hey all,

i have asked this question on another board and had a couple people advise against it.

But what do you all think about drilling my own rotors? i have a spare set that needs to be cut that i could experiment on . . . and at $200 for a set of vented rotors i thought it would be worth a try. What do you all thnk?

i could take them to a local CNC/fab shop and see what they would charge.

Don't even do it. The way the rotors are made and the processes that the rotors have to go through....Drilling is like one of the first stages of it. You'll wreckj the rotors and possibly have a catostrophic brake failure and be in a real big world of hurt.

Don't do it yourself, and you'll likely not find anyone to do it for you for liability reasons. Drilling weakens the rotors. Buy them with the holes CAST in, not drilled, then hardened, and you STILL have less surface area for braking power.

Buy slotted, not drilled. Drilling for street use is strictly a cosmetic mod that takes away from overall braking UNLESS you increase your rotor diameter to make up for it and they are cast.

Many shops now won't turn rotors that are crossdrilled, and some won't even turn slotted any more because of all the ricers that are shattering drilled rotors.

well, it was worth a thought. i did some more reading since your reply'* and you both were spot on - Thanks for the info!

Drilling your own is DEFINATELY not a good idea. It weakens the rotors causing them to crack and possibly break. I have heard slotted is better from people before, but my dad put drilled and slotted rotors on his GTP all the way around, and it stops significantly better than it did before. Fade is pretty much non-existant. The slotting helps with the bite and the drilling helps keep the heat down to reduce fade. But bigger is always better as well.

Shawn

I have slotted NOT drilled on my Malibu and they are great, I really noticed a difference. I would never go drilled for street used.


BTW Xac Xado that pic you have as your avatar was taken about 1.5 hours from my house and I travel that HWY a few times a month. It happened on a week that I was not traveling that HWY. Believe it or not, it was a lady driving and she walked away from that accident. The moose, well you see he didn't, LOL. I think she had a few cuts and I think a broken wrist.

Betcha 10 bucks that GTP will stop better without the holes. It'* the slots that improve braking power, holes are for cooling, but only in extreme braking conditions. And they're replaced after every race.

Slots allow the pad gasses to escape. You don't get the 'air hockey' effect between the pad and rotor. They do the same for shedding water as well. My slotted rotors gave me the same effect as you describe.

Hey Bill, do you notice a noise with your slotted rotors from the pads running over them?? I have always had it since I installed the slotted rotors, I am used to it but it freaks out any mechanic that has to take it for a test drive, I usually just laugh.

Yup. And I immediately took my pads off and chamfered the leading edge of the pad material at 45° with a file.

It'* from the edge of the slots hitting the leading edge of the pad. Won't do any damage, and it'll go away in time as the rotor wears.

well actually the garage that does the work for me does put on angle on the leading edge for me. I usually notice the noise more when I am doing hard braking wich is most of the time.

I just picked up set #2 of pads from RSM last week, but still on my first set of slotted rotors. I temporarily have the crappy GM ceramic pads on the car to get me by till Friday so I can get the RSM pads installed.