Just finished up some mods to my 2005 S. Replaced the slippery all-season tires with Bridgestone RE-11A in 205/55 x 16. It immediately became evident that the tires were better than the suspension, so Koni FSD shocks and an Alta 22mm rear sway bar were added. As the front brakes were worn paper thin, some beautiful drilled Stop-Tech rotors were installed, front and rear, with Red Stuff brake pads.

The car is incredibly well-balanced, but naturally drives entirely different than stock. It understeers slightly upon turn-in when hard cornering, but I can probably dial that out, if I want to, by moving the sway bar to a stiffer setting.

Bottom line is that these mods were definitely worth the increase in expense over dull factory replacement parts!

 

Which Stop-Tech rotors did you get, cryo-treated or normal? How are they holding up so far? I have some new EBC red pads on some ATE rotors that are pretty much toast now and I'm looking for some performance rotors that are easy on the wallet.

 

Man, I need to get rid of my YellowStuff pads and go with RedStuff.

 

Good to hear you are happy!! Everything involves tradeoffs.....and being happy when done is a great thing!!

 

Very different pads.... yellow stuff is mostly a track pad...less grippy...but longer lasting....and the most recent red stuff (key here most recent) is more of a fast street. Kind of a different class of pads....

 

The Stop Tech rotors are SportStop Drilled Rotors. They have been great over the first thousand miles.

http://www.tirerack.com/brakes/brakes.jsp?make=StopTech&model=SportStop+Drilled+R otor&group=Cross-Drilled+Replacement+Rotor&partNum=128.34067L&autoM ake=Mini&autoModel=Cooper+S&autoYear=2005&autoModC lar=

 

I just picked up a set of stop-tech powerslot rotors from helix. They were very reasonably priced.