ecstasy

Anybody have experience with rotors that are plated with zinc or nickel? Supposebly better for heat, and nicer looking without that rust/corrosion look. Can rotors be taken in anywhere to be plated? Or just bought that way? Anybody?

hisport

Rotors are a wear item, like brake pads. The swept surface is always being renewed ('til the rotor is worn out).

Plating the rotors? They sure wouldn't work very well, as the friction coefficient would go way down, unless you were able to wear through the plating before you ran into something

Instead, clean up your rotors with thinner and Scothbrite, then paint 'em with metallic silver heat paint. Wipe any paint spills or overspray off the swept area. This lasts quite a long time. Do it with a paint brush if you don't pull the rotors. Metallic silver paint is v thin and doesn't burn off.

BTW, most m'cycles have stainless steel rotors for aesthetic reasons. These work OK with the right compound pads, but race bikes will use cast iron (or ceramic) rotors.

uberwgn

Zimmerman has zinc coated rotors now. Not sure if it's a new product. I guess they call them "Z coat". I installed a set last weekend:

S8ilver

I did a black zinc...sure keeps the hubs looking nice. I hated looking at the old rusty hubs behind the wheels.

uberwgn

That looks pretty cool. How much to get it done?

S8ilver

I spent $450 for all four rotors (Adam's Rotors, over dimpled pattern in black zinc). If I recall it was around $90 for front pads and about $50 for the rears. I went with Stoptech Street Performance pads all around. All in with fresh fluid I was around $625. For kicks, call a dealer and get a quote on a complete F&R brake job. Are you doing the work yourself? If not, I'd expect to pay another $200-300 to have in indy shop install.

However, you literally have dozens of options for the D2, on both rotors and pads. There's nothing wrong with OEM either, except the aforementioned rusty hubs. I also found the OEM pads to produce quite a bit of dust.

If you're current rotors are in good shape, you could just use a high temp paint on the hubs to hide the rust.

CME's01S8

Silver,

Where did you buy the brake pads from? Looking to getting new ones all the way around and wanted to go with something like EBC or stoptech.

Thanks,

Chris

S8ilver

I got them on Amazon. I had to email Stoptech to get part number for front set, as it was a Porsche number and Amazon got confused.

Amazon says the fronts don't fit, but these are the correct pads for the S8:

2001 S8

S8ilver, how's the quietness of the pads vs. the OEMs? I see they're labeled "Street Performance".

S8ilver

I don't hear them at all. They really do bite from cold too. Let me rephrase a little bit. I hear a little whir on a hard stop if the windows are down, but I attribute that to the dimpled rotor design I chose (not complaining, it's actually a nice sound, albeit very faint).

The Posi-Quiets (also made by Centric) are the stock replacement version (vs. the Street Performance) and come in semi-metallic and ceramic versions. My car's not a daily driver, so I wanted a bit more bite.

http://www.stoptech.com/products/brake-pads