Vancouver is as far as you can get from French-Canadian. I can't speak a lick of it either. I don't live in Montreal here...

Yeah I know....It's like calling Miami "deep south" and assuming you'll find lots of rednecks there :giggle:
I do wish to visit your pretty city one of these days.

dtc-30 didn't cut it, PFC-97's were ok but the brake dust is very corrosive. I'm trying the dtc-60's, they should work.

Thanks most for the constructive criticism, and some for the hatin'. I found a good deal on Blues, so I'll give them a shot.

No problem.

I survived a number of track days on Hawk HPS on 1.8 brakes. This was either N/A or a crappy turbo setup (aka I'd overheat or break before my pads faded once I had more power), so it might be different if you've got a decent turbo setup.

I was getting a set of rotors and pads for $99 through planetmiata.com, so $198 for all four wheels. Looks like they've shut down though.

These were some of my first track days, so if you're experienced and relatively fast, you'll probably kill them. I eventually started to make them fade once I sped up a bit.

P.S. I use Porterfield's race pad now, so I don't remember which Hawk's I had. Either HPS or HP+, which ever the more aggressive one is/was. Look that up first.

Probably the HP+ as I have used those for tack as well...but could get them to fade eventually. Tried HPS one time on my NA and got fade pretty quick playing around in the mtns.

HP+ couldn't cut the mustard on my 90whp 1.6 so I switched to Hawk blue. A "race" pad is the way to go if you plan to drive like you're "racing".