LAS VEGAS – The following is excerpted from a post on TURNOLOGY.com from its coverage of this year’s SEMA show and the new Hawk Performance brake pads for the redesigned Toyota Supra.
Hawk Performance took some time at SEMA to update us on its new Supra brake pad development program and plans to update the legendary DTC-80 track-pad compound. While the SEMA Show might have had upwards of 50 new A90 Toyota Supras in various stages of modification, many manufacturers saw it for the first time. Hawk Performance is nearing completion of the development of a pad for Toyota’s version of the “BMW Z4 hardtop” and announced a new compound for its popular DTC-80 pad is also underway.
SEMA had no shortage of new Toyota Supras, with many products and builds rushed to hit the show floor after deliveries started trickling in late this summer. Many attendees asked how several Supras were lowered, for example, and that is because manufacturers of BMW Z4 product had a significant advantage on the rest of the aftermarket performance parts makers. Hawk Performance explained it basically did the same with its Z4 part numbers, well half of the development anyway, as the BMW Z4 front pads are nearly identical.
“The BMW Z4 application definitely helped us with the development of the Supra front pads,” said Kevin Grospitch, product development engineer at Hawk Performance. “Unfortunately, when we obtained a sample of the rears, we realized they are far different and required more research and development for a balanced-friction solution from Hawk.”
By SEMA time, the Hawk Performance Supra brake pad program had all of the materials, backing plates, shims, and hardware ready to go for all four pads. At the Hawk Performance manufacturing facility in Solon, Ohio, both tooling and routing stations are ramping up for the 2020 Toyota Supra pad manufacturing run in a variety of compounds, including the hardcore DTC-80 pad.
“We are also developing a new pad compound for the DTC-80 race pad,” Grospitch added. “We heard a lot of feedback saying that the DTC-80 wore down rotors too fast, and we listened. So our R&D chemists are working on a new formulation that will offer the same high level of braking and temperature resistance but doesn’t chew through rotors. The braking is still there, but it will offer racers a longer rotor life now.”
