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Which Brake Rotors?

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tom628

Senior Member
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I need to replace the brake rotors on my '76 TR6, and I see that three types are available thru various suppliers:
* a no-brand generic type;
* Brembo, at about double the price of the no-brand;
* cross-drilled, at about three times the price of the no-brand.

I don't want to buy a low quality rotor to save a few bucks in the short term, but I'd like some advice as to whether the Brembo's are of significantly higher quality, and in what way.

Also, is there any advantage (for spirited street use) of going with the cross-drilled /slotted rotors. ISTR previous comments that they would not have noticeably better performance.

Thanks for passing on any experience you may have had.

Tom
 
No matter what anyone tells you, there is no advantage to going cross-drill/slotted rotors for a street car... maybe for a track car.. and only if the rotors are specifically designed for the task (like a Porsche or Ferrari might have). Otherwise they just look cool and last about half as long as the solid versions because there is less metal and they tend to start cracking.

Get a nice quality solid rotor with good pads and you'll do fine.

-s
 
:iagree:

Heat cracking WILL occur with cross-drilled rotors, racing teams REPLACE rotors regularly. If you're willing to do that at three times the cost of a solid one, it "looks cool" but has no advantage. Matter of fact, with less swept area (missing material) and non-competition pads the braking would be LESS efficient.

Brembo's for this li'l duck. They make rotors for about every car outta Europe. I don't have a good "baseline" for evaluating the Chinese ones, but I'd guess the metallurgy to be something I'd not want to depend on.

<span style="font-style: italic">Disclaimer: I have NO animosity toward <span style="font-weight: bold">Chinese metallurgists</span>.</span>
 
+1 on avoiding the cross drilled bling-bling. I'd say 'it depends' on the generic rotors. Most of the Spec Miata racers use parts store rotors with no problems. I bought a pair of rear rotors for the Miata ($11 each!) and they were made in Italy. Want to speculate by whom? A set of parts store rotors for an RX-7 were made in Canada (front) and Italy (rear). These have seen exclusively track use and they've been fine.
 
Yeah, but you guys are forgetting how cool those drilled rotors sound... Something about that zzzzzzzzzzzz sound just sounds bitchen!
 
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