Dixcel Rotors

warmmilk

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have y'all seen the ones Sake Bomb Garage sells that are 2mm thicker than stock, supposed to still work with oem calipers and everything. They have an AP rotor and a "value" rotor option in that size
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Djseto

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OEM Rotors cost more than Giro's no? ~350/rotor + shipping. Giro replacement rings are 300/ring.

Giro seemed like the right move for cost and benefit. 8 days into the season, plenty of life left, and barely any heat checking. Value prop is definitely there. Paired with CSG pads -- no dreaded Brownbos.
When you replace the rings, do you reuse any of the hardware? Curious if 2 ring hardware is one time or reusable.
 

chadwicke619

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What’s your thought on OEM rotors and just changing pads. I’ve always been told pads should be mated to rotors so running OEM rotors with a set of track and OEM pads doesn’t seem optimal. That being said, OEM rotors are a solid $400 each so not a huge savings over Giro vs moving to Dixcel blanks.
I'm hardly an expert, but I've been tracking every few months for about a year now, and I do exactly what you're talking about. On the street, I'm still running the OEM pads - my car has 10-11K miles on them, and even though it's my daily, I work from home, so the car doesn't see a ton of mileage. Those OEM pads still have a few thousand miles left, though the rears are starting to show their wear for sure because of the VSA. When I bought my track pads, I made sure to buy them pre-bedded. See (and again, not an expert), my research kind of leads me to believe that the whole idea of bedding to "mate a pad to a rotor" is kind of horseshit - I mean, that is kind of a thing, but the real reason you bed pads is to outgas them to get them into their ideal working form. Anyway, before my track days, I swap to my track pads (CarboTech XP10 front, XP8 rear, though I think I will go 10/10 next time). Immediately, the pads work fine, even on the rotors that were just being used with my OEM pads - they just start scraping off all the old pad because you're not getting them up to temp on the streets, so they're just hard metal on hard metal. Stopping power is there, though. I then drive several hours up to track, do my thing, drive several hours home, then change the pads back to OEM either that weekend or the following. At this point, the drive home has cleaned off any transfer layer that the track pads created because, again, not warm enough outside of the track. My OEM pads don't work fabulous when I first put them on, but a few nice stopping events and you're fine. Again though, stopping power is there from the get go.

A few notes. Yes, pads do leave material on the rotor, and that's where the grippy stopping power is at - sure. My only point is that you can swap back and forth without issue. Within the first lap or two of your first session, you're going to get in all the braking that you need. Also, one of the downsides is that the aggressive pads wear your rotors faster, so having dedicated tracks is nice, but it depends on your use case. You say you don't want to spend a fortune to go to the track 3-6 a year, but in my mind, that's exactly why I justify expensive gear. I don't drive it that much! Yeah, the rotor wear might accelerate, but I barely drive the car, relatively speaking. Someone who tracks 20 times a year and dailies the car 15K miles is generating way more overall wear than someone who tracks 5 times a year and dailies the car 4K miles. Those expensive components, even with my wear concessions, are still going to last so much longer than the gear of someone who is a real track rat, or a track rat who dailies their track car a ton. For instance, I just bought some Ohlins coilovers - someone who drives average mileage and tracks a ton is going to have to rebuild them every couple years, but I'll be able to go years and years before I even have to think about it.

At the end of the day, it depends on where you're at. When I need to replace rotors, I'll definitely get some nice slotted ones from GiroDisc or Paragon. In my opinion, these products are perfect for middle level enthusiasts - you go enough that you can get the benefits, but not enough that it's cost prohibitive.
 
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Djseto

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Appreciate the feed back. I understand your point. I also have more than an FL5’s cost into my FD RX7 so as I transition from that being my part time track car to a car is also my daily (but I work from home), I’m really not looking to break the bank. I won’t cut corners on safety, but I also don’t need have the best of the best or even mid-best class everything. I’m already spending $1000 on a Simpson Hybrid S to protect my $50k surgically repaired neck (thank god for insurance) which is something I really should have bought 5 years ago.

The intent of this thread was to see if Dixcel rotors are a solid brand/option which one person (plus some research) seems to have confirmed. I may start with just separate pads on OEM rotors and then move to having dedicated rotors with those pads.
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