For aftermarket pads, Raybestos have had very good fitment and quality, I dig it. Their product line is called like "el3ment" or some such.
For brakes, you're limited to whatever you can fit with your wheels.. I doubt you'd fit Brembo's with them, so you may be limited to 4pot/2pot or just rebuilding your current calipers with good street pads and rotors.
On my WRX, I use Dixcel ES pads front and rear
Upgraded rotors (paragon 2 piece) and dixcel type z pads.
I would go with the Raybestos Element 3 kit sold here. $180 total roughly front and back. 2 seperate kits, one for front, one for back. You will find this under the fully coated section here as they have different grades of pads. For the price and how long these last, you cannot beat it. And better than the top quality parts local parts stores carry, in fact Napa sells these rebranded as their premium top of the line brakes and rotors. For the price, and the quality, is by far your best option. There are better pads that will last a little longer, but are much more pricey. With the miles you drive, these will last 5-10 years. I use these on all vehicles in the rust belt, as these are rust coated.
I bought Raybestos Element 3 Hybrid pads and couldn't be happier. They squeal a tiny bit when very cold but I trust these brakes to get me down a mountain.
If you're keeping the vehicle (make sure you're keeping it), then I second getting the raybestos from Rockauto. Make sure you get the raybestos element 3 fully coated rotor and pad sets.
Even if your friend's dad does it free, maybe drop him $100 or $200 for the labor.
So $200 total. And less dust than OEM with decent stopping power. I went with this combo cause it's balanced stopping power and rotor longevity.
The OEM rotors wear very quickly. The OEM pads are Akebono semi organic which are actually pretty good. However the OEM pads create a ton of brake dust which makes the wheels look terrible. When I replaced mine about a year ago I went the aftermarket route and used Raybestos rotors and pads.
The best overall for my use are Raybestos “Truck and Medium Duty”.
Raybestos Brake Pads - SGD924C - $25 obo
I installed these less than a year ago on my 4runner. At first, I thought the squealing was going to go away after I broke them in. But almost a year later and they squeal really loud even if I brake slowly at low speeds.
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