What's Your Favorite Rotor & Pad Combos?

If this DD continues to hold up, next project will be replacing the rotors and brake pads. Not prepared to spend the money for a set of Brembo's, but would like to upgrade from OEM. What combinations have worked well for you? Have slotted and/or drilled rotors been worth the money for you?

The best bang youll get for your dollar is to either upgrade to 12 inch rotors and keep your stock calipers, or get downright crazy and upgrade to 12 inch rotors and F-body twin-piston calipers.

If you search using my user name its been discussed before. There are also a lot of topics on this on websites related to other W-body vehicles such as the Grand Prix, Regal, Impala, and Monte Carlo...if youre interested but cant find good info post back here and Ill help you out, but right now I have to go eat haha.

Slotted rotors are a waste of money, they're purely aesthetic. I just replaced my rotors with the cheapest ones autozone carried and used autozone ceramic pads. Works fantastic.

EDIT: Oops, meant to say drilled rotors. Don't know if the slotted ones are any better though.

I have heard promising things in the past about slotted rotors, but not drilled ones...its always a topic of debate.

I personally dont really have an opinion on the matter, but I can see how slotted rotors would better deal with things like the gases created from braking, and water on the rotors, but...the big thing with drilled rotors is of course the heat dissipation, but unless you happen to road race your Intrigue on the weekends, I dont think thats much of an issue either.

Also, something to think about with drilled rotors is that some are cast with the holes in them (the expensive ones) and some have them drilled in them after casting (the cheap ones) which understandably makes them weaker and prone to cracking, etc.

This is all just stuff Ive heard mostly, so dont take it as gospel.

But yeah, your most noticeable improvement will probably come from the bigger rotors, I think theres a couple people besides myself that have done so, and hopefully they can comment, and like I said, its a popular mod in the W-body world, so Im sure you can find some testimonials.

I recently got ATE PremiumOne 12" rotors up front. I already had the stock sized ones on the back (for at least a year or more now) and liked them. Not only do they look good (circular slots), but they seem to be holding up really well and the braking is great compared to stock. I dunno what my pads are though, cause they are whatever came with the 12" caliper kit from a popular W-body upgrade place (can't remember if I can mention stores names on this forum - PM me if you want some info regarding the vendor). On the back I have Hawk HPS something or anothers that are pretty good. Overall, I'm impressed with the pedal feel and brake performance of my setup and the stuff I got was relatively cheap.

I would definitely recommend a close look at the ATE rotors, but not the pads - I have them on my Yukon and they squeal a bit and don't stop nearly as good as they should.

If your going to change your brakes soon I recommend you do the 12 inch upgrade. Here's the thread I made on it http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=931333
On the f-body upgrade see this http://www.clubgp.com/newforum/tm.asp?m=2434239&p=1&tmode=1&smode=1 I wouldn't say this is the ultimate setup I think the last 5.3 V-8 gxps had the best brakes and suspension if that could even fit

Thanks for the great advice, especially the write-up posted by dizzle1 (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/member.php?u=525795). Been searching & reading through the forum as LittleHoov (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/member.php?u=377957) suggested.

Have time to gear up for the upgrade and am leaning towards the 12" rotor & dual-piston caliper mod from an f-body. Have never been happy with the stock brakes (11" front). Not sure if I want to try my luck at the JYs, ebay or remanufactured (with bracket).

Those of you who've done the f-body front brake mod - what size spare tire fits over the caliper? Read that you have to get a larger spare wheel if you just do the 12" rotor mod. Same size work ok?

Can tell you that if new caliper bracket bolts are not used, you need to apply red, not blue, thread locker on the threads. The size of the bolt and torque used dictate the red type.

I dont know if anyone here has done the F-body calipers. Something to consider with those is that your factory wheels may not even fit, not just your spare. Its also a bit more laborous because the caliper brackets from the F-body have to be drilled/tapped. Here's a link I found on the F-body upgrade, hopefully it wont get deleted, but you just never know:
http://www.scacgp.com/mods/F-BodyBrakes.htm

Now if you're upgrading to 12-inch rotors and keeping your stock calipers, which is what a couple of us here have done, then your factory wheels will fit fine irregardless of which style you have...but as you mentioned you will need a new spare. A spare from a car that had factory 12 inch rotors would be your best bet, just be sure it has the same bolt pattern, I believe one from an F-body will not work as they are RWD. If you have a good jack and carry some good tools with you, keeping the stock spare isnt a huge deal, it only comes into play if you have a flat on the front tires, just put the spare on the back and move your back tire to the front...honestly if youre going to be driving on the spare for any extended time, its better to have your spare on the back to begin with.

As for the thread locker, I think I personally used blue, if I remember, the red is much harder to break loose, and you might actually want to take them back off at some point. I torqued to spec and used blue and mine are still tight, that was a couple years ago, plus they get bounced down gravel roads every day.

So just to clarify, there are two different mods:

The first upgrades to 12-inch rotors by using larger caliper brackets from another W-body or similar FWD car, and retains the stock single-piston caliper.

The second upgrades to 12-inch rotors by drilling and tapping F-body caliper brackets to fit the W-body mounting holes, then uses the twin-piston caliper.

Hope that cleared a couple things up for you.