[Raptor22]

So a few days ago watching a car repair/upgrade show, one of the advertisements for upgrades, they showed a upgrade brake kit, supposedly the make them to fit the particular vehicle when ordering.... So I saw that and looked them up, I now have a few questions... Has anyone heard of a brand called Power Stop? the kit they where saying that would work, was Z23 Evolution kit.. slotted & drilled rotors, and carbon ceramic pads.... they SAY that its like an OEM bolt on...and acording to the almighty amazon auto page, it SAYS that it fits our trucks..... Ive always wanted to upgrade the brakes on this thing so I can then stop better once I upgrade the engine..... but Im unsure of them? Does anyone know about them?

[ame]https://www.amazon.com/Power-Stop-K7228-Evolution-Drilled/dp/B0741XJ6F4/ref=sr_1_1?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1510083428&sr=1-1&keywords=power+stop+z23+K7228[/ame]

 

[.boB]

First off, most of those auto shows are infomercials for their primary sponsors. Fun to watch, but take them with a grain of salt.


Power Stop has been around for a long time, and they make quality products. Some of their parts are OEM replacements, some are cheap, and some are a couple of steps above OEM. Be sure and read the specs before buying.


Drilled rotors are for bling only. They will NOT improve braking performance. The holes will create noise and vibration, and will propagate stress cracks and shorten the life of the rotors.


The slots are for racing, and have no place on a street car or truck. They will create a lot of dust, and significantly shorten the life of your pads.


If you want to improve your braking, start by getting a quality brake pad that matches you driving habits.

 

[alphaecho4386]

The Colorado has some impressive stoppers to begin with. Its the only truck that has 4 piston calipers. That's a huge upgrade compared to most things. And as stated, especially on a working vehicle, slotted or drilled rotors are just going to cause issues down the road.

If you feel the need to have a better, stronger bite, look at new pads, which will have a higher heat tolerance against fade, as well as a grippier "first bite". OEMS, generally aim for pads that are a one stop deal. low bite so its not jerky, and a compound that stops well when the rotor is cool (think driving for miles on the freeway, then one panic stop). Aftermarket pads usually don't do as well, as they are optimized for high temps with repeated application (think track or canyon carving).

 

[Raptor22]

would the carbon ceramic pad create dust? i thought they dont do that due to the pad composition.. I drive aggressively, and when I add my planed upgrades to the engine I still want to stop and typically I drive only in town (lots of horrendously bad drivers here)... whats the point of engine upgrades if you dont do one of the most important things? what kind of pad would then help then? My old car did not have any upgrade options at all so I've never done any upgrades, until I got this truck, and I want to be safe about my stupidness.

 

[alphaecho4386]

Heres an example. I have used Hawk pads on most of my previous cars. I haven't looked to them for the colorado, but as an example, you can see what different pads and compounds do for friction and heat

As an example, take a look at the chart below, an OEM pad has almost maximum friction at room temperature. Moving to the right, you can see some pads require nearly 300degrees of rotor temp to even produce some initial friction.

Its good that you want to upgrade the brakes in line with performance modifications, but be sure to get a pad that works for your driving style. "Track only" pads arent necessarily better than a street/sport pad, and can be downright dangerous just cruising around town.

 

[Raptor22]

Well apparently hawk does not make any pads for our trucks atm...

 

[alphaecho4386]

Also, the trucks are designed to tow 7K + pounds and carry 1500lbs of stuff, so "hot rodding" around town empty, you should have plenty of braking capacity, so I probably wouldn't get too worked up about it as GM did a pretty good design of the braking system. But if you find some nice options be sure to post em!

 

[Raptor22]

problem is, where do I look for said upgrades... I dont really know what is best or if im getting ripped off.... from what it seems like though, AC Delco does have ceramic pads for our trucks and there are others with ceramic pads as well.. I just hate being the guinea pig, to test out what works and what doesn't.. i don't make too much money right now to do so

 

[alphaecho4386]

Id keep what you have, and look down the road. Doesn't seem like there's many options on the market right now. And the cheap ceramic really are'nt much different. I think you'll be flushing money away.

