ZDan

HPS were by far the worst pads I've ever experienced. Immediately, on the street, noticeably softer/spongier pedal, and LESS bite vs. OEM pads. At the track, total disaster. Within a lap or so the pedal got REALLY soft and would continue to sink in the braking zones. I had to downshift early to help slow the car! Bled brakes, no change. After three abbreviated ~8-10 minute sessions, they were 90% vaporized. Put the OEM pads back in and WOW, I had brakes again! And stock are NOT good track pads.

Curiously, I've had no problems running HP+ with street tires at the track, in fact they give way more bite than XP8 or XP10, and work perfectly well cold. They do dust a ton, though, and squeal.

Best street pad? OEM AP1, as already suggested.

S2KiChad

thanks guys i was leaning towards hawk pads but after all these review i am for sure going with oem ap1 brake pads to bad i just made a big order of majestic earlier this week

Mushu.MTL.S2K

Don't want to hijack the thread but any suggestions for someone tracking 4x a year + aggressive DD? I've purchased the car with Hawks and have never tried OEM (I have an AP1). Would you still suggest OEM even if I'm tracking?

thx in advance....

billios996

agreed on the HP+. Great bite, lots of dust. No fade on the track (with ATE blue, SS lines and racing brake rotors).

Any difference between AP1 and AP2 pads? Are they interchangeable?

XtC-604

I don't know why you guys don't like the HPS, but in Canada they work quite well O.o
Maybe temperature differences, but they sure stop alot better than OEM for me atleast on the same tires.
As for sponginess and feel:
I do have Spoon calipers and ss lines, so i guess that solves it? Cause modulation is fairly easy.

06Estukay

I use stoptech pads for street duty. Pretty similar to OEM with a tad more bite. I have track pads that I swap in before events, so I don't know how well they would be on track, although I hear they hold up surprisingly well. Anyhow, for street only, stick with oem.

S2k-2NV

I am in the same boat with this guy. I have stoptechs for street use and they were like $60 bucks shipped for the fronts. They bite about the same if not slightly better than the stock OEM's. I use hawk blues with a different set of rotors for track use.

macr88

The stoptechs dust like crazy though whereas oem AP1 pads hardly throw any dust.

ZDan

Because I tried them once and they were objectively FAR FAR WORSE than OEM in any conditions, and unusable/downright dangerous at the track.

No, I live in Rhode Island, installed these pads in the early spring 2007, ~50s F temperatures. They sucked immediately, right out of the box and after a moderate break-in, in coolish temperatures. They continued to suck to the bitter end of their short life.

If true, the only thing I can figure is that their quality control with HPS production is spotty and my pads were from a bad batch. Other reports of similarly horrible performance from others as well. Reason enough for me to never try them again and to strongly recommend against them.
Suck compound will still suck with a single-piston sliding caliper or 4-piston fixed caliper. If they gave a softer/spongier pedal with my stock calipers, they would give a softer/spongier pedal with 4-pot calipers.
If you actually did get better performance than OEM, you must've gotten your HPS's from a batch that they sprinkled fairy dust in. Or perhaps mine came from a batch that they accidentally mixed cookie dough into.

Anyway, my experience with HPS was unbelievably bad, and I'm generally pretty easy on brakes. From the first time they clamped rotors to the end, they were AWFUL.

Some sets of HPS might actually give OK performance, but the ones I got were absolute garbage. I don't see any reason for anyone to risk it with these pads.

XtC-604

Fair enough, or maybe i'm thinking i have the HPS but actually have the HP+ :S
But they do squeel quite a bit.
Track days i'm on Hawk Blue