Hawk hps 5.0
 

Has anyone tried them yet?
HB470B.643
HB378B.565

no one?

Have them on order and should be installing next weekend along with Centric rotors. Not sure I'll be able to give a good comparison though since my current brakes are basically shot. Anything will be an upgrade.

I use the old ones, love them. Car stops like it hit something at the track again and again. If I press harder, I get a chirp and ABS, so I cannot use any more. The standard ones are also great on rotors. I still have my original ones at 133K.

Interested too in how the new ones work, but cannot imagine what improvement would look like.

Have you had fading at the tracks? I was at sebring earlier this year, had Racing Brake ET500 on. They heated up real bad and I cooked the brakes in like the 3rd session. 1st and 2nd session I took it slow and was trying to learn the track though.

I am interested in these too. I was running Hawk HP Plus, but they crumbled on me at one of the faster local tracks. Rotors are shot too. I liked the feel and balance of the HP+ pads, but I disliked the noise and inability to handle heat.

I have been beating myself up for a couple of weeks on which direction to go.

EBC Stage 5? Carbotech XP10? Stoptech Sport? Hawk 5.0? Power Stop Z26? Some combination? Argh. I'll probably start a new thread.

My first time out in the RX8 (far from my first time ever), I used HP+ with stock tires and they worked fine, but when I went to R's, I switched to Hawk DTC-60's and am really happy with them. They are great on track and actually quite civil on the street for the drive to and from the track. If you're having issues with a street friendly pad overheating and crumbling, sounds like you need to make the switch to real race pads.

@ dezau,

I have not seen a fading problem. Biggest issue is over breaking. That is purely a cockpit problem. I run a 200 treadwear tire (Rival at this time) so there is plenty of grip.

Let me know when you go back to Sebring. I want to go again. I live in Oviedo, not to far. I grew up in Pine Hills when it was safe, and spent a lot of time on your lakes.

If interested, we are heading to Roebling next weekend. That is a great place to sort out a car. There are still a few openings...

If you're cooking track pads, you should probably run ducts. Less demand the pads when they say in their happy heat range.

Bump for followup reviews? Anyone using these now that came from the prior HPS or HP+s?

Thanks!

I bought a set along with some new rotors, but I haven't gotten around to installing them yet. I will probably do it next month, so I will have time to bed them in before the season starts in March.

I installed these Street/Race pads along with a set of StopTech Sport rotors about 100 miles ago. The pads appear to be high quality and come with a nice set of shims and a packet of grease, which I quickly added to stvnscott's box of random grease packets. I used my usual ceramic grease instead.

I have driven them on the street only to date to break them in and get them ready for track use. So far, what I have to say about them is they seem to have more bite than HP Plus, but not as much as a true track pad. They are definitely quieter than HP Plus. There is some squeal, but my car does not howl like a school bus like it did when running HP Plus. They are more heat sensitive than HP Plus, meaning they do not bite as well until they have some heat in them. It is kind of like running on OEM pads for the first few miles until they warm up, then they become very "stoppy" as one of my track friends puts it when the torque comes on.

Time will tell if they are truly capable of heat up to 1200 degrees. My first track day of the season is the 7th of next month.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...35455f02db.jpg


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...0da3252faf.jpg

Is this supposed to be a harsher compound than the HP Plus?

ET500 is no good for track use on a 2900 lbs+ vehicle

no. I wish they would finally figure out how to make the HP+ not be so grabby.

I was surprised to see they finally released this improved performance street pad ...

Following this too, please let us know. I am running HP plus. They work very well on the track but sound like a school bus around town. I am in socal and our tracks don't have enough hard braking zone to cook the HP plus.

I frequent 3 tracks in my area. One of them, Eagle's Canyon Raceway, is murder on brakes. I don't think I'm going back there because of that reason, and because it is not a particularly good track for the RX-8. It is often described as a series of drag strips followed by U-turns. A lot of cars have had to quit early due to brake issues there when I have been there.

