Brake Rotors:
After destroying a “pretty” pair of rotors, I went with Napa. You can get them quick and easy everywhere. They do not rust, hold up well and resist warp. Rotors get more and more deposable as you go faster and faster and brake deeper and deeper. The sold rotors will hold up longer, and will resist the cracking & splitting the best. I tried the Baer set up (+1/+2), and I have seen others that did. We all agree = REALLY pretty at car shows = horrendous for HPDE with race pads!!! Especially on race pads that eat them up. Expensive rotors are just that expensive. Napa Part# Fronts: 86700 & 86701 // Rears: 86702 & 86703. You can also go to Rockauto.com (
http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/x,ca...,parttype,1896) for cheap rotors that hold up well, the discussion on CF all say the best ones there are the Centric Rotors (Part# 12062059, 12062060, 12062061, 12062062). So you can save $$ at RockAuto, but in a pinch Napa is a quick grag and go... just make sure they didn't swap the cheap chinese imported ones on you that are failing lately.
A nice inexpensive 2 piece set up does exist to save weight and such, but it’s not cheap getting set up and no guarantees that they will last longer or brake better.
http://performanceafx.com has a custom 2 piece set up that isn’t too bad in $$$ and he is a really helpful guy. I also suggest when you put the bolts back in to hold the caliper on to use "no seize lubricant" or somethign like that. Without an impact / air gun those bolts get hard as heck to get out once you race one time and the heat jsut locks those SOBs in there tight!
Brake Ducts:
I am on my second kit. My first kit was a “fire path” kit (
http://www.eastcoastsupercharging.co...uct%20Kit.html), meaning the air cooled directly on the inside path where the pads directly heat the rotors. I found this great on my Hawk HP pads & for a ¼ mile car it probably works very well. When I went to real race pads (XP8) for HPDE which heated the rotors up more & an hour session can torture the rotors, I found that the asymmetric cooling cracked the outside of the rotor and left the insides unscathed. This then created warping and I got brake pulsing.
I just installed a Quantum Motorsports Kit (
http://store.quantummotorsports.com/...nq78lbb0bc1kn7), this sends the air into the HUB. This accomplishes 2 things: cools the hub for hopefully better hub / bearing life (see later section) and since the air then leaves thru the veins of the rotors out to the circumference it cools both the inner and outer firepaths equally. This means less asymmetrically cracking and hopefully less likely to warp. I have not used them enough to have first hand, but others told me this and that’s why I switched. Rear ducts aren’t necessary (but look cool). 80% of your braking is on the fronts, the rotors and pads there will get abused WAY more and fail WAY more. Cool the front, no worries on the rears. If your wheels are wide, there is no room for rear ducts anyhow. PLUS if you eventually need a rear diff/trans cooler set up like the DRM kit... you need the space those ducts fill for the coolers. FYI it took a lot of fussing to get the Quantum kit just right, and still having issues making it perfect. Sigh, at least Im not rubbing on hard turns anymore and hearing metal on metal! Still happy with the effort.
FYI the OLDer version of the Pfadt pfatty bars interferes with the ducts by pushing the endlinks in teh front into the DRM where it meets the hose duct causing rubs and a small air leak eventually. Pfadt has fixed this issue on their bars for 2009 and on.