Very interesting read for sure. I never paid much attention to brakes so
some of this is new to me. I know a few guys that have had cross-drilled rotors on their cars for years without problems of cracking and yet I know someone that has gone threw a few sets of cross-drilled rotors because of cracking, again probably to do with the quality of the metal and how the rotors were drilled. That is just common sense I guess. You get what you pay for. But the thing that I hadn't much paid attention to was the notion that cross-frilled rotors actually won't cool as quickly. It would be easy to assume that they would cool quicker, which is what I always thought because they have vents in them. However it makes sense that less material would have less of an ability to spread and or dissipate the heat. I think that the cross-drilled rotors might actually cool a bit quicker when the car is parked
after a hot driving session as these rotors would have more surface-area exposed to the outside air, but again at the expense of material structure and longevity of the rotor as there is less material. But maybe because their is less material they would heat up quicker and therefore any benefits of "not-in-use" cooling would be negated because of these higher "in-use" operating temperatures?? Cross-drilling to lose weight seems a bit silly to me because how much weight are you actually going to lose and would it be worth it. I wonder if these type of rotors might be good in drag racing as every bit of weight lost at the corners of your vehicle is a good thing, but at the same time you wouldn't have to worry about cooling or wear as the brakes only get used to stop at the end of the quarter or eighth mile. Very interesting stuff indeed.
As far as "gas-slotted" rotors. I was always taught that they were better than cross-drilled and were ideal for moderate to heavy use application. However I remember learning at some point years ago that slotting is good only up to a certain point and when done properly. I was taught that slotting helps to cool the brake but if the brake pad is cooled too much than you are heading in the wrong direction. See, brake pads, from what I've learned, need to be kept in a happy medium. Cold pads don't bite very well and hot pads have a risk of glazing over, thus lowering their effective abilities to allow optimum friction with the rotor. So if the slotting of the rotors takes away too much heat then the brakes wont bite as efficiently. Again, I assume that this is just common-sense and a happy medium.
I have vented solid disc rotors and have never had any problems with them. When my car ceases to be a DD and becomes a track/weekend car, hopefully next year, I will switch to vented and gas-slotted rotors. However if you have "vented" solid disc two-piece rotors as apposed to solid one-piece rotors you are probably one-step ahead of the game and better off. My guess is if you want to stop better and be safe stick with slotted, but if you don't want to go that far you can always just upgrade your brakes with braided lines and with a better brake fluid to allow more pressure to safely get to your caliper.
All of the links posted above by Ben and everyone else has really got me thinking. I love reading stuff like this.
I am by no means a brake expert, just sharing some thoughts I've had after reading some of the posts and going off of my experiences.
And thank-god I remembered to use copy and paste because I just wrote a hell of a lot of stuff!!!
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