Guys...

The following is off the cuff so to speak and is general in scope but I do have the SAE journals in my office to give you the facts if necessary... and please remember these are my thoughts at this moment...

Part of what is said in the text above is pure hype and sales stuff.. we're in the brake reline business and brake bonding business and have been in the same location for 35 years.. doing mostly HD truck and Industrial applications... brakes for ski lifts, cranes, elevators, electric motor brakes, 1000's of truck brake shoes monthly... etc...

Just a couple of thoughts on the science....

excessive heat will cause the resins in the friction to burn out, this destroys the surface and will glaze the surface, you either have to get below this surface once the resins have been cooked our or throw away the friction.. in most cases its better and less costly to throw away the friction...

Most pad style friction is bonded to the backing plate.. at the time the bonding takes place, under pressure, usually many thousands of pounds and heat, controlled ramp up, hold the temp and ramp down the bond chemically impregnates the porosity's in the friction and the steel.. at this time any left of chemicals from the manufacturing process of the friction will gas off and do what is called the final cure on the friction..

600-700 *F at the surface of the pad is not uncommon but if you exceed 800* F at the bond it will fail.. any temperature above 800-1000*F at the surface will cause some or all of the resins to cook out thus leaving the friction useless.. again this is a time/temperature chart for failure... hotter, longer, quicker... less expensive friction and the temperatures for failure are much lower... Kevlar in the mix as an example increases life, and resistance to heat..

The metals used in modern rotors and drums and the machining process currently used puts a more select finish on the product before delivery to the end user... its now suggested that this high quality finish not be tampered with by installers and truing of the surface is NOT suggested as most turning equipment in the field will not leave the correct finish for modern friction... the exception is still class 8 truck drums, and I don't now why, other than the manufacturer is in too much of a hurry.. (cheep)

Also, most shops don't clean the finished surface on either the pads or rotors before installation... its suggested that MEK, Alcohol or other suitable chemical be used to remove GREASE, and METAL FILING'S from the machining process... even some grease spots from fingers will give the surface a problem...

One thing I do see that's important is that the owner understand is that all the surfaces are not 100% parallel in the first few hundred miles... but I'm guessing that these surfaces are not off by more than 1-2% on a modern vehicle.. the manufacturing tolerance on a set of pads is now down to a +- .001 or so where 10 years ago +-.005 would have been fine for the pads, the rotors are now down to +-.0005 in most cases from +-.001 or so 10 years ago..

The machining process off shore is every bit as good as ours and soon the metallurgy will catch us as they learn to cast higher grade alloys....

The keys to us..... quality friction from know suppliers who have been in the business and known dyno testing by independent labs, quality bonding adhesive... ours costs close to $500 for a 5 gal pail that has to be kept in a refrigerator to maintain the chemicals from evaporation once the container is opened... and cleaning all surfaces (metal & friction) before assembly to remove any dirt or grime that will effect the quality....

One last thought while I'm on the soap box... we get a lot of calls offering us friction from off shore.... we ask for SAE standard test results from an American testing laboratory, these tests are called "J" tests for short but there's really 10-12 tests that are performed... by doing nothing but reading and understanding these test results you can predict within a 5% margin of what the friction will do in real life.. the key is most of the friction people (manufactures) don't want to really share this... as their printed information often is not in line with the "J" test results...

I promise not to be this long winded all the time..