i got a question,, whats the point of slotted and drilled rotors? do they make your truck anymore lightweight to make her go faster? haha jk but seriously i always wondered that
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the point is that once the brake pads reach a certain temperature the pads start "outgassing" as the binder material decomposes... this gas cause the brake pads to "float" in this layer of hot vapor and braking effectiveness disappears.
This is called "compound fade" and is usually exibited to the driver as the brake pedal getting hard as hell to push and the vehicle won't stop.
Braking effectiveness returns when things are allowed to cool down.
Drilled rotors or slotted rotors allow the hot gasses to escape.
that being said drilled rotors don't warp because they are drilled.
drilled rotors warp because they are usually rediculously cheap cast iron rotors made in China (Peoples Repulbic of) and that means they are essentially shit before they got near the drill bit.
What drilled rotors DO do is to crack, radial cracks propagating from the drilled holes. because every hole is in essence a stress concentration and this on a piece of relatively brittle iron that is being temperature cycled from ambient to as much as 850'F.
Slotting rotors is 99% as effective as drilled rotors in allowing gas to escape but most machinists will refuse to cut them because of the same problem with the drilled rotors...
the fact that a cutting tool cutting smoothly isn't a problem, but one that encounters a void (the slot or hole) experiences a hell of a shock when it starts cutting again. And since the cutting tools are essentially hard ceramic materials this can ruin them, unless the machinist takes the tedious approach and cuts off a very small ammount of material in each of multiple passes
(time consuming)
IF you provide your own cutting bits, most brake lathes use the six-way
triangular cutting bits AND you pay them for their time you can usually talk a dedicated machinist into cutting them...
No not the guy at the big chain auto parts store, but the guy at the old school auto parts that actually does engine machining on-site will do them for you....
Hey my machinist actually has a crankshaft grinder, his cylinder head mill is the size of a hot tub built for four (it was originally made to mill heads on inline aircraft engines!)
He'll willingly do anything you can think of... but you might not like the price if it's something complicated and time consuming.
AD