Yes, i am on vector to hit abotu 30 track days this year! And my goal is to have pads that work on both trakc and street - for me that's the Stoptech 309s. That said, the problem with he Hawks (aside from being a mediocre pad) is that they use a unqiue approach to achive low dust. Dust is friction material coming off. The only way to have less dust us to have less material wear off. If you do this with a hard pad you get noise and rotor wear.
Hawk are clever. They took the well-established chemical deposition layer adhersion principles and turned up the volume. While misunderstood, pad bed-in is really a process whereby a pad puts a layer of pad material on the rotor. To avoid pulsing it must be EVEN. It nly transfers at high temps, btu not so hgih as to exceed its temp range. This is done by a series of hard stops without cooling - then rest.
The Hawk HPS uses more deposit layer-pad adhesion than pad-rotor friction to produce stopping power. Thus, less wear occurs. Sounds good.
here's the issue:
1. if the deposition layer is not even, it will pulse like a warped rotor. This can occur with time if you drive hard
2. the material reacts badly with other friction materials. So if you dont change rotors, you may get pulsing or deposit layer breakdown
In addition, i foudn the feel spongy and harder to modulate.
I had a friggin nightmare with them. I tried the HP+ because they sent me a set "free" to act as scrubbers to take the old material off. It did, btu came right back. They left such caustic, hard brake dust that i cudl nto even git it off with a toothbrush, chemicals and a plastic dental pick. It remains there in corners to this day.
I despise those pads ( and in fact, ECS and Hawk for recomending them, then doign basically nothing)
Rant off.
Textar are my preferred every-day OEM-type pad. yea, they dust, btu it comes right off.
Have you tried "rim wax"? It hardens under heat and helps with easy dust removal.
My go-to padf is now Stoptech 309. Easy on rotors, quiet on the street, modest dust (except on track when you get clouds using anything) and good for 1200 deg. So they will never fail me on track, ven if they begin to wear rapidly with heat.
309s are fine for street ( as is, frankly, anything).
I would consider some of the ceramic pads for low dust. I hve used pads from Stoptech's parent, centric - their premium line of course, and i liek them. They have a ceramic that looks good, although i did nto use it.
Bear in mind i probably go through 2-3 sets per year total on the boxster and another on the Audi. I change a LOT of pads.
Grant
Grant
gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com