As more 3rd party people get into building parts for the truck more options might come available.

 

[KMW]

I realize toy are going to "upgrade the engine", but are you then going to be reaching your truck on a track, or still just normal daily driving it on the street? No matter what you do to the bootie, just driving it on the street its not like you're suddenly going to be going any faster than you are now, so stopping needs won't be any different. Now if you're going to run it in autocross or something, then you would definitely need to deal with heat.

These trucks really do have awesome brakes as they are for what they are made to do.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[streak07]

Ceramic pads don't improve braking, they reduce dust. Something's gotta give when converting energy to heat, either rotor or pad dust. A pad promising less dust can't really promise improved braking unless it's such an aggressive pad it eats rotors (definitely not a characteristic of ceramics). Most ceramics reduce braking performance but since people don't drive to the limits of their pads they don't notice. EBC has pads for our trucks, I would go yellowstuff.

The Z23 stuff is just a stock size replacement, I would never run drilled rotors on anything and slotted are pointless on a street vehicle. Slotted helps remove pad glazing which to me is only a real issue if you have something else wrong, pads shouldn't be glazing all the time. Slotted also make noise when the pad face hits it, so add 4-8 tick noises every wheel rotation. I also wouldn't run a ceramic pad on a truck since they don't like extended high temps. Not a characteristic you want in a tow vehicle but if someone never tows and only cares about wheel cleaning then have at it.

I don't like the pads on these trucks either because they lack initial bite and it takes a lot of pedal to get it to brake. But right now I'm too cheap to throw out relatively new pads on a vehicle with a bunch of highway miles. I prefer vehicles with touchy brakes from my tracking addiction. Unless someone makes a kit that is physically bigger then just get a different pad and add DOT 4 fluid in place of the garbage DOT 3. A rotor does nothing for stopping distance, it can only be improved for how it disperses heat based upon metallurgy and airflow. That doesn't change braking distance, only repeatability and reduced fade. A bigger rotor is just a bigger heat sink.

 

[Raptor22]

Ok cool. I didnt know anything about ceramic pads, thanks for that info.. Ill check out those EBC yellows when I have a bit more miles on my oem pads... unfortunately im going to have to wait a little longer to swap them, at least for the rears, since GM warranty replaced the pads for me when they were squealing long before they were supposed to, due to a shim falling out of place and scoring the pad and rotor

 

[hyperv6]

I work in the performance aftermarket and deal with almost all the major brands.

SSB is a great unit that mostly is best suited for the upgrade of muscle cars.

Wilwood is great for racing and oe applications.

As far as I reacall off the top of my head there are no specific kits for our truck yet. You can get parts to upgrade but some fabrication on caliper brackets and e brake may be needed.

I agree with above the best things invest in better brake pads.

Hawk is a great brand as is EBC. The Red pads are low dust.

The truth is all pads have dust but they use lighter colors to better mask the dust. Brake have to give off dust to work.

Don’t waste money on the drilled rotors as a solid rotor absorbs more heat and the holes vent nothing. They were good years ago with organic pads that out gasses but today that no longer happens.

Slotted are ok for truck that off road as the clean the rotors of mud.

Put the money in the pads and move on.

 

[gmc16]

dont mean to take this off topic, but the best upgrade to improve braking and acceleration is stickier tires. pads, rotors, fluid, etc will improve (or worsen) the affect that heat has on brake use. they may change pedal feel a little and you might get slightly shorter stopping distances, but tires have the biggest affect on braking. also, stickier tires wear out faster.

 

[hyperv6]

dont mean to take this off topic, but the best upgrade to improve braking and acceleration is stickier tires. pads, rotors, fluid, etc will improve (or worsen) the affect that heat has on brake use. they may change pedal feel a little and you might get slightly shorter stopping distances, but tires have the biggest affect on braking. also, stickier tires wear out faster.

