Title says it all. I'm looking for front blank rotors that don't rust or rust less around the area between the hub and the pad. Not interested in slotted or drilled. I realize all rotors rust especially around the edges, but I'm specifically interested in avoiding rust here...


The oem front rotors do a pretty good job of preventing rust in this area. The front pads cover the entire vertical surface of the rotor completely. I'm trying to go aftermarket with something similar. I realize rust will form most everywhere on the parts of the rotor that don't receive constant friction; however, this particular type of rust can be avoided if the pad covers the entire usable area of the vertical surface.

My rear rotors are centric blanks which do a good job of minimizing the rust between the pad and the hub (red circled area).

Anyone have a recommendation/experience? I don't care about mixing blank rotor brands.

If you want to avoid the rust around the hat area, there's some options - you'll need to choose a rotor that has this area treated or painted already. Or if you choose a OEM replacement rotor that has the hat untreated, you can paint the hat area with high temperature resistant paint (first scoring the hat, then primer and high-temp paint).

The thing is, that area is the braking surface, not the area around the hat necessarily. I see what you're saying though, and I do agree that the rotor should be treated up to where the braking surface starts. But no rotor will have the actual braking surface area painted. I'm trying to find a rotor that has a braking surface that completely mates with the length of the brake pad almost all the way to the hub, similar to the oem rotor. That way, the pads sweep away any possible rust around that area every time they work. Do you know of any?

Take a look at Racing Brake. Here's a thread w/ pics...
https://acurazine.com/forums/1g-tsx-performance-parts-modifications-126/review-racingbrake-rotors-hawk-hp-pads-654233/

Is this what you had in mind?

The zinc plating on my Powerstop rotors (eBay, and cheap but good quality) has held up for almost 12 months including an Ottawa winter with tons of salt and brine used on the roads.

I did this on my old TL-S, but I'm sure it would work on your rotors as well:

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...ighlight=rotor

Good idea! But a time-saver would be as follows:
1. No need to grind. Take a wire brush to it to get any loose rust off, leave the non-loose stuff there.
2. Cut a template from cardboard. Make the cutout a circle slightly larger than needed to cover the entire hub + non-contact areas of the rotor surface.
3. Spray the caliper paint on using the template. This would be easier if you remove the calipers, obviously.
4. Remove any over-spray by simply turning the rotor -- the pads will scrape any excess paint off as they just barely drag the rotor (if your brakes are properly maintained, lol!). Anything else will get scraped off the first time you apply the brakes when the car is moving.

I would advise covering the wheel studs with masking tape or the fingers from a cut up latex/vinyl glove. You wouldn't want paint clogging the threads of the wheel studs.

Edit: I should mention that there is no need to clean the rotor to bare metal before painting -- I painted my wifes' calipers about 5.5 years ago and they are still black and not flaking at all. They were rusted before then and all I did was scrape with the wire brush very briefly, then use brake cleaner, wait for it to dry, and then paint. It's held up through 5 Ottawa winters and 100,000+ km's of daily use.

Pretty close yeah. You can tell from the pictures that the brake pad misses the area one inch before the hub. So even though the zinc coating will keep it mostly rust free. That area will probably rust eventually. Now I just need to find something that does't have slots or dilled holes since I'm running regular blanks in the back.

Looks good. how long did the paint hold up? My centric rotors have black "ecoating" (probably just powder coating) that already started to flake within 3 weeks of use!

I got a set of the Raybestos Advanced Technology rotors with the painted/coated hats and vane surfaces. Hoping they don't rust! They look cool though

I did this about 6 months or so before trading in the TL-S. They were still looking good at that point.

So it looks like no one knows of any specific brands of blank rotors that don't rust there...

The Raybestos Advanced Technology rotors (the ones I mentioned just a couple posts above) are blanks and have coated hats to prevent rust. I just mounted a set of all four, blanks front and rear, and the boxes are sitting in my garage

bump. Anyone have front rotor blanks (no slots/drilling) that don't rust in the area circled in the first post?

Nope your just going to have to paint them.

I wish that were true, but my oem front rotors don't rust here. So there must be others out there. Only reason I'm going away from oem is I've had them resurfaced waaay too many times.

Think of it this way. Rotors are cast iron (every brand, every rotor you'd put on a TSX). The ONLY thing that slows a piece of cast iron from rusting is coating it, either in zinc (which will eventually corrode away and leave the cast iron to corrode itself), paint (to shield the cast iron from moisture), or another type of coating (which probably is just paint anyhow, like the OEM rotors have that matte black coating aroudn the hub area).

So, you basically have 3 options:
1. find a coated/plated rotor that you like.
2. paint any rotor you want and hope that works.
3. Buy OEM.

None of those options will last indefinately -- My OEM rotors rusted all over, even on the coated/painted parts, after 3 years of driving in Ottawa. My newer (1.25 year old) Brakemotive rotors, which are zinc-plated, are starting to show signs of rusting. HOWEVER, my wife's car (a 2002 Protege5) has NO rust on the rear calipers or the rotors where I painted them 5 years ago with high-temp black paint.

Thanks for the tip. I did this with a silver paint and think it came out well. It looks much better than the orange rust I had before.

Curls I am new to Forum you said you bought the Power stop rotors from Ebay were they Drilled and Slotted? If so how do you like them? Do you find them to be noisy when breaking? Is there a way to PM?

I believe you need at least 25 posts to PM.

The powerstops are drilled and slotted. I usually call them and mention "Acurazine" and they give a discount (see sale in the for sale forums - vendors).

They're great. On my 2nd set of rotors due to my fault in not servicing the calipers. The rotors have never, not once, been noisy in normal operation. I highly recommend them. Their pads are great, too.

i just had the powerstop brake kit put onto my 06 tsx (kit comes w 4 rotors and brake pads) last week. So far, so good.

What do you mean by servicing the calipers? What should be done?

Centric rotors are painted but I don't know of any maker that is going to paint the braking surface.

http://www.autoanything.com/brakes/61A5250A0A0.aspx

All I know to do is to make sure the slide pins are free.

I live in a fairly rust-prone area, so what my mechanic friend says I should do annually is:
Remove stainless shims from the caliper bracket. Clean and lubricate the contact areas upon reinstallation. Before reinstalling, take a wire brush or die grinder type tool and clean the rust off of the caliper bracket where it mates with the stainless shims. The reason: Rusting caliper bracket (steel) expands, pushing the stainless shim towards the pad, jamming the pad and causing uneven brake pad pressure, causing both ruined pads, and ruined rotors.

Also, removing, cleaning, re-lubing, and reinstalling the slider pins each time is good practice.

Use a good synthetic high-temp brake caliper grease for all of the above. Any brake cleaner (non-chlorinated, unless you like killing brain cells), works fine to remove the old grime and brake dust.

X2..I have the two piece rotor and no rust. However, wire brush and power coating is the best way to avoid it in the spot list within the pic.

Powerslot/STOPTECH rotors have a black e-coating on the hubs and vanes which is resistant to oxidation.

thanks a lot. I have no idea how to do any of that...but when I took my car in to a private mechanic, I saw him brush silver thick liquid material onto the rotor/caliper area so I think that's what it was for