Cars, etc.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Anyone know where the heck I can find really good front brake pads for a stock 89 Taurus SHO? I would think that either Hawk or Performance Friction would make them, but I'm not finding any for sale anywhere.

There are (expensive) upgrade kits to put larger rotors on the car (plus I'd have to switch to 16" wheels and do minor clearance mods) for which anything up to full racing-quality pads are available, but I'm trying to find something along the lines of Hawk's HP Plus for the stock setup. High-performance strictly-street pads (like the Carbon Metallic ones) won't be good enough. Need a step or two up from there.

I've got my new rotors and rear pads (heavy-duty street ones) but can't find the kind of front pads I want.

Oh, we finally drove the wife's SHO to town last night. What a sweet, sweet car!!! Turns out the automatics use a 3.2-liter engine (as opposed to my 3.0-liter) and make about 15 or so more lbft of torque. Either that 15 makes a real noticeable difference, even with an automatic, or mine's not running anywhere near as well as it should.

I guess a good way to find out would be to take it to the drag strip when it open back up in the Spring and see if its quarter-mile times are close to where they should be.

Or get a chassis dyno in the workshop. Boy, I'd really hate to do that. That would be just awful. I hope I never have to do anything like that. LOL