At the end of the day, remember, its your tires that stop your car, not your brakes. This is true up until the point where fade becomes an issue, and it's my opinion that fade should really not be an issue on the street unless there is something wrong with your brakes or you are driving too agressively for public roads.
For street purposes, I also enjoy the high coefficient of friction that is provided by many after market pads. I've used EBC Greens, Ultimates, and even Panther Plus (because I'm too lazy to change them between track sessions) on the street. All of these pads give more response to pedal pressure than Nissan pads with very little warm up.
But the high coeffficient of friction just allows you to lock up your wheels with less pedal pressure, giving you the illusion of massive stopping power. Which is great -- as I said I like this feeling. But don't fool yourself into thinking that you are shortening your stopping distance -- this is limited by your tires. There are three tradeoffs to think about when getting this responsive feel to pedal pressure -- 1) increased brake dust; and 2) reduced life of pad -- which translates into cost, especially if you buy new rotors or machine your old ones for new pads; and 3) brake balance front to rear.
Depending on how your car is set up (springs and struts) it may be prone to locking up the rear wheels at threshold braking. Upgraded springs and struts will reduce the pitching of weight onto the front wheels during hard braking, as will smooth braking technique, working against the tendency to lock up the rears. In any case, by increasing the coefficient of friction with an upscale front pad and not putting a comparable pad on the rear, we are increasing the braking bias toward the front axle. This may give you more stopping ability by getting more out of your front brakes before your rears lock up -- or even causing the fronts to lock up first (which is preferable to having the rears lock up to avoid spins). At track days, for example, my fronts will generally lock up first when I am running Panther Plus on the front and Ultimates on the rear with Hypercoils and Koni reds.
So, when considering brake pad alternatives you may be as interested in front to rear bias as much as how quickly the brakes respond to pedal pressure. Just something to be aware of when changing pads.
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Originally Posted by billc 
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