The other 2 tracks have enough open track days between them to get me up to at least 10 track days this year. I think I will focus on those. They are both much more varied and much easier on brakes. I did the last track day of last season on OEM brakes at one of these tracks and did not fade them very much, to give you an idea.

Anyway, I'll post back and let everyone know how they hold up. I don't have my hopes up, but I am still [probably futilely] trying to find a hybrid pad that will more or less work for me.

Dust after 150 miles and a proper bed-in:


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...9229b811ee.jpg

I meant the Street/Race pad, but hmmm this is based on the DTC-30 apparently...

I wonder how the cold bites are and how well it works with daily driving

What temperature do you mean when you say "cold bites". I see you live in Florida, so I assume you aren't talking extreme cold.

I only have extreme summer and DOT track tires to choose from, so I don't drive my car when it is below about 45 degrees. These pads bite about like OEM at 50 degrees and improve substantially as they warm up. Their operating range is listed to be 100 to 1200F. It doesn't take much to get them to 100 it seems. Their street performance should be fine as long as you don't live in an extremely cold climate.

They are getting louder as they wear in. I'm not terribly pleased about that.

If they make noise as the HP plus, might as well just stick with HP plus then.

Do you guys run a lower heat range pad in the rear. I think I am going to get Axxis Ultimate for the rear so I don't have all 4 wheels making noise.

It is too soon to tell if they are as loud as HP Plus.

HP Plus were actually fairly quiet until I took them to the track and cooked them. They were very quiet while they wore in to mate with the rotor surfaces. They started to squeal slightly after I bedded them in. Once they had been on the track, they started to howl terribly. I figured I had just burned up all the grease, and cleaned and greased them as part of my post track day routine. Nope. They howled like crazy the rest of that season. It was annoying and embarrassing.

These are acting about the same so far. As I alluded to before, the real test will come once they have been on the track. If the noise stays about the same or only gets a little worse, I will call them keepers.

I do not currently run staggered pads. There is not much benefit to doing that on the tracks I frequent.

Update...

I had my first track day with these pads yesterday. Things went pretty well. The temperature started out on the cold side at a balmy 29 degrees, so I ran my lowest temperature tires, which are Potenza RE11s, and are certainly not ideal for such a day.

During the first session, it took me about 4 miles to warm up the brakes. Once they were hot, initial bite was too much, as I went into ABS immediately in every corner and had to fight hard for any semblance of threshold braking. I'm sure the conditions account for all of this considering the cold summer tires and cold sealed asphalt.

As things warmed up outside, things got better. They started to behave something like HP+, but with more civil initial bite, better midrange torque characteristics, and better resistance to fade. The high temperature was 54 at about 3PM, and I was able to drive to about 80% of my normal capability during that session. That is where the problem arose, and it is the same problem I encountered with HP+. I began to feel fade about 12 minutes into the session. Here is where they are better than HP+: I was able to take 1 cool-down lap and re-engage. They lasted another 8 minutes before they started to fade again--just in time for another cool-down lap at the end of the session.

I went into the pits and shot the temps of my rotors, calipers, and pads. The readings were not bad at all at about 360F-ish all around, which is lower than I expected. Obviously, the pads saw temps far higher than 360.

The good news is the pads lasted the rest of the day with a little care, where HP+ probably would not have. The fact that a cold front blew in (mid 40s) which caused us all to go back to taking it a little bit easier probably did not hurt, but I still maintain these pads are a step forward for Hawk in the hybrid area.

The drive home was loud. While not as bad as HP+, the car was back to sounding like a school bus and turning heads. I actually had people rolling down their windows to helpfully tell me I need a brake job.

This morning, I cleaned and greased all appropriate brake parts and bled the fluid (DOT4) per my usual post track day regimen. Then I went for a drive to see how the noise level of these pads compares to HP+ and what I might have gained in torque due to bleeding the fluid. The bleeding made no difference, which means the fade I kept feeling was definitely the pads; this is really just confirmation of what I already knew since you cannot recover from boiled fluid. In terms of noise, they went back to about the same level of squeal that they had before tracking them. There is some squeal as the MPH approach zero, but it is manageable and not terribly annoying. Definitely quieter than HP+. I consider that a win.

