Of which I'm well aware. I have squeaked by on street tires in the S2k with OEM pads, I figured HPS would *at least* be a tiny step up from that. But they were a HUGE step in the other direction!

Well, Hawk HPS is going to be the same compound whether on a Civic DX or S2000 so its no surprise to me the stock S2000 pads were better as Honda knew what they were building the car for.

When you get into the realm of a performance flagship model you will find the OEM stuff is better than stock replacement 99% of the time.

 

OEM pads are first and foremost long-wearing, low-dusting, low-noise, low-temp compounds. Even on "performance" cars they are barely suited or not suited at all for tracking. Ask any 370Z owner!

IMO, it was not terribly unreasonable of me to assume that HPS would offer a bit more high-temperature braking performance than OEM S2k pads while possibly sacrificing some low-temp capability and noise

But in any case, the HPS are suck pads, period. Sub-par when stone cold, utterly useless/dangerous when warm/hot. I would bet a beer that OEM Civic DX pads are better for that application than HPS.