lets gets some correction here. slotted is different from cross drilled. I could go on for pages about brakes, but lets keep it short. I auto crossed my svt for a few years and belonged to a club that had some pretty heavy hitters and learned some cool stuff. there are some huge factors to consider and to even go by the road racing concept forget about it. first off those brakes don't even work until they get hot they need a certain amount of heat on the rotors to work to cold and they are scary, hence junk for the street, but one they they all share is gas slotting which is just what it means it has nothing to do with reducing heat persay but it's job is to release the gas that forms under the pad during braking, this gas reduces brake force. they don't use a solid rotor has this traps gas and heat. they also need more effective cooling due to hauling the car down from high speeds and on the brakes for long peroids of time.
Brake dia. is the biggest factor for brake force and stopping power. you sometimes when you see large brakes you notice the pads don't go far down on the rotor even on big brake kits for our cars with cailper brackets. don't matter, the more swept area the more braking surface the more stopping power, but there is weight cost, unsprung weight sucks hp, that's why exotics use ceramic brakes for less weight and better braking.
cross drilling is used on very large dia. brakes for both weight reduction and very limited cooling but mostly weight reduction(you see this on production cars like bmw, porsche, etc.). they want the larger diameter for more swept area this larger swept area increases braking leaverage and force but at the cost of unsprung weight. crossdrilling has do be done correctally and on designed rotors to avoid cracking. problem is the fast and furious crowd loved the look and every cheap knock off company drilled everyday rotors and most to close to the vanes and thats when they crack. crossed drilled rotors are way over kill for the street, they do crack, and are for looks only on the street, but they do look good. baer brakes and
brembo of hand are some companies that make correct cross drilled and cross drilled/slotted rotors if you really like them.
slotted, like power slot, which doesn't cross drill is good. remember during braking you are heating the rotor which you need to start the braking force to heat the pad to get the bite, what happens is has the pad heats the off gasing of the material gets trapped under the pad this gas also gets hot which does transfer to the rotor, if you don't lift you will get brake fade, but remember this happening within seconds and lifting of the brake isn't always an option so then you get that spongy mushy pedal or fade, the gas slots allow the gas to drop onto the slots and exit out giving both braking power and cooling. brake pads are better at resisting this due to better materials and the fact that most cars are not driving hard every day.
another huge factor in braking or stopping distance that almost everyone over looks is tires, all the racers will tell you and the big magazines like motortrend, etc talk about it, but it's always over looked but something I consider when buying a performance tire . A grippier summer tire will stop a car better than a all season harder tire, a all season performance tire will stop better than a regular all season tire, it will bite and not slide. also going to larger brakes, better calipers, braided lines( gives a much firmer pedal), better fluid( mostly if your racing, or really, really hard on them on the street) etc. etc.
I ran ebc greenstuff on my stock svt rotors which warpped them, then ran plain brembos and did okay. I switched to goodrich lines, ebc sport rotors and greenstuff pads and my braking was much better than stock and at the track my times came up. I don't do track times anymore but I still run the sport rotors and moved to redstuff on the svt. for the mustang I run powerslots, and red stuff and love them has well for the street and huge improvement over stock, plus the tire/wheel and
suspension upgrade helped out to.
I have some good books on solo racing, road racing and some online articles that talk about this stuff, like braking, tires etc. probally interesting to some boring to others but I love this stuff. speed channel is great now V8 supercars, german touring car series, btcc, porsche super cup I'm loving it
.
oh yeah so slotted like power slot is good. better braking for the street. red stuff god too.