Plain vs. Drilled vs. Slotted. vs ??? Rotors - What's what?

hello everybody in this video I'm doing something a little bit different today I'm going to discuss with you guys the differences between plain faced rotors drilled rotors slotted rotors slotted variations such as the J hook as well as hybrid variations between slotted and drilled and how they each affect performance but before we begin discussing the different types of brake discs let me first give you a brief history lesson on how they came to be the superior technology equipped on most cars today back in 1902 Lanchester Motor Company was the first company to equip brake discs onto an automotive vehicle but we wouldn't see the mass production of cars with brake discs until 1955 with the Citroen des most cars were equipped with drum brakes however the success of brake discs in World War two on fighter planes and tanks as well as a success of brake discs and racing applications forced automotive companies to look at brake discs as the superior braking mechanism in cars when brake discs were first being mass-produced they were of a solid construction meaning that the disc itself was completely solid cast iron all the way throughout but as vehicles became heavier and faster we needed some way to be able to cool the discs down under heavy braking and that's when the vented disc brakes came in handy the earliest mention of vented disc brakes that I can find was from a patent in about 1929 I'm not entirely sure when they became standard on most vehicles but almost every vehicle today is equipped with at least a vented brakes in the front sometimes you'll see them with solid disc brakes in the back or drum brakes like I have on the Sentra but the vented disc brake design basically has these little veins that allows hot gas to take heat away from the disc and then it gets vented out to the outside of the disc this cools the disc down and allows it to perform better after heavy braking now most this is today that are equipped on 99.9% of cars are just going to have a flat faced disc like this pretty plain with no patterns etched into it the reason for this is that they're fairly cost effective they're pretty cheap to make since you don't have to add in additional manufacturing steps to be put in different designs on a disk they are also a lot longer blasting the smooth this design here means that you don't get as much pad wear which means that the pads in the disks itself will last a lot longer because of the lack of designs here they are also a lot quieter on the road you don't get as much noise from these as you would on say drilled or slotted rotors and that makes them great for Road use the cost effectiveness but quietness and how long these disks and lasts are kind of what everyday drivers are looking for in disc brakes and that's why these are equipped on most vehicles the only downside to plane rotors like this with no real patterns etched into them is the fact that they have no way to be able to vent gases that build up under heavy braking when you're for instance at the track this really isn't as much of an issue today as it was back in the days of asbestos pads where you've got a lot of gas buildup when the pads started to get really hot they're also known as effective that thermal regulation the plane face here means you don't have as much surface area and ways to be able to regulate the temperature as you would with certain other brake disc designs and this means that they're not as great for track use you'll experience a lot more brake fade with this style of disc then you might with other certain types of discs that we're getting ready to show you and then they are not as interesting as other types of discs that you would see they're pretty boring because of the plain face versus for instance drilled or slotted discs that look a lot sporty-er and are a little more appealing for market purposes so in order to address the concerns with performance on the track or appearance there are some performance brake disc designs out there that we're going to go over so the first type of disc rotor that we're going to talk about today are drilled rotors with the drilled rotors you have a bunch of these holes that have been drilled through the face of the disc and we first saw this in the 1950s as engineers we're looking for a way to be able to ventilate the gasses that build up due to the use of asbestos pads asbestos pads got really hot they would generate a thin layer of gas that would sit between the rotor and the pad which meant you got a lot of brake fade because the pads weren't able to make good contact with the disc by drilling a bunch of holes on the rotor you've given those gases away to be able to escape into the ventilation vanes and the disc Mette but the disk could work more effectively at higher temperatures the only issue with drilled rotors like this is you do have the issue of thermal instability because you've drilled a bunch of hole to the face of the rotor you've ruined the integrity of the disk itself which means are really high temperatures you're at risk of cracking the rotor nowadays ventilating gases through these holes isn't really as important because we use ceramic pads instead of asbestos pads and the ceramic pads don't generate as much gas which means we don't see the type of brake fade that we did with asbestos the other downside of these is of course the cost because you're adding another manufacturing step to be able to drill holes through the rotor it means that you're gonna drive up the cost of the rotor so why would anybody want to buy these sort of drilled rotors here if they're not really that important for track use anymore it's mainly an appearance and marketing thing drilled rotors of course look really cool so if you're looking at them behind a set of really cool wheels or whatever they look really nice but they really just don't have any functional purpose anymore so in order to be able to address the issues with performance nowadays we need to look at some other options a modification to the drilled rotor that helps address some of the issues with it is the dimpled rotor a dimpled rotor looks a lot like a drilled rotor but instead of