Brakes - stay stock or upgrade?

[Steve Tinker]

On my original rusting rotor top hats (I've just recently installed new ones), I kept the rotors on the car & used a strip of emery cloth looped over the hat section, while turning the hub - & saving my knuckles. That removed 90% of the rust, I then finished the job with wet & dry before painting with heat proof engine enamel - no primer required.
Of course, if you want to do a proper job, you need to remove the rotors completely because the rust on the inside is 10 times as bad as what you can see - its that hidden rust that drops and stains the inside of the wheels every time you wash the car....

[23109VC]

I'm the OP. since that original post, I've done:

all new front brakes - pads/rotors. on the rears I managed to keep my stock rotors and do only new pads. flushed the fluid, all new sensors and bolts.

My rotor hats on the fronts rusted pretty badly as I didn't use rotors that had painted hats, so when I painted my brake calipers, I sanded off the rust and painted the hats with a silver engine paint...they turned out nicely.

as to my original idea of do I need to upgrade to bette brakes, like race pads, or drilled/slotted rotors..

geeez, this car stops SO hard on just these stock brakes, I don' thave ANY need for better brakes. I can haul my car down to a halt in nothing flat. Braking is NOT a weak point on this car with just stock stuff.

maybe if i was tracking the car hard i'd want to upgrade...but for spirited street driving, stock is PLENTY!!