Brake pad choices - Porterfield vs. Hawk?

If they are about the same price, go for the R4Es.  The pads are good in the 0-1400 range (same as the R4 compound) and wear better.  The downside is that they have slightly less feel and initial grip to them.  We've gotten 3 races out of a set now.

+1 on the R4-E and Porterfield in general.  Hawks eat rotors much faster than they should.

I was told by the Porterfield rep that the R4-E should really only be used in an endurance race with one long heat cycle rather than using it in several races.  He didn't say what degraded, but just that we shouldn't do it.  So far, so good for us, but that's what I was told.  YMMV

We ran R4-E up front and R4-S on our rear drums at Nelson and they worked great.

Call Livermore Performance at (925)292-5523 www.livermoreperformance.com I searched all over and they had the best prices.  Generally, Porterfield will make any compound for any car if you ask.

Hee hee, I hear you.

The guy was GREAT to deal with and was being very honest from what I could tell.  He was telling me that he steers open track day people away from them since they don't like to heat cycle.  For HPDE cars, he reccomends either R4-S or R4, but not the R4-E for that reason.

We use R4's. Had a major brain fart at the last race. Decided to use Performance friction carbon metallic pads. Not good. 5 hours of racing put them metal on metal. The replacements were unknow auto parts store stuff. 4 more hours and they were finished. Granted they were used pads on scored to hell rotors, so you can't expect them to last very long. Saturday night we put new rotors with the only pads we could find, Autozone Duralast. Well they held up the 6 hours of racing on Sunday. But 45 minutes of full course caution kinda makes it easy on the pads....Stopping power on any of the pads wasn't even close to the R4's.

We have new R4's front and rear for No Problem.

For Hawks don't use the blues look at the DTC-60, THAT is the most equivalent to the Porterfields. Also the Hawk DTC-70's are good

Perhaps you're right but still you would be surprised how fast - even a relatively light Lemons car - can heat up front pads, especially a FWD crap box. We used DTC-60's in our 3000lb FWD Maxima and they worked great (we did upgrade the rotors and brake lines, but not the calipers)

If Porterfield has an R4 for your car, they've got an R4E for it.  We ran the R4S on our 91 MR2 and it made it through two test and tune days and half of CMP.  CMP beat the crap out of those pads and what little material was left when they finally gave out crumbled at our touch.

We switched to R4E for Nelson Ledges and after that 24 hours, they still look new.  Granted, Nelson is a brake friendly track (only one really hard braking zone) - but it's nice to know they'll be good for at least one more event.

I stock the MR2 and Celica part numbers, but can get any Porterfield.  If you can't find a source for your car, drop me a line and I'll be happy to give you a Lemons discount.