So as I mentioned in an earlier post, I swapped some new brake pads onto my truck last week. I was unhappy with the stock pads, as I felt there was little to no brake pedal feel and very non-linear stopping performance (ie more pedal did not produce faster stopping).

I opted to replace the stock pads with Hawk HP SuperDuty ones, sourced from TireRack.com. I chose the Hawks because I have had very, very good results with their racing pads on my race car. They were $77 for the front axle and $68 for the rear.

Hawk Pads

The brake pad swap itself was basically painless with the exception of some odd hardware choices by GM (18mm caliper bolts on the front calipers, some big honkin' Torx bolts on the rear - why????).

I bedded in the new Hawks per the instructions. I did not, however, resurface the rotors as I didn't want to spend hours doing the job.

These pads ROCK. GREAT stopping power, particularly after the first stop when they've built up some heat. Very linear pedal feel, with great modulation. You can lean into the pedal more in the middle of a stop and the truck actually stops faster now! What a concept!

Brake dust seems comparable to stock. There is a little noise at at the very end of a stop, but it is disippating as the rotors wear off some of the previous brake pad material. I didn't use any of the brake pad goop or bevel the pads, both of which may have helped a bit. The noise is not irritating and should be completely gone soon (based on other people's experiences with these pads).

Overall: two thumbs up and well worth the money and time. This truck STOPS now.

- Mark

[ 08-18-2003, 03:28 PM: Message edited by: StrangeEngine ]