Darkhorse

200 miles and about a week into my brake pad comparison and I have learned one thing. The rotors seem to hold onto brake dust; the front wheel with Hawk Performance Ceramic pads has a black ring of dust in the barrel. It is not as severe as the OEM wheel and the PC wheel face is not as dirty as the OEM wheel face. The photos show that while the PC pads have less overall dust, they have thrown off black dust as well as grey. I think the black dust is what's left in the rotor from the previous OEM pads. Thanks to Petza; since receiving his photos of Hawk PC pads on his wife's car, I am convinced the eventual PC dust will be grey.

I have again, thoroughly cleaned my wheels and will leave the pads on for another couple of hundred miles, or until I feel the need to wash them again.

By The Way: Thanks to all those who have posted about products and methods to minimize brake dust collection on wheels. I plan to implement some of your suggestions when this little comparison is complete and I have all Hawk PC pads.

My wheels and lug bolts need to be refinished. I am leaning towards a dark metallic silver or medium metallic grey, in-between my Meteor Grey Metallic paint and the factory metallic silver wheels. I believe I will go ahead and PC the barrels with the same metallic PC as opposed to using a non-metallic color like Porsche does from the factory.



200 miles with OEM Textar brake pads



200 miles with OEM Textar brake pads


200 miles with OEM Textar brake pads



200 miles with Hawk Performance Cermic brake pads



200 miles with Hawk Performance Ceramic brake pads



200 miles with Hawk Performance Ceramic brake pads

Darkhorse

That would be interesting, but it's a lot more work than I am willing to undertake. Maybe somebody with even more time on their hands than me could step up.

Petza914

In person, the Hawk Ceramic dust is more reddish brown than grey



That dust ring inside the barrel of the wheel is because of the drilled rotors. The pad dust gets forced through the cross-drilled holes then the vanes on the vented rotor sling it out. When you wash wheels, make sure you also rinse out the rotor vane vents of the accumulated dust. This gets even more exaggerated if you drive through the rain and the water rinses that dust out of the vanes. The OEM pad dust is very dark, like a black - the Hawk dust is browner.

This is an interesting test though.

Darkhorse

I am ending the side to side brake pad comparison today.

It has become fairly obvious on my car, and confirmed with Petza914's photos of his wife's car, that Hawk Performance Ceramic brake pads put off less dust than OEM and it is not black. So, I have changed all pads on my 997 to Hawk PC brake pads.

I have a bunch of silver and grey color samples from Prismatic Powders. I will take my wheels in to be powder-coated while the car's in storage for the winter. It will sit on stands for a few weeks.

Thanks for all for your personal strategies for battling brake dust.

I plan to either, add a coat of ceramic nano coating, or maybe just a coat of wax before the refinished wheels go back on my 997. If it's a long, cold winter, I may do both while I have the wheels off and in the basement. I hope to grab a a couple of warm days once the wheels are off and the car is on jack stands, to detail the calipers and suspension components.

ADias

Beyond dust amount and color... what's their performance and rotor wear?

Darkhorse

The new ceramic pads stop just as well, and feel about the same, as the OEM pads. The mew pads make no noise. It is too soon to tell anything about rotor wear. I have been told to expect rotors to wear a little quicker with ceramic than OEM, but I have heard that this comparison is more academic than real world. I only drive this car about 4000 miles per year, so I don't care if the rotors wear a little quicker. They aren't that expensive and should still last years.

I will post again when I have more miles on the pads and again after I powder coat and seal the wheels this winter and start driving again in the spring.