Brake Pads

Hello, I just brought my 2001 996 to the track for the first time. I am an experienced DE participant and drive fairly aggressively. The car now has about 8K on it and the factory pads just made it through the final run session. I am trying to get some opinions of replacement pads that may offer increase performance over stock but I DO NOT want squeel as this is a street car. The only options I am aware of for the 996 at this point are Pagid Black, Orange and the new "S" compound. I know that the orange will squeel but have no idea about the performance enhancements of the others and the characteristics they may have. I always used Performance Friction 90's and loved them.... Any suggestions. Thanks

Hello Dennis; I've got a 996TT but before that I had a 993 C2 with "big reds" and I ran both stock and Pagid "orange" pads. At the end of my tenure with the 993 I had the famous "blue" brake fluid and the Pagids. Just be aware there is no "free lunch". The higher up in the ultimate performance brake realm you go the more the after effects are. My Pagids squealed and produced much more brake dust than stock. I do feel they worked better than stock by an appreciable amount but every now and then they would squeal like I was running on metal to metal and people would ask if my brakes weren't worn out! I think that it (as it so often does) depends on your ratio of track use versus street use for the car. If you are a track avid person than the Pagid's are probably the way to go. If not and your car is a "daily driver" than you might stay with stock and if possible change to the Pagid's for the occaisional track day.

We have found the Pagid Black far superior to the Orange, however, the rotors pay a price. Squeal and dust appear not to be avoided. We change to street pads after every event, half hour of time that includes the change over of wheels and tires as well. Dennis, PFC will have pads for the cars next year. They have the plates and are in development stage. Should be available Spring 2002. (Thank Goodness!) Keith Stockton

Check out the Hawk HPS. I use them on my street car and they don't squeal much and according to the Vendor I got them from (Weston Motorsports) they are good for track days. Greg

You can get Hawk brakes from www.tirerack.com too.

Thank you for the advice. I am going to try the Pagis "s" pad. I have done a little research and this pad is supposed to be similar to the Blue pad they sell which is about as aggressive as you can go without squeel. I have heard bad things about Hawk pads so I am not going to go there. I will undoubtably change to Performance Friction when they become available.

Dennis, Pagid Blues are about the same price as the Oranges. My experience with both indicates to me that the Blues are an OK only combo pad (they don't do either street or track as well as specific pads would), but that the Oranges simply last longer and are a better choice for the track. I used to swap pads between events for street use, but some wobble at the track was blamed by the experts as "conflicting pad materials" on the rotors.. don't know if I'm convinced about that... Keith:"We change to street pads after every event." Now that's not such a bad idea, given that streets are about 1/4th the price of Pagid's, so you could just trash the street pads after every two track days or so and never have a worry! Street pads actually do an ok job at DE events in my experience.

Jim: You misunderstood my earlier post,I like you, change "back to" street pads after every event. I use the Pagid Blacks for now until PFC has the 996 compounds. I have yet to find any trouble with two different compounds on the rotors, however, I have heard that stated before. For the light braking I see on the street I don't think it's much of a concern. Thanks ... Keith

Just an FYI about the PFC pads. I am not sure what compounds they are proposing to make the pads in. I always ran with the 90 compound but just before I sold my other car I swithched to the newer 93 compound and heat cracked a brand new set of cryo Big Red rotors in just two days at Tremblant in Canada. I am not sure if the track had anything to do with it because it was my first day there as well.

Keith, whoops.. guess my mind wasn't engaged on that one... just daydreaming aloud.. Pagids are expensive and maybe for some it makes sense to just go with street pads.. they're cheap, quiet, less dusty, easy on rotors, and probably last about 1/2 as long as race pads, but stop 85% as well.

Just an amplification of what Mr. Sullivan is saying here. If one is not a real track heavy duty track junkie that street pads will work quite well. If not, than chaning them for street vs. track would seem to be the best idea to me. By the way the pads on my new 996TT dust pretty heavily IMHO and they also squeal now and again. Go figure.....They do stop pretty well! So maybe Porsche has different compounds amongst the chassis types.

Hello Dennis. Did you do a proper break in with the New Rotors ? It takes one to two " Break-In " runs to Fully get them ready for Max braking. I have been using PFC 93 for many years with no problems. I run Big Red with Porsche Factory rotors and PFC 93. 20 track days on the rotors this year including many days at Watkins Glen and Pocono( heavy braking tracks) and I use the brakes HARD. The rotors are still in good shape. Warm up the rotors gradually when you start a run over a lap or two before using them HARD and do a proper cool down after a run.BTW, 93 compound has been replaced by 01. They also come in compound 97( replacement/improvement of the 90) Good Luck.

The Pagis "s" compound pads arrived on Friday and I installed them on Saturday. I did not have the opportunity to drive very far that evening but they seam to stop very well, a little more "grabby" than the stock pads and NO Squeel, yet anyway. The only negative so far, no spot for the brake wear sensors to mount! Dennis