Member Contributer Dutchy Posted September 3, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted September 3, 2012 Been searching the forum but other than Veefer800Canuck having used one on the rear, could not find much. Has anyone bought and used cheap(er) ebay FRONT rotors? Here is my dilemma..... my 97 4th gen front discs are at 4mm and 3.8mm (72,000kms) 3.5mm deemed the minimum yes? They started life at 6mm (or so the manual states) so it took 72,000km to wear down 2.2mm, so the remaing 0.3mm will give me another 9,000kms max, So I need to plan ahead!!! a set of EBC, Braking, Galfer what have you will all end between Eur 450-500, make the $550-600bucks... A complete second hand 4th gen will cost maybe Eur 2k......... I know, my body is priceless, but my wallet is not endless.............. Open to your input and suggestions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V4 Rosso Posted September 3, 2012 Share Posted September 3, 2012 They started life at 6mm (or so the manual states) Mine says 4,5mm Anyway, Jos Smit has a little more affordable replacements than the Honda dealership: Nissin rotors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer HiDesertMLB Posted September 3, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted September 3, 2012 You posted at a good time for me to share some of my recent 4th gen rotor experience w/ a replacement China product. I recently had my rotors warp due to my negligence in fully removing some powdercoat on rotor-facing surfaces. I initially thought this was the result of sticking caliper pistons, so I went all-in and bought new seals preparing for a rebuild. I was going to buy OEM rotors expecting to drop $600, but even pricing the most reasonable new OEM from David Silver Spares would have been $700+ pair, and had me saying “ouch”. I shifted my strategy to thinking practical, or so I thought. I ran across this service in Michigan called TrueDisk, which is basically this machinist duo who use a minimalist resurfacing/grind approach. After some correspondence, I had a good feeling these guys were experienced in their trade. I sent in my rotors which were ~4.4mm each, and in a week’s time I got them back. Price: $110 for machining the two. The result? One rotor was resurfaced down to ~4mm, the other was resurfaced down to 3.5mm (min). The machinist (Tom) indicated that the one rotor had some warpage, and he needed to grind down more metal to get zero runout. Tom @ TrueDisk is a nice guy and does good work, but I wasn’t feeling exactly thrilled with the one rotor at min spec. I'll keep them for spares. Mulling this over, I already went down a path that I wasn’t satisfied with. I looked at the non-OEMs, still being haunted with Honda’s price. EBC contour pro-lite looked pretty good for the $$$, and I was about to pull the trigger on a pair ($500), but I wasn’t feeling the non-OEM appearance. There are many of wavy rotors available, but I just wasn’t thrilled with seeing them on my 16-year old VFR. I ran across some OEM chinese look-alikes on eBay and rolled the dice on a pair. They looked very close to OEM, and I figured at $180 a pair, I would already chalk this up to this project’s losses if I wasn’t happy w/ the quality. The rotors arrived on the quick boat from China... at my doorstep in about 4 weeks. I seriously was expecting the worst, as I was skeptical throughout the whole bit about purchasing China parts for my Honda. I opened the package, and wow, these rotors actually looked up to par and exceeded my expectations. The only difference that I could see between my OEM and the China units is that the carrier design was different to accommodate 7 float buttons instead of the OEM’s count of 10. Ironically, my 6th gen has seven buttons on its OEM rotors, so I wasn’t terribly concerned about the reduced number of buttons. Still skeptical, I mounted the rotors (mating surfaces free of powdercoat of course), and set up a dial gauge. There was less than .001” of runout on both, which is good enough for me! I have since taken the VFR out on one mountain ride after rebuilding the calipers, new EBC pads, and mounting the China rotors. I felt OK with the rotors: everything is smooth and there is no pulsation or noise when stopping. I am still going to be skeptical on these rotors until I get a few more rides in, but so far, I cannot discern any difference from OEM. Not too shabby for $180. I'm sure there will be those who say they wouldn't cheap out on such a part, but after scrutinizing these rotors the best I could, their quality is just as good as original IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericlw Posted September 3, 2012 Share Posted September 3, 2012 I know chinese rotors for cars are junk. ive had more issues with rotors being machined wrong and warping quicker from china.ive never had these issues with usa steel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted September 