hawk hps or carbotech bobcat (1521)?: Grassroots Motorsports forum: Grassroots Motorsports Magazine

Subscribe get a full year for only $23.95 Sample Free Test Drive—no strings attached

Aug. 27, 2008 2:29 p.m. leegf None

i'm in the market for new street pads for my daily (a mkv gti) and i've narrowed it down to these two. which would you recommend and why? i'm interested in things like fade resistance, cold bite, ability to modulate, and to a lesser extent, noise (neither of these should be noisy, i think).

these will see light track duty in addition to street- i know, not ideal, but i'm willing to compromise for the sake of convenience. as long as they're an upgrade over stock (and they will be), i'll be mostly satisfied.

also, i plan on only replacing my fronts for now- please let me know if you think this isn't a good idea. thanks!
Aug. 27, 2008 3:25 p.m. chknhwk New Reader

Personally I thought the Hawks dusted quite a bit. Also, and I'm not sure if they're related or not, but the set of HT-10's I had disintegrated after pulling them off the car. It looks like Hawk simply glued the pad to the backing plate. After that I refuse to purchase Hawk pads anymore.
Aug. 28, 2008 7:20 a.m. wreckerboy SuperDork

I just purchased a set of HPS for the street Miata and they are every bit as dusty as advertised. I haven't used them hard yet (the car tried to go swimming shortly after the pads were installed), but they came with excellent references from a bunch of seriously knowledgable road racing friends. Just bed them per instructions and you'll be happy.

Mind you, I'm no Hawk fanboi either. I've used their race pads on my SM in the popular black/blue combination and hated them to death. They lasted three weekends before I switched to the Carbotechs, which I love. I just didn't hear anything good about the street pads from the same group of people.
Aug. 28, 2008 8:56 a.m. iceracer Reader

i have been using the HPS pads for several years, Love 'em. I don't seem to get any excess dusting, I have used them for track days, no fade. Never had a failure of any kind.
Aug. 28, 2008 1:42 p.m. stumpmj HalfDork

I love every Carbotech pad I've tried. That said, I've been using Axxis Ultimates as a street/light track pad and they've held up extremely well.
Aug. 28, 2008 2:00 p.m. Travis_K New Reader

Dont get carbotech panther pads for street, not a good idea. lol I just put a set of bobcats on my milano and other than being sqeaky they are great, not even very much dost.
Aug. 28, 2008 8:15 p.m. shuttlepilot New Reader

I've been pretty happy with HPS's. I run them on the daily driver. They have good cold bite, very good hot bite and don't take too much to warm up. I think they have a very good temperature range setup for the street. I run HP+ in the toy car and it takes a bit more to warm up before they start really gripping. I'd go with hps for street.

Also very good consistent pedal feel. Doesn't feel like a pile of mush. They do squak on the last few mph before a full stop. Nothing too bad, Haven't done anything high speed though.
Aug. 29, 2008 3:07 a.m. Varkwso Reader

I would go with the Bobcats on the fronts only. I like them better then HPS - but they are good for a street pad with only light track duty.
Aug. 29, 2008 10:41 a.m. confuZion3 HalfDork

I've tracked my HPSs, done auto-xes, and I drive the car constantly. They are quite dusty, but not as dusty as my BMW with its OEM pads. Big deal, I say.

At the track, they don't fade much. There was one curious incident where my instructor was driving the car hard and it seemed like it didn't want to stop at one corner (pad fade), but by the next corner it was fine and it only did it once that day.

I think they bite pretty well and they can lock up my Azenis RT-615s (or at least put the ABS system to work) with relative ease whether it's the first stop of the day or after coming off an interstate, down a hill, at 70 miles per hour.

Noise? Yeah, they squeel if I use JUST the right amount of pedal pressure. Not an ounce too much or too little. It's not enough pressure to stop the car though, so I usually don't get the squeel. For some reason though, if I'm slowing down, I try to make them squeel. I can't explain why. lol.