praise dyno

[scottac]

my 99' silverado has about 60000 miles on it and it is time to replace and upgrade the rotors and pads.

 

I have read good things about the praise dyno II setup. does anyone know about how many miles I should get out of these new rotors, assuming I continue to use the stage two brake pads.

 

and are there any other suggestions on pads and rotors of good value/performance.

 

thanks for all your time.

[Ben]

Don't buy Praise Dyno for longevity. Guy the cheaper levels of braking pads/shoes.

 

Price to pay, as think about it...friction materials sacrifice themselves doing what they are designed to do. The better they do it, the more consumed.

 

Lots to do with the way you drive and what you drive.

 

Key on a 99 is to keep the rears manually adjusted TIGHT. Ask you to check the rear shoes and bet they are almost like new....because the self adjusters don't. That means the fronts have been doing 99.99% of the braking and will wear out any brand sooner.

 

Don't get drilled rotors either, unless you really need the gas escape routing and willing to change them out often. Racers change rotors often and willing to live with the cracking. Also, note that drilled rotors have about 28% less surface area and similar percentage less mass, all to do with braking and themal attributes. Again, racers can live with this down side too, as they keep their rotors HOT.

 

Highly recommend Praise Dyno. Talk to anyone there and they will help settle your questions. They are the largest supplier to the US military. Beat out all others during testing. This from small company against the likes of Bendix, Raybestos, Wagner, etc.

 

Value to performance is such a personal thing. Many will weigh cost over performance. Others longevity over performance. Others easy of corner store vs Texas suppllier. I'll always go performance as long as can afford, and Praise is in the same range as OEM from GM.

[Bish]

Agreed, don't buy Praise for longevity. Buy them for nose bleed brakes

 

Like Ben said, it's the price you pay for fantastic stopping ability. My oem went 85K at which time I went with 4 wheel Stage II kit (cryo pads and cryo slotted rotors). I now have around 115K. I've got some pedal pulse but I can live with it. I expect another 10K before the pulse gets bad enough to replace the rotors in front. Looks like the rears will last much longer, maybe 50-60K. While I'm a little disappointed with the pulse, I amd extremely happy with the stopping performance hot or cold. Might consider putting on some cheap Brembo rotors ($50ea) to get rid of the pulse and see how long it takes for the pads to trash the rotors.

 

PS-Stay away from Performance Friction. Tried them for about 5000 miles. Great when HOT but stab them when the rotors are cold and you have no brakes....that is untill they get up to temp. Try driving on the highway for an hour and then needing a panic stop. Those PF almost killed me.

[scottac]

has anyone ever heard anything about raybestos rotors. are they any good.

[Ben]

Hey Bish, have some fun and don't kill yourself rebedding the rotors/pads.

 

With any of the higher performance stuff, it gets HOT and if the rotors are allowed to stop rotating, will bake a high spot of friction material. That high spot will tend to be "felt" as pulsations, or diag'd as warped rotors. Mostly wrong diag.

 

Rebed them, but first must scrap off that high spot. High spot can be only 0.0004 inch thick, which you an "feel" on the brake pedal. 0.001 inch thick and think the rotor is potato chip warped so bad.

 

Here is picture of someone's rotor that stopped rotating while the pads were outgassing, so high spot of friction material.

 

Here's hot link to one of the best articles on bedding in and other comments on friction materials and rotors...though don't agree with them that there isn't such thing as warped rotors...I've measured countless with dial indicator. Stop Tech article

 

Or just take your rig up to 90 mph and nail the brakes hard without initiating ABS down to around 5-10mph and DO NOT STOP, but keep rotating the rotors till the pads cool and stop outgassing. That will scrub off any high spots and then you can rebed them

[Ben]

Forgot to post picture of my OEM rotors and how "nose bleed" braking can generate huge amounts of heat.

 

These rotors have classic heat stress fractures from braking very hard. Not many using any of the Bendix, Raybestos, Wagner, NAPA, etc will ever get enough braking power to do this.

 

Hot link to picture of my rotors with heat stress cracks from braking HARD

[scottac]

alright, I am an idiot about trucks and stuff. what does it mean to rebed brakes. I know I probably sound really stupid, but I had to ask.

 

thanks

[Bish]

Rebedding the brakes involves redistributing the friction material onto the rotor and outgassing the pads. Basically, with new pads and rotors, you need to do this before they start providing the designed braking performance.

 

I bed the following way.

 

Find a road you can drive on for a mile or two without hitting brakes. Drive up to say 30mph and do a light to moderate braking to around 5-10mph DO NOT STOP COMPLETELY!. Then speed back up to around 30 and let the rotors cool for about a minute. Repeat the braking. This should be done around 20 times IMO before you get good braking. It is VERY important to heat cycle (hot to cold) in between braking. WHen I first had the Praise on there, I was a little disappointed. Once I completed the bedding process, the performance was MUCH BETTER. Also, if you do a hard stop before bedding the pads/rotors, you can easily glaze the pads abnd then you will never have good performance until you scuff the pads and rotors again to remove the glazing.

 

I believe tha bedding also boils off some of the binding material in the bads. This is normal and will improve braking as well.

 

Good Luck.

[Ben]

Add to Bish's very good explaination so that others will understand and know some of the terms.

 

Green fricton material (pads and shoes) and green cast iron (rotor and drums) need to be broken in, or cured.

 

Green friction material will have the binders outgas tons while curing. Once cured, they will continue to outgas, but at much higher temps and much less gas.

 

Green cast iron must have the friction material smeared onto it's surface. This increases the potential coefficient of friction. Uneven smearing on friction materials will have high spots, which will be both higher coefficient of friction potential and high point that can be felt by the brake pedal and mis-diagnosed as warped rotors.

 

That heat cycle Bish mentions is key to curing the friction materials. Also not allowing the cast iron to stop while the friction material is outgasing.

 

The higher performance materials requires much longer bedding in process. The massive 1 ton dually drum rears (stock) on my 3/4 ton Suburban took over 2 months to totally cure or bed in. Most who don't have their rear drums tightened enough will take even longer to cure or bed them in. Have to get them HOT and only way to get them hot is to have in the game so to speak.

 

Once properly bedded in, and adjusted correctly (drums), why call Praise Dyno Brakes "Nose Bleed Braking". They will stand a GM Truck on it's nose.