So after going through some searches for past threads, was curious what experiences folks have had with Powerslot rotors and what pads would be a good combo with these? I tow a lot and am looking for a little bit of an upgrade when I need brakes in the near furture, plus I went with 20's so have a little more weight there. Any details on performance as well as installation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

powerslot specifically reccommends hawk pads. if you have a 4wd, the swap is easy, the rotors should just slide right off. the 2wd is a little trickier, but the power slots include the bearings already installed in the rotors, which saves a lot of time and energy. i know of a good site that sells them for pretty cheap, you can email me if you want. power slots are def good rotors though

 

Thanks, I've got a 4wd so sounds like a fairly easy upgrade. Anyone done this upgrade? What tools are needed?

 

you should just have to take your wheel off, caliper, caliper bracket, and the front should slide right off on your 4wd. there is a chance you may have a small retainer on one or 2 of the studs, which you can just cut off with diagonal cutters. nothing but basic hand tools

 

I think that this is NOT an upgrade for towing. There is a misconception about what slotted rotors are for: racing. In the early days of racing, disc brakes were very simple = a disc. The problem with these early versions was the removal of heat that builds up from HIGH speeds (>120 mph). These discs also had a relatively small surface area of contact to provide the stopping power needed with keeping weight to a minimum. The solution was going to a slotted disc (less weight and cooler). This allows excess heat to radiate from the disc by providing more metal surface area. Sort of the same principle on a fluted rifle barrel, removes heat faster. The problem is that these race cars averaged about 1/3 the weight of our trucks. Our trucks do need the extra pad contact surface to slow them down especially with a load. The stock rotors, and most truck rotors, are slotted radially to cool down quickly by sucking air in between the two faces of the rotor while retaining the necessary contact area. Kinetic friction heat build up is directly proportional to the speed of the pad on the rotor, not the "squeezing" force applied by the brake pedel. I have been pulling trailers for a long time, and do not put any faith in these slotted rotors. My cousin's front brakes burned up on his '95 F150 a few years back while coming down out of the mountains from Estes Park, CO towing a 16 ft camper. IMO, the culprit was the "upgraded" slotted disc brakes he installed only weeks before. Don't trust vendors that say that their slotted rotors will increase your braking performance when towing!

 

Upgrading your rotors/pads are usually rated as a performance upgrade for stopping power, not so for towing(at least that is what I have read about upgrading brakes).

Later
M V

 

Guess I'm confused, better stopping power wouldn't be a benefit when towing??? I was just reading an article in a magazine where they added them to a F-250 for just this reason...

 

What tools are needed? I need to replace my rear rotors quick before they damage my calipers (as quoted by a brake shop).

 

wrenches to take the caliper and bracket off

 

We are all a bunch of consumers, so the rotor vendors are paying to have a good write-up for their product. So of course they are going to say "You're gotta have these". Physics does not lie about this one.

 

Standard wrenches I assume, I heard "special" tools were needed but wrenches are pretty generic.

 

KSpencer is right about this. There is a lot of difference in braking missions. Slotted rotors and super hard pads are for stopping down from very high speeds. You may actually get less braking at low speeds with these 'racing brakes'.

Car articles are done to sell magazines and products.

 

Thought I would weigh in on this. I have power slots and hawk pads. It is a great combo. Without a doubt, this combo is far superior to stock. As for installation..... Fronts will be easy. Rears on the other hand..... Since 1997, Ford has had an issue with rotors seizing to the hub. My old 1998 (now my son's) fronts seized and could not be separated without replacing the wheel hub. My 2004, rears seized as well; but, a puller and a good bit of 2 lb hammering and they came apart. A generous amount of anti-seize will keep this from happening again.

Good luck. For me... it was well worth the hassle. Do remember my 2004 has a lot of miles. Currently over 74K. Probably about 65K when we did the brakes. Also, since doing this job, I have experienced very little wear. The rotors still look new.

 

My last truck was an02 ranger, and wiped out the front rotors and pads in about 18,000 miles. I replaced the rotors with powerslots and pads with hawk superduties. The stopping power was a big improvement but I got a ton of noise from the pads. Hawk sent me a set of performance pads to try, and said the super duties were probably too much for the weight of the truck thats why they squeeled. The performance series were no better than stock as far as stopping power but made no noise. I then changed pads to ackebonos and found them to be better than stocks&hawk performance, but not as good as the superduties and made no noise. As far as the rotors, added 40k+ to them, they never warped and looked good as new. In my experience I would say spend the extra money on the good rotors and never have to replace them again(far better material than stock), but look for good pads to increase your braking performance.

 

OK , well I have worked at Ford dealers for years and their rotors are junk , just good enough for 1 set of pads. Everyone I know has had a problem with warpage of the front rotors. I drive much less aggressively and have 65,000 miles on the original rotors and they need to be replaced (warped from towing even with trailer brakes). Powerslots I have on my Mark8 and they are good. The truck is a truck , can anyone reccomend the rotorpros ? Raybestos has a line of heavy duty drilled and slotted rotors for about 85$ each , anyone have rotorpros ? The price is great , how is the quality ? As far as physics ? wouldn't the excessive heat cause the warpage ? Many passenger cars warp the rotors even if they are not driven very hard (tbird, cougar,mark8) for example. The factory only puts brakes that are just good enough , they have to make money on us , they dont build them to last forever.