I'm trying to find a set of evo9 front pads for the street that have high initial cold bite and feel more like the semi-metallics on my old 135i and current s3. Think that means a more aggressive pad meant for autox or a "sport" semi-metallic. The evo's only real mods are a set of ohlins and I don't plan on taking it to the track or autox. It came with front Textar Q+ 2309204 and rear oem brembo pads. I swapped the fluid and bought new front/rear blank rotors with carbotech 1521. The 1521 were an improvement with almost no dusting or noise. They still feel soft, though. The best brake feel I've had was with carbotech xp10/xp8 and cobalt xr3 on a NA miata track car but don't expect that level of braking on a street driven evo.

Basically looking for:
- High initial cold bite with good modulation. A few normal stops to warm-up is fine.
- Don't care about dusting. The evo doesn't get driven a lot.
- Don't care about rotor life.
- Noise is ok, but preferably only when hot.
- Would be nice to reuse the front rotor with the 1521s.

I was thinking carbotech ax6 or g-loc r6. I also see suggestions for winmax w2 (slightly lower mu?) and stoptech sports. Don't want to end up buying 4 different front pads to find something I like. Hoping someone with evo autox or track experience can help. Any suggestions?

 

In my case ive always ran & still do the StopTech's for street use & ran the Carbo's for track days

I even run the StopTech's on my DD.

And regarding noise, high performance brakes cause noise when cold but when warm or hot they are relatively silent, at least thats been my experience

 

Ferodo DS2500...do you have any experience with those?

Not sure if they play nice with the whatever transfer layer the 1521s may leave on the rotor, but for a street pad they definitely have some great bite and decent heat endurance.

I have the Porterfield R4S on my s2000 at the moment. I did one HPDE with them and they put up with a few hot laps OK. Good manners. I like them quite a bit, mostly for the initial bite and modulation. I'll put those on the Evo next.

 

Hawk StreetRace 5.0. Awesome initial bite. It's super dirty and would probably be squealy. I had one set that did not squeal though

 

^ Hawk used to offer the "Street/Race" pad. Disco now. Yes, pretty good initial bite from ambient.
They still offer the "HPS 5.0" pad. I have both at the moment. I was doing some HPDEs with the Street Race as a compromise pad since I didn't want to swap pads/rotors as I was less focused on chasing lap times, and more focused on just getting out there with the car while juggling all the other various life stuff.

For what it's worth, the Hawk Street/Race is the same compound as their DTC-30. The difference being that the Street Race have chamfered edges and shims to aid in reducing noise. Aside from that, they are 100% a DTC-30. With the Evo Brembos, they were loud. I also had them on an S2000 with stock sliding calipers, and they were much less noisy.
High metal content...they eat rotors. Very dusty.
They are sensitive to how quickly you bring them up to temp, and are easy to overheat and will leave deposits pretty readily- example, at Fontana it's a lot of big acceleration, linked by corners. You have a big straight with ample time for cooling, and a 280whp, stock weight Evo can get up to ~130. Maintaining 120-125 through the banking (T1&T2). Then all the brakes, down into 2nd, for T3. These pads did not like this track. Maybe they would have been better in a different scenario.
They definitely did better on the lighter S2K at Laguna Seca.
One of their strengths is they have decent bite and torque from ambient. They are targeted at dirt track/circle track.
Hawk has since DC'd the Street/Race variant. I still have my set, but not sure I will ever put them back in.

I have the HPS 5.0s on the car now. Not super impressed. They aren't bad, but the bite from ambient isn't amazing, and while they can handle some heat they leave me wanting something better. Decent modulation though when they are in the sweet spot temp-wise.

 

I have taken my Street/race on track but I tend to cut my session short since the tire grip is going downhill OR the fluid is toast. These are Time Trials/Sprints runs.
For street/autox use, I love the bite, from just rolling off my driveway to super late braking, I just know with confidence its going to stop with less pedal pressure. I'm not sure if the squeal comes from the compound surface. My last set became quiet after the track event

 

I had a similar experience with the noise. When the rotors have a nice transfer layer and/or pads are hot (not overheating) they quiet down. Cold pads chew through the transfer layer and make noise.

 

I've had a couple of sets of these and after a bunch of track days, they basically crumbled and the material fell off them. Won't use them again.

 

i put these on about 500 miles ago, so far only driven on city streets with some spirited highway pulls in the middle of the night. they're insanely loud when you're braking softly under 10mph. i bedded and broke them in per all the instructions perfectly. i think they have to be HOT as f*** to be quiet and ideal for performance. like, racetrack or canyon descent hot. for that reason, I don't think they'd be good for OP's purposes: city/street driving. on another note, they're pretty dusty, but have good bite when cold.

 

Thanks for the recommendations. I ended up buying a set of ds2500 for the front. Bedded them in using the instructions on my old rotors with caliper grease on the face and edges of the backing plate. They take a few braking applications to warm up and are exactly what I wanted: lighter pedal effort than 1521 both initially and across the entire range plus great modulation. As a bonus I haven't heard any noise from them, but maybe that will change with use.

Was reluctant to try the dtc-30s because of set of dtc-60s on my old track car that I didn't like. Many people like hawk pads so they are probably a good choice and are inexpensive. I would probably go with xp10s if I wanted a streetable track pad, though. But I didn't want to deal with warming them up to get good braking.

 

Thanks for the follow up.

I really like the DS2500 as an aggressive street pad, for the reasons you mentioned. And if you can keep em quiet, even better.

Jonno they are fine for light track use, but are not a real race pad.