3, 2012 Author Member Contributer Share Posted September 3, 2012 Thanks for that! Can you send me the ebay link you bought from or post here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer HiDesertMLB Posted September 3, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted September 3, 2012 PM'd the eBay link for you, Dutchy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted September 3, 2012 Author Member Contributer Share Posted September 3, 2012 They started life at 6mm (or so the manual states) Mine says 4,5mm Anyway, Jos Smit has a little more affordable replacements than the Honda dealership: Nissin rotors You're right, my memory bank was corrupted So if in 72,000kms the disc wore down .5 and .7 mm, the .3mm left on one rotor should give me another 35.000kms..... Unless the wear increases as the disc gets thinner... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted September 3, 2012 Author Member Contributer Share Posted September 3, 2012 PM'd the eBay link for you, Dutchy. Thanks MLB!! when the time comes they will be on my short list. As per above it looks like I have soem time left, time for you to let us know here on VFRD how you like them. Facts over emotional China bashing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatiePotatie Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 I know I'm a few days late to the conversation here, but thought I'd add my useless 2c The most common chinese discs you find are wave stainless steel rather than cast iron as the OEMs are. Quality of construction looked to be just as good as the originals on the pair that I ordered, they look great, feel great (I still only use 1 or 2 fingers on the lever no matter how hard I'm braking or the rear starts to come loose), and the best feature is that they resist heat and wear much better than cast iron, which also means they shouldn't warp as easily. When I first changed them I also had new pads all round, slightly oversized as new pads can be, so the first kilometre the brakes were dragging a little. When I got home to inspect the fronts looked perfect while the rear (still cast iron) had turned purple from overheating. The only downside I can see is that being a harder metal, the pads may wear out slightly faster than usual, and depending on pad choice may have slightly less friction on the disc than standard.. According to Brembo though stainless + sintered pads has outperformed cast iron for over 20 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 www.madhornets.com is where I bought my set of Arashi wave rotors. I did A LOT of research before buying them because I was pretty skeptical about build quality. Once I received them the quality was top notch and I have had 0 issues for the last 3,000 miles. When you install wave rotors you have to stagger the waves where you line up the peaks to the valleys of the other one. Plus it is very important to install new pads when making the switch to wave rotors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted September 12, 2012 Author Member Contributer Share Posted September 12, 2012 Thanks guys, facts over hearsay! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Phantom2 Posted September 12, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted September 12, 2012 http://metalgear.com.au/view_model_details.php?model_id=4353 worth a look? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted February 17, 2013 Author Member Contributer Share Posted February 17, 2013 Update..... APEX contacted me and made me an offer I could not refuse... Since they were "used" , I *thought* Customs would not tax on importation. Euh, no, they did. Anyway.... with spring aproaching, I decided to get cracking.... Out with old, in the the -almost- new!!! some new bearings while we are at it EBC rotors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer apexandy Posted February 17, 2013 Member Contributer Share Posted February 17, 2013 I hope they work out nice for you duchy! Are they lighter than stock? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted February 18, 2013 Author Member Contributer Share Posted February 18, 2013 Ai..... I didnot weigh them...... If you really really want to know, then I will take one off agian... I searched the web but could not find the specs of the EBC MD1014C's..... The OEM one weighs 1248 gramms Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer apexandy Posted February 18, 2013 Member Contributer Share Posted February 18, 2013 No big deal... was just somewhat curious :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted February 18, 2013 Author Member Contributer Share Posted February 18, 2013 Well, I think they look purdy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SEBSPEED Posted February 18, 2013 Share Posted February 18, 2013 Very nice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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