Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Brakes The down falls of drilled rotors

The Porsche and Mercedes rotors are ceramic not steel. You are right about drilling holes in the hat area of the rotors, it takes a real dipstick to do something that stupid! Cross drilling or slotting the rotors on street cars is useless, it only looks cool.

Right on the holes not being in the surface or the crack there. My bust for stating as so, it was only passed along to me as you saw it. Anyhow, I still prefer not to do drilled rotors but how do you say 'no' to customers who will take their business elsewhere? Street, ok. Track NO. The rotor in question I was only suggesting may be the DBA unit as they too have some strange way of mounting the rotor to the hat in this center vent area. I looked at the materail they sent to me and passed on them for this very reason. The material holding the rotor to the hat has me nervous. All mine are 8 bolt rotors to the hats. Yes, you can get 10 or 12 also, but I feel this is over kill for many appliations and the 8 bolt has the best selection of rotors to choose from.

Baer drills their rotors because the know people will pay cash for looks and many don't care about performence..........OMG did I just say that? :p

Ding Ding Ding!! We have a winner! You are right Shaun! Most of the products made for sport compact cars today are nothing more than eye candy or they cause the car to sound different. The manufacturer's have found out that by making your car moan,growl or gurggle from the intake they can sell otherwise useless products. Look at the catbacks being peddled, While making your car sound more like you want it to thats about all they do. Oh I forgot they really lighten the hell out of your wallet. I geuss thats where most of the percieved HP increase comes from, Better HP to weight ratio.

It looks like it may be a "composite" rotor. The hat is steel and the friction area is cast iron. Ford had a huge recall on such rotors on the T-bird and Taurus back about 1991 because they sometimes would come apart when subjected to salt rust. The design was a way to make the rotor lighter during the push to improve fuel economy where every ounce was questioned. The composite design never was one that I much cared for. They were even hard to properly machine because the steel portion would flex enough in the lathe (without the support of the car's hub) to make the tool bit chatter and make an uneven cut.

Drilling that part of the rotor, composite or not, was insanity. I'm glad I wasn't driving that car when it broke loose.

Big Jim, Your coments on the Tbird rotors interests me. I have a 90 Super Coupe that I am doing a ground up restoration on and was wondering, Were composite rotors on that Tbird as well? If your not sure, how could I tell? Since all of the suspension of the car is disassembled right now, now would be the time to get good rotors. Any thoughts? Thanks.

I really don't remember the details of the recall that much these many years later, but the composite rotors were removed and junked. I'm pretty sure that you can no longer get composite rotors for your T-bird. They are easy to identify because the hub area of the rotor is much thinner is is obviously stamped steel rather than cast iron.