I reached 3 conclusions as a result of this trial:

1. I have advanced far enough that I need true track pads and hybrids will not work for me long-term.
2. Hawk DTC-30 Street/Race pads offer definite improvement over HP+.
3. These pads are great candidates for serious AutoX use and novice to intermediate road course drivers.

Here is the amount of dust after 115 miles on the track and 138 miles there and back (it seems to blow off easily at high speeds):

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...46115a6010.jpg

[EDIT for clarification]

Let me clarify one thing. These pads did not fade badly. I backed off of them when I first started to feel fade to test them vs. the fluid. They could have very well held up the rest of the day going balls to the walls. I intend to test that next month.

Did you really expect anything different ?


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...4aa06b5e21.jpg

If you want to run track and not have street issues then you need two sets of rotors & pads to swap back & forth with. Otherwise there is no having your cake & eating it too ....

Whats the downside if you used the same rotors ?

Sometimes the different pad deposit materials aren't compatible, then the rotor surfaces build up material that feels like warped rotors when the brakes are applied

The track pads are much harder on rotors too, so the profile faces between pad and rotor surfaces won't match up well either

Ah ....this could be the very problem I'm having with my rotors ATM . I thought it was something to do with the grooves in the disc but your explanation fits the symptoms better .
Aside from skimming the discs .... is there anything i can do to remove the deposits ? Light sand and brakleen maybe ?

Changing rotors back and forth is something I am trying not to have to do. I know it is probably futile, and I know trying these pads was a long shot. But, I track my car 10-12 times per year, and changing rotors and pads adds about 1.5 hours to my prep time (which then has to be undone the next day).

In looking at the compound graph above, you can actually see my twisted logic in action. I liked Hawk Blues on one of my former cars. The only two negatives they had were that they took a while to warm up for street driving, and they were very hard on rotors. I liked the torque characteristics of HP+ (but not the initial bite) on the RX-8, but not their tendency to overheat and the extreme noise they produce. I don't want a lot more torque than either of those pads, because of where the RX-8's ABS threshold sits with the type of tires I am running. The DTC-30 (Street/Race) should be a nice compromise. They supposedly have better low temperature braking, better heat resistance, and lower noise, without overdoing it on the torque.

I am going to try these pads for as much of this season as possible. I may end up liking them. If not, I may try DTC-60s and just work very hard at developing a much lighter touch on the brake pedal and/or go back to rubber brake lines.

Brettus, as Team explained, different pad compounds leave different friction deposits on the rotors, which are often incompatible. You can remove them between pad changes with sandpaper on the rotors, but it is time consuming. You can sometimes remove them by just re-bedding in the pads after each change.

The bigger problem is that different pads wear the rotors in different ways. Swapping pads back and forth means the rotors and pads are never truly mated together, which leads to less torque and more heat in both driving scenarios.

The correct solution is two complete sets of brakes. I actually have two sets; I'm just too lazy to swap them 20 to 24 times per season. As he says, I am trying to have my cake and eat it too. To this point, I have been mostly failing. But these pads do show some promise. ;)

Maybe there is a street/track pad combo that is compatible ?

Maybe, but the differences in rotor wear negate any compound compatibility. Once each set has been on the car a couple of times, the rotor surfaces are worn unevenly to the point that maybe only a third of the pad is contacting the rotor.

What I am looking for is a pad with midrange torque for the track (which is all you want when running DOT tires), that is civil enough on the street to be able to live with it. This pad may actually fit the bill. All in all, they performed better than expected at the track, and they are quiet enough to live with on the street. If I had been running HP+ at the track Saturday, I probably would have cooked them to the point of death and had to quit. It has happened to me twice before with HP+.

Let me clarify one thing. These pads did not fade badly. I backed off of them when I first started to feel fade to test them vs. the fluid. They could have very well held up the rest of the day going balls to the walls. I intend to test that next month.

