2017+ PP Brembo pads replacement recommendations?
 

2 days ago I had little close call with truck and because of that I had to smash the breaks to the floor at 180 kph on super soft slick tires (TW50). Obviously car stopped within some absolutely insanely low distance, I stalled because I had to fight law of physics to not get ejected from my seat but everything ended up happily.

The only problem is that my brakes no longer work as they used to. I think I glazed pads since I used to do that in my previous cars multiple times and symptoms were kinda the same - required noticeably higher force on pedal to apply the same breaking power and breaking feels much less linear. And while it may sound unlikely to damage such beefy pads (I have Brembo PP breaks) after one breaking - they probably were already quite hot to begin with since I was driving quite hard at that time, testing new tyres grip (fyi we have record breaking heatwave in Poland now so there's like 14 deg C outside now). So all in all I'm probably looking for some top of the line, no questions asked performance pads. Price, economy, dust doesn't matter.

What pads are you on currently?

Pretty strange for anything to have been damaged. I've tracked stock pads on many cars that come with much worse pads than the BRZ/FRS stock, and even caught a set of HPS on fire. After cooling off and driving for a bit they went back to mostly "normal". I'd imagine, as you said, they may have glazed a little but nothing that won't go away after some driving. At absolute worst if you need it fixed immediately you could turn the rotors to remove that glaze, or replace them.

Typically on vented rotors, they feel "warped" as between the vanes in the rotor there is a difference in temperature on the surface of the rotor because of airflow between the vanes, and because the areas with metal are a larger heat sink vs the vented areas. Therefore, because alternating areas hit higher/lower temperatures, they "glaze" before/after one another resulting in an alternating level of friction, and thus a "warped" feeling.

End-all, be-all I've used is Raybestos ST43 or ST45 compound pads. Ran them on AP calipers on my S2000 and they stood up to Sebring/Roebling with no ducting (paces were 1:21.1 @ Roebling and 2:33.5 at sebring). Sebring has multiple braking zones that are exactly what you described as you can see in my video https[:]//www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPaLiJtazbA. The power levels are very similar to a BRZ. and braking setup probably isn't a whole lot different with the AP calipers. The same pads _worked_ on stock calipers, but large calipers added a ton of life.

I'd imagine anything in the neighborhood of ~800°C for upper operating range is going to be comparable, and probably overkill if you are simply looking to make one or two high speed stops from the speeds you mentioned. The fact that you're on 50tw tires makes me think you might demand a little more though, idk... If you wanted to test it, you could replicate the stop with some temperature indicating paint or strips to see what upper temp range you'd need to tolerate stops like that. Though, you'll probably hit an equilibrium at some point where the pads simply won't provide any more friction, thus they won't transfer any more motion energy to the braking system as heat (fade) -> temp won't rise any further.

Stock. I mean stock PP pads. I believe it's mostly due to extremely sticky tires and really high speed (long) hard breaking that it happened. I did that with regular tires many times before without any issues but those soft slicks grip is brutal and maybe overwhelmed PP breaks just a little.

I'll sure take a look at options you mentioned but maybe you're right that I should give them a bit more time to get back to normal before writing them off.

Stock are Jurid sports

I bought the brembo daily set from Rock auto.

DS 2500 and call it a day. Works well even in cold temperatures, will hold up to 20min. track day sessions at Tor Poznań with 100TW tire during summer and what's best they're available everywhere in EU. Bonus points: shape is the same as 4 pot STI, Evo, and 350Z (Brembo equipped ones obviously) so if PP BRZ ones are not available you can search aforementioned models and they'll all fit.

Before you go about changing brakes/pads, what tires are you on? Very hard to believe a 2020 (like your profile says) has an issue with the pads already. If you're on the stock tires, what you're feeling in a panic stop and not being able to stop might be coming down to the tire's grip.

I've beat the hell out of the stock PP brakes over the last 39k miles with 3 seasons of autox totaling about 500+ runs. The Brembo pads are good for track days even, so it's hard to believe one panic stop on yours and they're done.

Single emergency stop shouldn't be issue even on slick tires, even on non-PP, stock brakes, even on street compound pads.
But if you feel significant braking performance change after that, i believe that something else is culprit .. and i'd probably wish to check, what is it.
Track pads .. they will work worse when cold, when not upto temps, they will quickly wear bedded layer off, and you'll sound like idiot with squeeling brakes at every traffic lights stop (in addition for probable quicker brake rotor wear). I'd rather search for real reason then change out part that probably isn't at fault.

P.S. unrelated to pad questions, suggest to not drive on slicks on public roads. They need to be brought up to temps for optimum grip, they suck in wet, they wear way too quick, thus seem waste of money. Twins have nice feature of having enough boot space to fit track set of four wheels with tires, if you lower rear seats, why not use this feature for trackdays to simplify using right tool (tires) for a right job?

Like I mentioned I'm using super soft (wet compound) slicks for wet/damp conditions (wet tread) on street. They have optimal operation temps between 20 and 40 deg C so really low operating temps. They'd actually melt on dry track (and probably in summer too) so I have separate track day slicks. They grip like crazy in cold and don't require warming up in weather like we have now. I have as of now 3 sets of "daily" slicks for different temperatures outside and apart from deep summer I'm not running conventional TW200 slicks for 60+ deg C (which I know are really crappy idea for street driving - been there, done that) but rather really soft compounds that grip extremely well in street driving temps range. I really recommend checking them out because I have infinitely better driving experienced on them than on normal tires. Extreme Tyres VR1 W5 that I use now or "winter" cold wet slicks VR3 W3. Grip is unreal in streets driving conditions. Of course comfort, treadwear and noise are absolute trash but I don't care. If you're interested I scribbled more elaborated review here: https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show....php?p=3547795

To add context to post above - yeah, I switched back to them because those standard winter tyres were utter garbage in comparison. As of now the only thing that would convince me to switch. back to regular winter tires is 5 inch deep snow... I bought VR3 W3 and I'm planning to check them out once temps drop below 0 again. Judging by rubber softness and tread pattern alone - looks promising.

if they are actually glazed, but have lots of material left, don't replace em. Just take the apart, place some coarse sand paper on a flat surface and carefully and evenly rub the pads over the paper. do it in 5 strokes at a time and look at the pad. keep it even and go until all the shiny area is just gone. lightly chamfer the edges, slap the pads material side togeather a few times to knock out the dust, clean the tips where they slide in the brackets, and reassemble them.

Your tires are overpowering your brakes. Had the same issue at about your same speed on Hawk pads. You need more aggressive pads. I do not remember what pads I got, they were recommended by CSG.