drilling holes completely through the disk you're only drilling them part of the way which gives up the appearance of a drilled rotor while still maintaining the structural integrity of the disk and allowing you to be able to ventilate some of the brake dust and gases that build up between the pad and the disk however they're still not as effective as some of the other rotor designs that we're about to go over so the next type of rotor that we are going to discuss are slotted rotors the slotted rotors you have the shallow trenches that are carved into the face of the disc and what these trenches are able to do are clean the pad off by scraping away a microscopic layer off at the surface of the pad each time the pad passes over the leading edge of the slot and what this does is cleans the pad off of any sort of brake dust or gases allowing them to escape it also deglazes the pad revealing a fresh surface each time which means that the pad always has good contact with the rotor all of this increases the coefficient of friction giving the driver a better feel and giving had a better bite as it passes over that leading edge but these slotted rotors you do get even pad where just based on the way that these slots are formed now the downside to these rotors is the fact that you do have a high rate of pad wear because of the way that the slots end up shaving up a microscopic layer off of the pad each time it passes over each the grooves it does mean that you're going to lose your pad more quickly you also still have the issue of thermal cracking because you've formed this narrower region inside the rotor you've placed a weak spot on the rotor which means they're still at risk of forming a crack but it's not as high of a risk as you would have had with drilled rotors of course slotted rotors are also gonna cost more than your typical blank rotors that you see on most cars but still if you're looking for a performance rotor this is typically the option to go for the vs. going let's say with a drill Brodeur there are of course loads of variants to slotted rotors in one of those a BD J hook design where instead of having straight trenches throughout the surface of the disc we have these little trenches that form J's this is a much more aggressive slot design that gives you a lot more pad bite but that also means you've increased the rate of wear in your rotor and these are of course a lot more expensive to make than your typical slotted rotors that have those straight trenches like we just saw and then of course other variations to these slotted rotors are going to be for instance hybrids between slotted and drilled rotors where you can get the best of both worlds where you have the appearance of drilled rotors but the functionality of slotted rotors alright guys so let's discuss the big question what is the best for braking performance each of the different designs we've discussed today have their own distinct advantages playing phase rotors are really good for endurance they give you the longest pad light for the cheapest to make drilled rotors have the advantage of appearance really it used to be really beneficial back in the days of asbestos pads but are really only for appearance nowadays slotted rotors give you the scraping capability of being able to keep the pads fresh and clean while still being able to maintain even pad wear but you can also go with a slotted variants such as the j-hook that gives you slightly less even pad wear but gives you a more aggressive bite and slightly better pebble feel and then of course there are hybrids out there which kind of give you the best of both worlds but the real answer to breaking performance is none of these in fact if you want to maximize your braking performance your best going off with a nice set of pads and tires while the rotors do play a minor role in mitigating the temperature and trying to prevent brake fade the real determining factor in performance is going to be your tires and your pads with your pads of the material that you choose is going to determine how long the pad lasts before it becomes completely worn out and it also determines the temperatures that you can hit before you start to experience brake fade but the tires are probably the most important aspect of it all because your tires is what determines our cornering capabilities and how fast the car can stop there's a common misconception that upgrading your brake rotors and your pads is what's going to help you decrease the stopping distance of your car but really all of that does is help you be able to prevent brake fade and withstand the higher temperatures that you see for track use the real determining factor and how quickly you can stock your car is your tires pretty much every single car nowadays is equipped with something called an anti-lock braking system or ABS basically what that does is it prevents the wheels from becoming completely locked and then allowing the tires to just slide because the tires are actually the bottleneck in how fast the car can stop so choosing a proper set of tires is what's really gonna benefit you most when you take it out onto the track and then your brake pads and your rotors or what's going to determine how well they can hold up in long endurance racing under heavy braking anyways guys I hope you found this video informative if you did give it the thumbs up you can even subscribe to my channel for more informative videos I'll have coming up in the future thank you guys for watching and I will see y'all in the next video later [Music]

Channel: The Carizon

Views: 291,415

Rating: 4.8731332 out of 5

Keywords: Drilled Rotors, Slotted Rotors, J Hook, Drilled and Slotted Rotors, Vented Brakes, Vented Discs, Vented Rotors, Comparison, automotive brakes, car brakes, history of brakes in cars, brake discs, brake rotors, brakes, race brakes, performance brakes, performance rotors, performance discs, EBC, Stoptech, Brembo, Akibono, Wilwood, Bosch, AP Racing, disc brakes, which is best, car modifications, brake modification, the carizon, Drilled vs Slotted vs solid rotors, drilled vs slotted

Id: gZmZ3J1Zy-w

Length: 10min 33sec (633 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 28 2018