hi Alistair,

this is good info... I plan to switch front rotors to either slotted ones
or cross drilled ones but I can't find the source of suppliers... In
general I am happy with OEM since I have modest HP with the 2.1 WBX.. but
once in a while I take the Syncro out on a trail or logger road and going
very steep down hill.. errr I smell the brake and it's fading a bit though
that I use 2st gear going down...

so what do you have -  slotted ones or cross drilled ones?
did you ever try prolonged use of the brakes yet?

btw.. I heard that cross drilled ones are not as performant as regular OEM
ones, I am not sure it's true or not...

thanks

dan

On Mon, Jun 24, 2019 at 7:49 AM Alistair Bell <albell@shaw.ca> wrote:

> A couple of months ago I popped on new front rotors and pads in my 86
> Syncro. I didn’t  really need to, the old ones still had some life in them.
> But I was given a set of grooved and cross drilled rotors, and while I
> always wanted to get a big brake set up, and I was skeptical of the merits
> of the grooves and holes :-), I decided to give them a go.
>
> The rotors are made in California by Brake Performance, and had some sort
> of coating that’s supposed to reduce rusting on the un worn surfaces.
>
> Brake pads are locally sourced, TWR, I just asked Dave at Dave’s
> Automotive to get me the ones he uses in stock vanagon brakes.
>
> Nothing to mention on install except the direction of the curved grooves
> on the rotors.
>
> Did a half assed job with the bedding in routine, you know, all to speed
> then brake, speed brake , repeat...
>
> Oh boy was I worried, the brakes did not work well. Then after a bit they
> started to bed in. Over the next couple of days they improved.
>
> I can say the combo is really quite good. Very much better than what I had
> before. Very nice progressive braking action.
>
> I can’t say if that has anything to do with the rotor design, I’ll guess
> not. It’s probably mostly pads. And I can’t report on any long hot braking
> action.
> But the brakes are better than I’ve ever had in this van.
>
> Cheers
>
> Alistair
>