Tires at the track are fine on a sports car. We are taking trucks here and tires really are not an option.

You also can go to even more aggressive pads but then you have to get heat into them to work and the eat rotors. Again not what you want on a truck.

One thing too we left out is braided brake hoses. On a 4 wheel disc set up they really can give you a firmer pedal, this leads to a little more braking force and modulation. Drum systems not so much.

 

[Janster]

Don’t waste your time on ‘bolt on’ brake upgrades unless you plan on doing it 100%. And what I mean by that is..... truly better brakes would be bigger rotors, bigger calipers, bigger master cylinder and bigger proportioning valve’s and perhaps bigger booster.

All too often, I see folks putting bigger rotors & calipers on, but they fail to change out the master cylinder & prop valueing. People tend to forget that the master cylinder is what drives the fluid and they are rated/sized to the cylinder capacity (per say).

I would stick with what others have already said - stick with changing the pads, and/or rotors via keeping them the OEM size. Another thing to consider - stainless braided brake lines. Stainless lines will help prevent any ‘expantion’ that the rubber lines may encounter during hard braking.

 

[16WhiteColly]

IMO, the best brakes you can buy are the stock GM, that came on it. As far as ceramic pads, all I have seen them do is create dust and eat rotors. Do NOT like them at all. Drilled rotors eat pads.

 

[GANCanyon]

What kind of ceramic pads are you using that create a lot of brake dust?

You what to see a lot of brake dust? The oem pads on my A4 are bad. I clean my car every few weeks, but have to clean the wheels weekly. After a week, the wheels have turned from silver to dark dray.

 

[hyperv6]

Well just saying Ceramic pads and dust is not how it works.

All pads leave dust. It is the nature of the beast. If you did not lose material the vehicle would not stop. Think of the like erasers as they lose material to create friction.

If you want less dust look for low dust pads.

The thing is while they really are not low dust they give off a lighter color of dust that does not show.

EBC Red pads are like this as make dust but is is such a light color you do not see the effects as much.

The pads on my Denali tend to be like this. My old HHR SS used pads that would make the wheels black in 12 miles. I changed it to Reds and it was much better.

Also the type of wheel can effect how it shows up on the wheel. Most often depending on how the style is and how the air foes in the wheel.

Another thing is Carbon Fiber and ceramic based pads. There are many offered but there is a catch.

The catch is the total content of the paternal can vary. There is no ruling that says they have to have a specific content to claim to be Ceramic or such.

The cheaper pads can have a low content of Ceramic and then use a large amount of carbon fillers. The more expensive pads tend to use much less carbon in their pads and more Ceramic or Carbon Fiber.

Also Carbon Fiber is only available from Dupont. EBC gets it from them and the last I heard they were the only brake customer. So where the others are getting it and the quality?

I got to sit down with the head of EBC and have friends at Hawk brakes. They come clean on these details and it can prove very interesting.

The head of EBC is a very no nonsense British gentlemen. He knows his brakes inside and out and is very upfront on what they do and why.

He told me the truth on vented rotors. Then he said you are wondering why we sell dimpled and slotted? He said we sell them because they make money. But he refuses to sell drilled due to liability.

 

[gmc16]

Tires at the track are fine on a sports car. We are taking trucks here and tires really are not an option.

You also can go to even more aggressive pads but then you have to get heat into them to work and the eat rotors. Again not what you want on a truck.

One thing too we left out is braided brake hoses. On a 4 wheel disc set up they really can give you a firmer pedal, this leads to a little more braking force and modulation. Drum systems not so much.

i think the overall wisdom still holds true no matter the vehicle. there are some options out there (although not many) and different compounds and tread patterns will definitely produce different results on the road. a tire on a truck on the street performs the same function as a tire on a sports car on a track.