Souping up brakes?

[lectraplayer]

I was thinking about souping up my brakes on my '96 Taurus by drilling holes. I must pull the left disk off anyway because I need to replace one of the studs (broke one when pulling the wheel off to change the brake pads) as I cannot find a place to stick the stud in from the back. I am thinking about an offsetting paturn of 4 holes, then 3 holes, with each set radially alligned every 15 or 7.5 degrees. I've already drilled one hole in the disk to check and see how the brake pads would wear (and have noticed nothing out of the ordinary within the first week of driving it like this, short of a slight metal finish near where the hole crosses the pad, but that will likely go away). Any ideas or suggestions on a better paturn, comments, or anything? Even a tip for getting the stud in without pulling the disk would be appreciated.

[wrightz28]

Unless you're using a wet drill or cnc, sounds like a recipe for disaster

[shorod]

And if you use the brakes aggressively enough to warrant cross drilling, you will probably see cracks start to form from one hole to another.

-Rod

[lectraplayer]

Bad idea, huh?

[way2old]

In my opinion, if you want really good, longlasting brakes, spend the money and go cyrogenic. We use them on our pursuit vehicles and do not have to turn rotors when we do brakes. We match them up with Performance Friction pads and have not have any problems. We also went from replacing pads every 12k to almost 40k on same vehicle with same driver. Do a web search for them and read up. They are not for everybody due to the cost factor, but if you want good long lasting brakes, may want to check them out.

[lectraplayer]

Originally Posted by way2old

In my opinion, if you want really good, longlasting brakes, spend the money and go cyrogenic. We use them on our pursuit vehicles and do not have to turn rotors when we do brakes. We match them up with Performance Friction pads and have not have any problems. We also went from replacing pads every 12k to almost 40k on same vehicle with same driver. Do a web search for them and read up. They are not for everybody due to the cost factor, but if you want good long lasting brakes, may want to check them out.

That cost factor pretty much defeats the purpose of what I'm trying to do. I'm looking for ways to hop up my car some without spending a load of money. After hearing about how "doing a brake job" could improve the performance of cars (and they would tell that making it go faster was easy, but bigger performance gains could be realized by effectively decelerating the car from its maximum, which takes skill and special equipment), as well as the safety aspect of being able to stop sooner as needed (handy when the guy in front of you plows on their breaks, as I had one person do after pulling out in front of me). Many of these articles would then equate the performance break rotors to standard rotors with holes drilled in them. While I obviously don't want to tear anything up, as a broken rotor can leave me plowing into that guy who did the swerve and stoop anyway, I just want to be able to stop quicker if needed, without a bunch of ripping out and replacing. Longer pad life was not expected. Have you found it less expensive to put in the more expensive stuff and replace it less often as you mentioned? With the mentioning of cracks, I may choose a 3X2 every 15 or 30 degrees paturn or may leave it as is. This car has over 100K miles on it, and putting expensive, high-performance breaks may be wasteful. That's something I may consider for a new F-150 or something, but not an old sedan. I think most break rotors are heat-treated anyway, aren't they?

[shorod]

You may want to check for a cryogenic business in your area. We have one here is Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Not exactly a major metropolis, so they may be more common in larger cities as well. For around $40 they will treat a pair of rotors when they make their next run and have available space. Yeah, it may take a month for you to get the rotors back, but can't complain about the price. Will do the same with tranny gears, driveline parts, etc.

-Rod