sullivs

It is time for new brake rotors and pads, now that the rotors are down to their limit. While shopping around, I have been hearing that the drilled Zimmerman rotors and Cool Carbon pads are the hot set-up. I do two or three Driver Ed's a year, and tours to the Winerys in our area. So I drive about 2-3,000 miles a year.

Anyone have experience with the Cool Carbon brake pads? I have Mintex pads now, and feel the braking level is good. But I could do with a little less squeaking. The dust level is high, but think that is the price I have to pay for the improved braking.

Thanks,
Steve

Bill Gregory

Drilled rotors have a propensity to crack fairly quickly under track conditions, but work OK for street usage. However, if you want holey rotors, you might consider ones that have cast holes (Porsche factory rotors have cast holes), as opposed to being drilled, and if you want them to last the longest possible time, have them cryogenically processed (I used Diversified Cryogenics at www.frozenrotors.com - no affiliation, just satisfied customer. There are others that also do cryogenic processing, too). For your described usage, stock rotors would work fine, or slotted rotors would work fine too. Slotted are stock rotors that have slots etched into them, which helps clear gas and liquids between the pad and the rotor face. I'd still get consider cryogenically processing them for track usage.

Robert Linton

Personally, I'd use one of the Pagid compounds.

ACFOUR

It is my understanding that the Zimmerman "drilled rotors" actually have the holes cast in place and that Zimmerman is the supplier of the factory 993 rotors. If this is true they should be good replacement rotors. The PO of my car had them installed with Mintex pads, but they have limited mileage so I can't comment on their durability.

Bill Verburg

All true, but they will still crack more readily than solid or slotted rotors. Don't get me wrong I use the factory drilled, but they are still going to be more suseptible to cracking.

I'm w/ Robert, Pagids have been tremendously reliable pads for me.

Oddjob

If you want to get rid of the squeaking, dont go with Cool Carbons. And I think you will be hard pressed to find a track compound pad that does not squeak. Of the pads Ive used: Cool Carbon, Porterfield, Pagid, Hawk. Cool Carbons made the most noise, but they all squeak.

Zimmerman may be the OE manufacturer for Porsche Rotors, but they must make the Zimmerman packaged rotors to a different spec (lower quality) than they do for the Porsche parts. I bought a front pair of rotors from a wholesale mailorder distributer in the US (PAP) a few years ago and received one Zimmerman rotor and one Porsche rotor. Not only do the Zimmerman not have the zinc sprayed coating on the hat and edge (so they will rust), for a DE/Track car, the Zimmerman rotor wore out faster and had noticeably more stress/heat cracking than the Porsche rotor. At the time, I spoke with the owner of Diversified Cyrogenics about that and he mentioned that he also believed that the Porsche rotors were a higher quality casting than the Zimmerman rotors.

With all the dealers that advertize 20-30% off list price in Excellence and Pano, I would compare the prices of the Porsche and Zimmerman rotors. I dont think there is a huge savings going with Zimmerman.

sullivs

Thanks for the good advise. I will have to check out the Porsche parts.

Steve