Duel purpose brake pads for heavy FWD

I need to swap the pads in my C30 and want something for street plus occasional autocross. I'm tempted by OEM parts from the dealer as they originals with 48K on them have always performed great, little dust, good initial feel and bite when cold and good fade resistance. The thing is other than a few laps of the Ring when it was only a few days old I haven't tracked it yet. Now it's paid off I want to do a couple of track days per year with it. When I did the ring, the brakes were definitely fading by the end of each lap, but that was a pretty severe test, although only one lap at a time.

I can't for the life of me remember what I had on my old SVT Contour, but on my Focus I tried both Hawk Blues and HAwk HPS. The blues totally ruined a set of wheels in one day as the dust was so corrosive it ate through the paint and embeded particles in the wheel material, the HPS were crap, they had nice inital feel, but you could fade them on a quick back road blast, let alone on the track. So I'm no fan of Hawk.

I've had VERY good luck with Hawk HP+. They dust a decent amount (a bit annoying for a daily driver), but it's not corrosive. The powdercoat on my wheels is 12 years old and it's still perfect. I think I've run the HP+ for at least 8 years at this point.

I will say--I'm fairly diligent about washing the dust off--probably once a week.

The car is a super low-use garage queen,now, but those pads never messed anything up. They are decent when cold and grab like hell when hot. On a 2500lb Civic, they don't even chew up the rotors.

I've used HPS on my Maxima (100k miles, heavy FWD sedan) and on my WRX (60k miles, heavyish AWD sedan) and never had an issue with fade, even with my frequent skiing runs into the mountains in winter, coming down fast with a full load of people and gear. Come to think of it, I have HPS in the rallycross e30 and in the GT6 as well, lol.

I like them for a DD, but if I was more of a weekend-twisty-roads car I would probably use HP+

How much does the Maxima weigh and how big are the brakes? I'm only intending 8-9/10, not balls out at the track, it is a DD after all.

My experience with HAwk on the Focus was 6-7 years ago now so maybe they've changed.

What about Pagid?

Anyone on Pagid or other options?

I ran Pagid Orange pads on my 350Z. They dust like crazy. I can't remember noise levels. They didn't hold up to track use (got hot and smeared on the rotors) but would be fine for auto cross.

I reccomend Carbotech pads. They have an autox specific compound. Use that. I ran their Bobcat compound (I think it's been renamed now) and it was excellent. No noise, low dust, good torque, and very easy on rotors. I run XP-9s on the track.

If you want to be cheap, Axxis Ultimates. That's my daily driven pad. They're cheap, wear well, and have plenty of torque.

im a big fan of the hawk hp+

I've been using HP+'s 30k miles/yr on my DD '05 si for years: tons of dust, slight brake squeel at low speeds, with highway DD use I get around 60k miles out of a set, and by that point, the rotors are only 1/3rd worn.

I'm upgrading to carbotech XP10 & XP8's soon so I can avoid pad changes when doing track days...

If all your doing is street & occasional autox, seems like the OEM pads would work well.

Dang, Carbotechs seem pricy, I'd want to do F&R at the same time. Might stick with OEM as they are stunningly good on the street and autocross. The sacrifice for 2-3 track days a year might be worth it. Or swap out the fronts for track days with something more agressive.

With the Hawks, sounds like you weren't using the right compounds. The blues are real racing pads and, yes, they will destroy the finish on a set of wheels. That's the downside to that amazing high-temp performance. The HPSs are street pads, so sounds like you got them out of their happy zone. The HP+ is more of a track pad. No matter who the maker, each pad compound works best in a certain temperature zone.

Best pads I ran on the Elantra were the HPS. Think 2900lb car EMPTY (no driver or passenger), 9.8" front rotors, rear drums. They could handle anything I threw at them and keep going. Never experienced any fade, but I did flush the brake fluid semi-regularly back then, but with just normal DOT3 fluid, nothing nice.

Loaded up for vacation, we ran US50 from Ohio all the way through West Virginia which was intense. Think "Tail of the Dragon" but spread over 100 miles. I ran the car hard enough to boil power steering fluid but never had a brake problem.

So my guess would be HPS or HP+.

I've run EBC redstuff, hawk hps & hp+, and a set of stoptech pads.....the best combo of no fade, bite, and minimal dusting were the hps.....all those have been on 2900-3200lb fwd sedans.

Ordering a set of HPS 03/4 cobra pads this friday so I can get my 13" brakes installed on my 91 sho....