I am looking into getting upgraded rotors for my FD, which type of brake rotors performes best slotted or cross drilled?

 

Performance is about equal. Reliability or durability wise, the cross-drilled has a tendency to crack more so than the slotted under extreme conditions....I think the slotted look better.

 

Julio,

It depends on what you mean by "upgrade". If you're looking for aesthetics either slotted or cross-drilled rotors look good.

If you're looking for track performance, non-slotted, non-drilled rotors will be much better. The reason is the iron in the rotors serves to "heat-sink" the heat generated from the friction between pad and rotor. The more metal, the more heat-sinking capacity, the better the cooling efficiency, the more laps you can turn before brake-fade sets in.

There's one guy I know (Greg Stasiowski, 94 Base, One Lap of America 2000 competitior) who's tried cross-drilled rotors at the track. Both times I saw him his day was cut short due to the cracks that formed along the drillled holes. The only way to have reliable performance is to go with the Porsche big brake kit. The Porsche rotors have holes casted in them rather being drilled. The casted holes do not crack.

If you can't afford the Porsche big brake kit, you can still have solid and bigger rotors with an M2 Performance 6-piston brake kit. This kit with larger non-drilled, non-slotted rotors work even better in removing the heat (See www.m2performance.com, click on brakes/suspension).

If you can't afford the M2 Performance brake upgrade, your best bet is to go with the CWC F1-style front brake ducts with the factory brake rotors and calipers. Gordon Monson says these ducts work so well, that his racing pads actually need to be used hard, to generate enough heat for the pads to work!

With the brake ducts, you could use an HP Plus or R4-S pad material, instead of their racing-only counterparts. The street/track duty pads tend to be easier on rotors due to a slightly softer pad compound compared with their racing-only counterparts (Blues and R4s, respectively). The softer compound can be maintained at their optimum operating temps under track conditions, with the extra cooling air from the ducts!

 

Manny is correct on the cross drilled, they tend to crack with the heat cycling in racing. The actual Brembo rotors have the holes cast into them, and are much much less likely to crack. You can buy the brembos from many dealers, check with Jason at the rx7store.com for some prices.

eric