Has anyone had any experience with these?

Product blurb:
Price-wise, these seem to be a happy medium between run-of-the-mill parts store rotors and the high-end rotors folks are using here. Seems these are designed for police-duty applications, so they can't be half bad, right?

 

If your getting them for a Superduty, they are actually Raybestos rotors.

 

But are they decent?

I mean, if they aren't any better than Duralast or other store brands, then I won't bother spending the extra on them.

 

Rotor pricing is so competitive that in many cases you get what you pay for. Plus a little hype. Until you get into slots, holes, and cryo treatment, then it's just perceived value.

Casting of a rotor and the cost of iron is not that expensive. The cost is all in the machining and how tight a tolerance you are going to produce the part.

I really try not to advise on one brand or the other. Just wait for a group of positive responses about the brand you chose, then ask which price level they got.

 

The rotors in question are slotted with chamfered holes. They run about 25-30 bucks more than standard rotors, but a lot less than cryo treated ones.

 

Your not really gaining anything with the slot and holes except for an improvement in wet brake performance where the slots will wipe water away during the initial apply.

Holes are used in applications like autocross where they are trying to reduce weight, but at the risk of developing cracks from the holes.

Slots are fine for wet conditions as mentioned, and for very high temperatures at levels where the friction material will develop gases that keep the pads off the rotors. Unless you are aggressively driving a Superduty in the mountains with a heavy load / trailer or you have large tires, you are not going to see that. And if you are using a performance bases set of pads like Hawk LTS, it's never going to happen.

But if your just going for the look, have at it.

 

No, I'm not really doing it for the look. I just thought it might be a step above the typical parts store rotor. I've put a boatload of money into the front end and can't really afford top-shelf rotors right now.

 

Aren't the slots proved to be efficient only on hard braking from 130 mph?

 

It all depends on the friction material. Unless you are using a full carbon or sintered metallic brake pad it will have some organics in it. The problem is at what temperature and the volume of decomposing gasses are given out.

I've just written this somewhere else. The friction material you are looking at when you takes pads out of the box is not the composition that is stopping your vehicle. Due to the very high heat at the pad/rotor interface (+2000°F) the material turns into a carbon composite, and some of it transfers to the rotor giving the vehicle the very best stopping distance.

After a pad is pressed in a 350°F press it then goes through a post bake cycle, many hours in time and usually higher then the press temperature. That still does not get it up into the altering carbon range. So when the pad is operational on the vehicle, how deep is the temperature getting and how high of a temperature is being achieved?

If the temperature absorption is normal and the organic content is moderate, you can go to moderate temperatures without any off-gassing and never have a hard fade, where the pedal stays high but gasses keep the friction material from touching the rotor.

If the pad does not have the thermal experience that you are about to put it though (first time in mountains) you might get more out-gassing then the rotor can wipe away. If the pad has low organics, no problem with this. If the pad is a cheaper item that uses higher organics, possibly a really big problem. Or if it has some previous high temperature experience like driving inner-city, even a high organic may run through the hills fine.

The quality companies will produce a low orgainic or a longer baked pad for this weight truck, but you are going to have to pay $60+. If you get a cheaper pad, that cost savings will either come from the friction formulation or the heat treating.

Even some performance pads that have low organics need a carbon forming kick-off so they have you go through a bedding in process doing a series of stops in a row.

Superdutys fully loaded to GVW and running in normal suburban traffic get the pads and rotors up to about 350°F. If you run inner-city you are going to see about 800-850°F. If you run thorugh a series of stops like what is required by NHTSA FMVSS 105 production vehicle testing which are 15 stops from 60 to 0mph every 30 seconds with a Superduty at GVW you will get the brakes up to about 1200°F.

Now the OE material passes that test with little fade and so does the majority of expensive pads from major companies. But again the cheaper pads from Autozone/Advance/Napa/etc, IMO I wouldn't try it. And those will need rotor slots to get away from hard fade. If you get a quality brake pad you don't need the expense of slotted rotors. But keep in mind that all aftermarket companies sell a range of product lines. And the industry is so competitive that like rotors, price matters.

But a lot of people who drive their trucks at light load and used as daily drivers can be fine with a cheaper product. Unfortunately there are no aftermarket standards for brake pads like there is in Europe, so price is the best judge. Do you need $135 pads, can you get away with $80 pads, or will $35 pads be OK for what you do.

Confuse you enough with even more head scratching?

 

Holy crap, Batman! That's a lot of good info! Thanks for taking the time to explain it.

In my case- I've already purchased the pads- I bought them at the same time I bought the hub bearing assemblies. They are the Motorcraft Extreme Duty pads. There were a bunch of positive reviews on them as far as good stopping power, low brake dust and long wear.

In my situation, with the front end project already over-budget and the pads already purchased, what rotor(s) should I be looking at that will give me a good compromise between decent life, good stopping ability and without breaking the bank? The truck will be driven daily, towing a load frequently, and will see the mountains of Kentucky with a boat in tow 3 or 4 times a year.

 

How do you know you need new rotors? Unless you are bad driver, those things last for several hundreds thousands.

 

I've only recently purchased the truck, knowing it needed front end work (truck had 36" Swampers on a stock 200K+ front end). The rotors are grooved something fierce. Also, it is an early 99 model and I am swapping to the late-style hub bearing assemblies- which require late-style rotors to work.

 

Those actually are very good pads and a lot of fleet operators like them. These guys run heavy all the time. The pads also have a higher temperature noise insulator then the standard Motorcraft item.

You could try going with the Motorcraft rotors. Like the pads, they are made by Federal-Mogul who also sells products under the Wagner name. However to supply to Ford Motorcraft they are machined to a higher standard then you would get going directly to Wagner. Same with the pads, the Motorcraft is not the same as the Wagner. I think a very good discount on the Motorcraft rotors would end up in the $80-90 range. Can be higher if it's a 2WD.

Sometimes you can get good prices from on-line sources like Tasca, but with the shipping that can be a hindrance unless there is a local on-line seller. Some dealer parts counter will work with you to price match to a source like that or at least come close.

No matter whose rotors you end up purchasing the most important things in preventing pulsation down the road is to check the installed runout and index the rotors to achieve the lowest amount, and make sure you torque down the wheels in a stepped sequence, both in torque steps and around the hub. For a SD, I go every third lug nut, and torque in steps of 80, 120 and finally 165lbft. That is complete all nuts at 80 then repeat the skip sequence and go to 120, etc. Not as important with the stock aluminum wheels used on the SD, but critical with the steel wheels. The service manual stated the runout should be no more then 0.0015" TIR. We used to get ours in below 0.0010" normally.

The other thing that is my own personal preference is after a week of running, I loosen the lug nuts and repeat the tightening sequence. If there were any residual stresses in the new rotors, they would be relieved after the initial heat soaks so I try to normalize the clamping force afterwards.

Now you're not going to do the repeat stepped sequence with a DRW since the bolts are on the inner side of the hub. And the DRW inner hub bolts only get torqued to 89lbft if I'm not mistaken, so there my sequence is 50 then 89lbft.