92integraVTECgsr

I have a 2000 Integra GSR. I do a lot of AutoX and been using PBR Metal Masters and was about to upgrade to the Ultimates then thought about the Cobalt Pads. I know it says not suitable for DD. Just wondering if anyone has tried them for DD?

Stinkycheezmonky

The new GT-Sports are not rotor friendly for daily driving. As far as grip, warming up and so on goes, they'll be fine, but they will eat up rotors like crazy.

Tyson

just curious where youre hearing that from?
s2ki?

slammed_93_hatch

I think a buddy of mine runs them on the street i am not sure though. ill ask him though

ThoseDarnKids

I didn't daily drive them, but I drove them on the street a bunch. They're just fine for the street.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Stinkycheezmonky &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The new GT-Sports are not rotor friendly for daily driving.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Really? Damn, I just got the new ones. I was really impressed by how gentle the first ones were on the rotors. I guess we'll see.

coolhandluke

iTrader: (2)

As Stinkycheese as stated, the new ones are NOT rotor friendly. Besides that, they should be fine on the street but I would daily drive them. They have a bit of noise before warm up and dust a considerable amount. I don't daily drive mine so everything else is mute.

fireant

I've had them on my CRX for a while and it is occasionally daily driven. I cant say they have been rough on my rotors, but they are noisy and dust badly, and the dust etched pits into my wheels when I left them uncleaned for too long.

Now with that said, I do love the Bite the GTSs have for AutoX, but I'll probably go back to Hawk HPSs soon.

Stinkycheezmonky

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tyson &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">just curious where youre hearing that from?
s2ki?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Cobalt vendor and user, as well as his customers. He and I are both familiar with (used several sets previously) of the old compound and know how it compares to the new one. I really like the feel of the new ones, just don't appreciate that rotor harshness. The old ones were less aggressive (good and bad, depending on the situation), but were definitely better for the street, IMO. I've never read about it on s2ki.com.

Nishant

I can only speak for the older GT Sport. They were good for daily driving but a bit noisy. I had no problems in the cold either. This was on my daily driven S2K. I used VR-Spec's for the track.

The new compound... I can not give any suggestions. I was thinking about putting them on my Si when the oem's go bad. I don't think I will though with this new compound.

92integraVTECgsr

sounds good everyone. I guess I will just stick with the PBR Ultimates for daily driving / and some autoX.

cursED

I had the old compound on my old HPDE / daily driver car. I drove that car every day. No problems.

I currently have the new pads on my track car, which is daily driven sometimes, and also driven to / from track events.

Both old and new pads seem very dusty, but that doesn't bother me. The new compound does seem to sqeak a little more.

To note, I haven't had any problems with the rotors - I'm actually suprised to read that, but there are faster drivers than me - maybe I'm not getting on the brakes hard enough on a consistent basis to see that issue...

They resist fade better than the Ultimates at HPDE events.

&lt;ETA: I did run Ultimates for a short time on the new track car when I was waiting for the new Cobalt Sports to become available.&gt;

nsxtasy

I'm always surprised when I hear people claim that such-and-such pads "eat up rotors like crazy". I mean, are there people here who start with new rotors, and after a few events, the rotors are actually too thin to use? I've never seen it happen, either on my car, or on anyone else's. Granted, I'm not using really aggressive track pads, but does that actually happen, especially in daily driving? I use street-track pads (lately, the Hawk HP+, and I used to love the old formula GT Sports). I have never worn down front rotors to the point where they are too thin to use; I've done in with rear rotors, after about 10,000 actual track miles, which is obviously a very long time. What happens with front rotors is, after a certain point - typically anywhere from 750 to 1500 actual track miles - the front rotors start to crack, beginning with spiderweb type cracks, and then radial cracks, so I end up replacing them when the radial cracks form and are maybe half an inch long. Cracks happen, not because of one pad vs another, and not because of the thickness of the rotors, but because of how much braking you do, and the fact that rotors get very hot with track use; in street driving, I've never seen cracks happen, and rotor thickness has NEVER been a problem.

