It's time to do brakes. I have managed to warp the crap out of my front rotors. Don't want to drop a ton of money on a Wilwood BBK (maybe one day). I just need advice on a rotor/pad combo. I heard of WMW Rotors/EBC Pads. Centric Rotors/Hawk Pads. What do you guys suggest? I don't go to the track every week, mainly street driving. And able to stop at high speeds. ~130mph lol. I also run OEM 16 inch wheels

 

OEM blanks with carbotech AX6 or OEM blanks with Centric posi quiet ceramic pads those pads will stop you faster than OEM

alternatively you could do centric blanks with the above pads

dont buy drilled or slotted rotors, they do nothing for performance, drilled rotors crack(see OEM cars with drilled rotors) and slots cheese-grade your brakepads so they dont last as long, if you dont believe me the TLDR with brakes is that it turns kinetic energy into thermal energy, your brake rotor acts like a heatsink because your brakes can not get too hot because you risk fade and glazing the pads and rotors operate better with even heat distribution across the entire surface area of the rotor and there is a fine line between too much material and too little material, slots and drilled rotors take away material in order to get the look and with drilled rotors, heat is distributed unevenly creating heat checks(which leads to cracks)

OEM brakes will stop you when you're going 150mph(which i have done in my stock mini cooper s well basically stock, it only had an intake at the time) so you could go that route but thats expensive

dont buy into BBKs as well, they are only really for looks, OEM brakes with pads and rotors will do a much better job stopping then BBKs

 

Just about any rotor should serve you, but I agree with the no drilled or no slotted comments above.


I LOVE the EBC Red pads. great stopping power from street through autocross.

 

i have centric rotors and akebono pads all around and they brake great. i also do autox and they do well there too.

 

As long as I get no problems with warping.
What do you guys think of the kits from fast mini? They are all currently on sale. Centric rotors with hawk pads I believe. http://www.fastmini.net/combokits.html

Or the EBC Kit.
http://www.waymotorworks.com/ebc-red-brake-package-r55-r56-r57-cooper-s.html

 

I've heard great feedback on the Hawks but have no experience with them. I've ran the EBC green Kevlar pads on my first gen Cooper and the red ceramics on my R56. The reds are a great performing pad and seem to make almost zero dust compared the factory pads and the greens.

At one point in time EBC was having a problem with the pad debonding from the backing plate. I believe they made it right for those that it happened to and changed the bonding agent and process. Haven't heard of any issues since.

 

I have the WMW rotors with the EBC red pads. Works great! I punish them hard on canyon roads and never had any sort of brake fade. Dust is also extremely low with them. I will be buying that package again.

 

warping is caused by overheating the brakes, so as long as you use a quality blank rotor and keep brakes in check servicing them when they need service(you might have warped your rotors by having rears that were dead or almost dead making the fronts overheat and overwork since the rear was not stopping) you will be fine, and as far as those pads, EBC is a good pad, i never ran them but i hear nothing but good things, hawk on the other hand i hear different opinions(both good and bad but mostly bad) and it seems like one of those pads where if you love it, you love it and if you hate it, you hate it

if you can find this online(separate or a kit), i had really good results on my nismo 370z with centric posiquiet ceramic pads and when the mini needs brakes(idk whats on there now) im moving to centric posiquiets ceramic pads

you can also find those pads for cheap($40-50 for a set and about $100 for a full brake job)

 

Have always heard good things about centric premium....
Currently running centric high carbon premium....was about $+2 more each than regular centric rotors last time I got them on amazon....one warning..the "will it fit feature" on Amazon is useless for mini's....so go by product part numbers that you know you need if you go that route...some vendors do offer full car brake kits to get stuff that pair well at a discount.....one stop shopping...better choice for most...
As for pads.....I have Akeenoboono on the front (not a track pad) and posi+quiet on the back...
I would suggest that the posi-quiet is not a track/suto-x pad...and to go with a hawk/ebc/etc pad...
What you are asking for is the holy grail of brakes...good and cheap that work on the track.......to get a pad that will deal with auto-x will cost ya a bit more...they are a speciality item...
Some love the tradeoffs of the ebc-reds/hawks....
For my nontracked car/non-auto x car...I went the dustfree front/near dust free rear as mentioned...feel is fine...but I have no doubt a track day would reduce them to ash...

 

Our Rotor and EBC combo works great and what we use here on all our customer cars.
http://www.waymotorworks.com/wmw-red...-cooper-s.html

I never use hawk pads as they always come back to bite me. They either are noisey, or just have no bite and not work the extra $$.