I'm surprised at how little info I can find on aftermarket brake pads. Axxis, Carbotech, etc., all I seem to find is Hawks, EBC, or stuff for aftermarket calipers.

Looking at that graph on the first page, it would seem the HP+ would be better on the track than the HPS, am I reading it wrong?

This is my source for Carbotech pads. Love them.

Carbotech RX-8 04-08

Carbotech will also take whatever old brake pads you have and create exact matching set of pads with the compound of your choice, if they don't already have a pad available with that plate to fit.

With Carbotech, the AX6 compound is not compatible with any of their other pads, but all of the other pads are compatible with each other. So a 1521 pad for the street can be used on the same rotors that have XP16s on them for the track.

Which compounds have you used? AX6 sounds nice for a car that doesn't really see the track.

Your best bet is to stay to one brand and ask if they can recommend anything, or maybe they have something in their literature about compatible pads.

For driving to and from the track, I've found the Hawk DTC-60's to be pretty reasonable, but I still wouldn't daily drive on them. I only do a few days a year though, so changing pads and rotors before and after isn't such a big deal for me.

XP8-XP12s. I haven't used anything lower. AX6 or 1521 for street use should be pretty good. The 1521 is what they sell for fleet police cars.

AX6 is just the one-off on the compound in the transfer layer, so keep that in mind if you want to try something else from the brand. I'd start with 1521s personally, just because swapping up to XP8s wouldn't require a rotor change if you wanted something a bit more aggressive.

You are correct. However, this thread started to be about the new Street 5.0 pads and morphed into being about the new Street/Race (DTC-30) pads. The new pads are supposed to kill some of the ills of the older compounds.

There are a lot of good pads on the market for cars that do not see the track. But, honestly, the OEM pads are pretty damn good, and I have even tracked them on two occasions about a year apart with acceptable results, considering.

Like most mods, if you want outright max performance you are going to have to give up comfort. Brake dust, noise, not working well when cold, ETC.

Just need to see what temp ranges you fall into at the track and get the according pad, while having a cheap street set. Only way to really do it. You can try adding more brake cooling as well.

I use HP+ since I am heavy auto X use and Socal local tracks (like stated above aren't crazy high in brake load) so this pad works for my combination of driving.

^ One of the questions I am trying to answer is whether that dogma is still true in light of Hawk's new offerings.

After driving on them for a few months now, and with one track day under my belt, I am of the opinion that the DTC-30 Street/Race pads offer substantial improvement over past experiences with hybrid pads. They might just be the compromise pad many of us have been looking for.

1> Dust. I don't really care about dust, but these pads are fairly low dust after initial break-in and bed-in.
2> Noise. They are quieter than HP+, which sounded like a fog horn had an alien love child with a school bus. I would call the noise level similar to Hawk Blues. That means the noise is present, but manageable. It mostly shows up under 10mph, and is more of a squeal and less of a howl. With the stereo playing at a moderate level, I don't notice it. I can certainly live with it.
3> Torque. Cold torque is adequate for street use with no safety concerns. Hot torque is in the middle range and works well with DOT tires on the track with some behavior modification. Initial bite is workable with threshold braking.
4> Rotor wear. These pads seem to wear the rotors less than Hawk Blues, but more than HP+. This is subjective observation only. I have not taken any objective measurements.

That is what I know so far. I have another track day this Saturday and will add to my review. Last time, the weather was fairly cold (29 to 50 degrees F), and I ran on Potenza RE-11s. This weekend, temps are supposed be be between 50 and 68 degrees F, and I am running on Nitto NT-01s.

I'll try to get some video of the sound on the street before I hit the track.

Bottom line. I am liking these pads for my purposes so far. We may finally have a hybrid winner.

Time for an update after another track day last Saturday.

One change from my setup as described above. I ended up running on my 225 RE-11s again, as the weather forecast fell to a low of 40 and a high of 60 with potential light rain in the forecast. The 245 NT01s would be hockey pucks under those conditions, so I went with the Potenzas again.