Please, tell me what you've actually seen, not what someone claimed. And NOT in races, just in street driving or else autocross/HPDE events. I would really like to hear whether anyone has seen any evidence that rotors actually wear out from pads like these. And under what circumstances, and how long the rotors actually lasted.

Stinkycheezmonky

Ken, the guy I'm referring to is a friend of mine. I've seen his car in person. The rotors were worn down significantly, such that there was a "lip" on the outermost edge. I'm not talking about cracks. That car was tracked, but most of the wear occurred after strictly street driving (meaning it was inspected before hitting the track and after some street miles).

Edit: They were new rotors as well.

nsxtasy

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Stinkycheezmonky &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The rotors were worn down significantly, such that there was a "lip" on the outermost edge. I'm not talking about cracks. That car was tracked, but most of the wear occurred after strictly street driving (meaning it was inspected before hitting the track and after some street miles).</TD></TR></TABLE>

Are you sure it wasn't a stuck caliper? (Did it happen on both sides of the car?)

Conechaser

On my Accord I daily drove w/ Hawk HP+ pads on and after several months the rotors were worn down almost all the way to nothing, there was an outer lip all the way around the rotors. This happened evenly on both sides of the car so I don't think it was stuck rotor either.

743power

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Conechaser &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">On my Accord I daily drove w/ Hawk HP+ pads on and after several months the rotors were worn down almost all the way to nothing, there was an outer lip all the way around the rotors. This happened evenly on both sides of the car so I don't think it was stuck rotor either.</TD></TR></TABLE>

weird. hp+ and the og gts are both perfectly suitable for street use (IMO). The gts aren't any more harsh, noisy, or dusty than the hp+ were.

Stinkycheezmonky

Fresh calipers, even wear on both sides of the car and caliper (inner and outer pads/rotor).

nsxtasy

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 743power &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">weird. hp+ and the og gts are both perfectly suitable for street use (IMO). The gts aren't any more harsh, noisy, or dusty than the hp+ were. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, that's not consistent with my experience, either. Right now the Hawk HP+ is my brake pad of choice, for street and track use (I don't swap pads between one and the other). I haven't seen any evidence whatsoever of rapid rotor wear. As I indicated above, the front rotors do eventually crack from track use, but they don't get thinner any faster with the HP+ than any other pad.

For more evidence, I had plenty sets of HP+ and GT Sport pads on the rear rotors that lasted 10K track miles. And before you say that the rear doesn't do much braking (which, on the ITR, it doesn't), this was on the NSX, where the rear actually does quite a bit of braking (front pads typically last 300-600 track miles, rear pads 600-800).

I agree that the old GT Sport wasn't any more harsh, noisy, or dusty than the HP+; however, I've been told (by the guy at Cobalt, not Andie but the guy who works for him) that the new GT Sport squeals quite a bit.

Tweakmeister

I've run for a 70mi per day commute that sees highway and city on the following pads over the past few years.

With new rotors costing $50 for the pair at any auto store, always installed new rotors with the pads (it's literally cheaper to buy new rotors than hassle with finding someone to grind down the original ones).

Ultimates
Hawk HP+
GT Sport (old)
GT Sport (new)

The new GT Sports have better "bite" than the old ones, and in my experience, don't fade as quickly. I used to think I wasn't warming up the old ones enough, but have now found that to not be the case.

I'd be happy to run any of the above pads on my car (in comparison to stock). The new GT Sports probably dust the most, and are the noisiest of the bunch, but I enjoy them quite a bit.

