Hey, so a lot of companies now sell rotors w/ a little zinc in them to prevent them from rusting. Has anyone heard if the zinc makes the surface w/ less friction resulting in less stopping power.

 

The coating is only on the surface of the rotor. (Some vendors use cadmium). Again, it only affects the surface of the rotor. And it will not affect stopping power or distance.



When you use the rotors,...only the area that comes in contact w/ the brake pad gets scrubbed off. This area, will just be bare metal now. No coating to protect it from rust. But, this area gets scrubbed clean when you apply the brakes. So, no rust problem here.



The areas where the rotors do not come in contact w/ the pads, will stay rust free (like the "hat" area).

 

thanks, put on new rotors(cross drilled / slotted), and hawk HPS pads, motul, stainless steel brakelines. I tend to think the setup is actually worse than stock, and seemed to fade faster. Perhaps it was the zinc getting scrubbed off?????



I did the 'break in' of a few short trips around town, before hammmering them.

 

try bleeding the brakes again. maybe the pads need to be hotter to work better?

 

Hawk pads need to be quite hot before they work well- also, the cross drilling & slotting means you have less initial stopping force due to less area of the rotor coming in contact with the pad.

 

crossdrilled and slotted will eat your hawk pads like its a big mac..... and you'll have black wheels by next week

 

well yeah they are black.



I heated hawk HPS up, way up, they faded and when i parked they smoked(literally) for 5 min. rotors didn't warp, which is good news. which why i asked about the zinc plating on rotors initially on the thread.

 

can you link us to the manufacturer of your rotors?

 

they are brembo knockoffs sold via irotors.com

 

Weird... I run Hawk hps pads on the street. I have KVR slotted and cadmium plated rotors and use Motul RBF 600 bluid. I also have SS lines. Stops pretty damn good and don't fade on the street. PErhaps you didn't bed the pads properly? You need to do a few gentle stops from like 30-40 mph, then let the car sit till the pads and rotors cool (e-brake off) to bed them properly. Maybe you goofed u0p the bleeding procedure?