Speaking of my setup, let me describe it to put things into context. I am running on StopTech Sport slotted rotors, StopTech stainless lines, ATE Typ 200 DOT 4 fluid, Permatex Extreme ceramic brake grease, and Hawk Street/Race DTC-30 pads with the included shims. Calipers and brake hardware are OEM. Pin lubricant is NAPA Sil-Glyde.

The track in question is short and technical with a lot of corners and elevation changes. Max speed is about 100MPH. The surface is sealed old asphalt, which makes it relatively slick. It is somewhat harder on brakes than the last track I was on with these pads, as the straights are not long enough to accomplish much cooling.

The short story is these pads performed just fine at the track after some adjustment of the nut behind the wheel.

Next is the longer review.

The original weather forecast was spot-on, so I changed tires for nothing. The track was damp when I arrived at 7:15, but was mostly dry by the time the first intermediate session started at 8:50, and it did not rain again.

I spent the morning re-familiarizing myself with the track with an instructor on-board. To say these pads and tires and weather conditions made for a challenging experience would be a gross understatement. Initial bite sent me into ABS immediately pretty much all the time. Midrange torque was difficult to control--even as I consciously backed out of pedal trying to brake under the threshold. Heel-toe was difficult since stabbing the throttle meant applying too much pressure on the brake. But, that all goes with the territory. It was cold and a little bit damp and this track has a slicker surface. I thought it was a good learning experience.

The afternoon sessions were quite different. By then, things had warmed considerably, my tires had found their stride, the driver had shed some rustiness and gained some adjustment, and the car and I were off to the "races". Initial bite was good. It was still just a hair more than I would like, but I can get used to it. I had it pretty much mastered by the end of the day. Midrange torque was a little much for 225 RE-11s under cooler conditions, but I think it will be perfect next month when things are warmer and/or when I am running on wider, grippier tires. Noise increased steadily throughout the day as I squeezed out and burned up the Permatex grease. Fade was virtually non-existent. I had no problems with fade all day, even as I was watching closely for it. This track's proximity to a highway allowed my to jump off the track and cruise 2 miles away and 2 miles back at 75mph to cool things down, which surely helped.

One question yet to be answered is if they will quiet down again when I have a chance to clean and re-grease them, which should happen sometime this week. Dust was fine. It doesn't seem to be terribly sticky like some other compounds, but as I said before, I don't care much about dust. Rotor wear was pretty considerable upon visual inspection, but that will be the case with pretty much any pad that is suitable for track use.

My latest conclusions are similar to my last conclusions, assuming these pads will quiet down again after having been serviced. I like them. I wish they had just a little less initial bite and a little less midrange torque when used with extreme performance summer tires in under 70 degree weather, but I think they will come into their own when things warm up and/or I put on my wider tires with grippier compounds.

My next track day is in 2 weeks. I will service my brakes and report on the street suitability, then track them for a 3rd time and report on the track suitability again.

So far, I still believe they are much more workable than any other hybrid pad I have first or second hand experience with and could be a very good solution to that problem. After 2 months on the street and 2 track days, I still plan to run them all season for continued testing.

My problem with these brakes are that they tick off the ABS too easily. Even at Auto-X last time I got sent to ABS all over the place. Let's see how it performs at Daytona this weekend...

I wonder if your ABS issue is more related to what type of tires you have. What do you have? If you have greater braking performance with tires that don't match you'll be locking the wheels up more causing ABS to step in. Even if you have good tires, it could just take a little bit to learn the new threshold of braking.

We have tons of pad options at prices way better than tirerack.com Use the "RX8" promo code.


Hawk HB470B.643 HPS 5.0 and others

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...dec8e62d87.jpg


Brakes Section of Total Automotive Performance


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...7884593e72.jpg

Technically, any pad would trip ABS at the same torque rate being applied to the rotors, all else (tires, pavement, temps, etc...) being equal. So the part that changes would be the torque profile of the pad.