One item to note: the new ones didn't have a place to easily attach one of those thin metal sheets to the back (where you usually sandwich grease or blue snot to help reduce the noise).

dr_latino999

I'm using GT-Sports (Circa Summer 2007 compound) front and rear daily driven and they took forever to stop squealing and still occasionally squeak a bit now. They do dust like a sandstorm, but I do know I'm going to stop on a dime everytime no matter what.

kaj

i used cobalts on the front. the dust was annoying, seeing how my car is a DD and the wheels have a polished lip.

i wish my car weren't black. i'd run black wheels and never worry about it. i had OEM rotors. put the pad on around 50k miles or so. that set ate my rotors like no others. i'm now running come Pep Boys ceramics. VERY little dust. don't bite as well (obviously) and i KILLED them @ Buttonwillow. lesson learned.

i'll be looking for a compromise between performance and rotor wear. time to use that search feature.

Todd00

I've tried several pads over the years (Hawk, Carbotech Bobcats, PBR, etc) and I always go back to the Axxis Ultimates. They are the best daily driver/autox pad I have found.

Sure, they dust, but so do all of the rest mentioned. I didn't find that they wore rotors any worse than the other pads mentioned, also.

They are not HPDE pads, though. But for daily driving and autox they are fantastic.

What let me down the most were the Bobcats. After a few thousand daily driven miles, they seemed to lose their 'biting' ability and were actually worse than the OEM pads. Maybe I just got a bad batch or something.

Chris F

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nsxtasy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm always surprised when I hear people claim that such-and-such pads "eat up rotors like crazy". I mean, are there people here who start with new rotors, and after a few events, the rotors are actually too thin to use? I've never seen it happen, either on my car, or on anyone else's. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Since this is the road racing forum, I'll give my 2 cents anyway...

I used Carbotech XP8, XP9, XP10, XP11, XP12's and old Cobalt Spec VR, and Porterfield R4 on my ITR (both Turbo and N/A). None of these wore the rotors very much, but eventually I'd crack them (especially while turbo). I wouldn't get a lip on the inside/outside edge of the rotor that was noticable unless I used the rotors for a long time.

On my Prelude, I've used Ferodo DS3000 (or something) without any noticeable rotor wear, but they would crack periodically. Then I switched to Hawk Blues, and they develop a lip on the rotor relatively quickly.

I would say Hawk Blues are definitely more abrasive to the rotor than *any* of the others I've used. I now am replacing rotors before they crack. I can still get a couple of pads out of a set of rotors, and the pads don't wear as quickly as the other brands I've used (hard to compare apples-to-apples). I get 3-4 weekends out of a set of front Hawk Blues without issue and replace them with about 1/3rd of the pad material remaining.

This is with 11.75" rotors and Wilwood Superlite calipers on the Prelude, and OEM ITR stuff on the ITR.

-Chris

slammed_93_hatch

I put the new XR3's on my car some time last year, i have done over 14 races, 1 test day with 6 30 minute sessions, and a few other track days.

I keep thinking that i am going to replace them, but they just lasted another weekend. of racing.

The rotors might get replaced after the next race, but at this rate the pads are still going strong.

I don't really trail brake much at all, and am on and off the brake pedal quickly. I have noticed a lot of people brake a little bit for a LONG period of time, (in HPDE), and think it is probably a reason why people have issues with their brakes.

kaj

i had lips on my rotors after using cobalts. to be fair:

the rotors were oem with oem pad for about 60k miles. rotors had plenty of meat to be turned.
put on the cobalts. by the time i wore a lip on the rotors, i still had LOTS of pad left. this was after daily driving and semi-aggressive mountain drives. well. maybe aggressive. on one of the down-hill areas, my friend's pads caught fire.
anyway, i replaced the rotors because i felt they were too thin to turn. just my being safe though.
to be honest, i've never put those pads on new rotors to see how long they would last. but i really liked the performance. the dust sucked, but what can ya do about it? not much.
i'm curious to try Hawk Blues for Buttonwillow. i'm guessing those are appropriate pads? i'll also be swapping out a street pad for daily driving.
OEM, ITR rotors and calipers.