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Originally Posted by sperry
The same goes with regular brakes. Lets say I've got a crappy pad that has a very quick and harsh transition from dynamic to static friction. i.e. the pad would cause the tires to lock at a deceleration rate less than the tires "maximum" rolling friction. You would argue that a "better" pad with a less harsh transition would prevent this from happening, and thus would improve the overall brake system. While I won't disagree, I want to point out that a better driver, or a super-fucking-good ABS is also a solution. If I were to be able to modulate those crappy pads, they'd also allow tire-threshold braking, just as in our example binary brakes.
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OK, now we are talking... I agree with you completely! And rereading, maybe you didn't fall into the trap exactly, but you did go where I wanted you to, the tire to road interface.
Everybody gets so caught up in the brakes they forget about the tire characteristics, and that the tire actually stops the car, not the brakes. As we go to stiffer and stiffer sidewalls to achieve better handling, we take some of the tolerance out of our brake systems. Anything we can do to minimize the spikes in the brake system aid the tire in staying hooked to the pavement at the limit. Have you ever heard tires under ABS? In many cases, they chirp about 8 times per revolution as the brake locks, and releases causing the tire to slip.
More pad area(calipers), better pad compounds(Pads), cooler temperatures(better rotors and/or ducting) and to an extent, more piston area(calipers) all contribute to better brake performance at the limit. OK, large diameter rotors does to, but I hate to admit it.
Pads are often the cheapest of the above followed by rotors and finaly calipers. This is why I sugested what I did originally, what you had already done, pads, and rotors. If you have exhausted those options for the most part and are still not happy, the only place to go is calipers. I still think if you can get a used set of JDM/CDM 4 pots cheap, that would be a great option. If they don't meet your needs, they would be easy to unload to someone else with little loss.