In my experience, the Hawk pads don't make it easy on the driver to tell where to put the pedal modulation for a desired application of torque. Torque vs pedal pressure doesn't feel linear, regardless of whether or not it actually is.

It's the primary reason I prefer Carbotechs. The feel and feedback through the pedal is excellent.

The difference between the two is the difference in cornering between a Corvette and an RX-8. Absolute grip may be comparable (or not depending on setup), but one feels a hell of a lot easier to place, to finesse, and to manage.

Thanks for your feedback. I have Michelin PSS 245
No offense but I seriously doubt you can beat Autoanything's pricing on Hawk Pads...

Yeah. As I have written in my reviews, the initial bite and midrange torque take some driver adjustment when running summer tires. I am hoping I will get used to the feel after another session or two on the track to the point that it becomes second nature. More than that, I am hoping the weather holds next weekend, so I can run on my 245 NT01s to get a feel for that combination.

Carbotech pads get rave reviews everywhere, but the cost of entry has kept me away so far. Something has to give in the price of this hobby, and at this point, I would rather sacrifice in the area of brake pads rather than tires. However, if RIWWP's analogy is correct, I should probably just suck it up next season and make the jump. [Of course, none of this addresses my reluctance to swap rotors back and forth due to lack of dedication and plain laziness.]

I don't know how much you can tell from this, but here is a video of session 5 out of 6 from last weekend. You can hear my tires complaining under braking, and you can hear the brake squeal start to come on (not that it matters on the track) after the first couple of warmup laps. This is the session in which I put up the fastest times of the group for the day. Nothing much dramatic happens in the video, but I do chase down a very skilled driver and his built M3 and eventually pass him. That is when the fastest laps happened.

I watched the first few minutes, and I think I could detect you making significant adjustments to the brake application mid-braking.

It's not an RX-8, but this is my MSM's latest video, just one lap of WGI. I'm braking for turn 1, the Bus Stop, turns 6, 7, 8. Turn 9 was interferred with. Just a brief lift for 10, and a bigger lift for 11. Flat through 2 and 3, neutral through 5.


If you are interested, I can upload a video of my last session with an instructor riding along for pointers, where I was braking later, messing up more downshifts because of that, and also has more traffic to deal with.

LOL. You probably should have watched the last few minutes if you wanted to see any examples of halfway decent driving. :)

You were seeing it correctly. I was modulating brake pressure throughout each braking zone trying to keep the torque under the ABS threshold. Some noise from summer tires is normal, of course, but you can hear the chirp, chirp, chirp sound of the ABS activating much more than I wanted it to.

I envy you guys that live near the cool tracks. We do have COTA down in Austin, but it is very difficult to get time on that track. TWS is supposedly closing soon, which is a crying shame. I have only had the opportunity to drive it once. Otherwise, we have some small regional tracks available like the one above.

Update as to the street-ability of the Street/Race (DTC-30) pads. After cleaning and greasing them again (~500 street miles and ~320 track miles to date), they have become too loud to tolerate for regular street driving in my opinion. The slight squeal under 10mph has graduated to a howl when moderate pressure is applied at any speed under 50mph. The noise can be changed by modulating the pressure on the pedal, but can no longer be completely eliminated. They are still not as loud as HP+ became for me, but I can see them getting there. The elusive hybrid pad continues to elude.

Additionally, I found they were somewhat glazed after the last track day, so I sanded them with 80 grit paper until the glaze was gone. Two of the rear (one inside and one outside from each rotor) pads have a small amount of material missing from near the centers, which appears to be heat or debris crumble. They are OK for my next track day this Saturday, but I will need to watch them closely.

I will update again after my next track day on Saturday.

Well at least you seem to enjoy re-inventing the wheel :)

There is never any harm in challenging conventional wisdom. It's only money, and at least with Hawk, it isn't even much of that.

Not too long ago, it was impossible to have a good phone and a good camera in one unit, you know. ;)