Best Fc pad that won't squeal.
 

I have been using HAWK HP+ pads and they stop great. Hate driving them on the street they squeal like crazy. Best suggestion for a "performance" pad that doesn't squeak? Tried autozone cermaic jobbies... They faded like crazy on at the track. Just looking for quick slow down one time. This is a drag car.

-thanks!

That makes no sense... want a pad that bites hard and won't fade, but makes no noise cuz you drive on the street.. but it's a drag car..

I personally don't mind the howling of the hawk pads. The performance is worth it.

Agreed, and i hate those people that want a quiet snow tire ....

Thought it was a pretty clear question. Using a caliper adapter to get the TurboII brakes on my SA. The excessive noise may have something to do with the caliper bracket thickness and vibration. Not really sure... I have run these HP+ for maybe 500miles before this squealing became an unbearable issue

I mentioned it’s a drag car because I don’t need a road race style pad on it. Those are designed to get super hot and stay that way for long periods of time. In my case, the car needs to stop as well as possible once... form high speed. It is also always street driven.

Currently the noise is unbearable and embarrassing with the HP+ pads. We aren’t talking a “little squeal”. Sounds like a train locking up the wheels at every stop light. Tried new rotors and I bed/seat them properly. Also used the Loctite pad adhesive. Doesn’t help.

Either way, I’m done with these pads. Ordered HAWKS new 5.0 HPS compound to try. Also have a set of “Yellow Stuff” pads on the way. We’ll see.

I've been running Hawk HP+ pads on my 90 GXL for many years now and have never had problems with brake squeal. Like LargeOrangeFont suggested, get quality alloy rotors. I've used Brembo, Centric and now Beck-Arnley rotors. The Centric rotors, which were made in China, were the lowest cost but had shortest lifetime of rotors that I've ever used. I would never buy them again. I suppose you get what you pay for. Actually, one parts supply vendor told me to avoid Centric rotors.

Thanks for the reply.

I’ll grab a set of better rotors while I’m at it. I ordered these from Rock auto, think it was a centric C-TEK rotor. The Beck-Arnley rotors are only $28. I’ll give them a try. The slotted “heavy duty” centric are the pricey ones @ $50 each. I’ve always had bad luck with drilled rotors cracking, haven’t tried slotted only? I don’t mind the price if it’s a known “heavy duty” rotor.

That is cheap for the Beck-Arnley rotors! I paid nearly that price for the rears when I bought them about a year ago. The fronts were more than double that price and it was hard to find a set of these front rotors. Maybe supply and demand?

I've used the Hawk HPS pads on several RX-7's and the brake noise has been minimal to none. I do always replace the rotors when replacing the pads, especially when using performance pads. The HPS pads are performance street pads however, not race pads. They provide a good bite when braking and I haven't noticed any fade out of them when driven on the street or autocrossing.

+1 for mazdaverx713b's comments on HPS - I've used them for a decade or so for autocross, and found they had more bite than stock pads. No noise and not a lot of dusting problems, while I notice the HP+ used by a lot of autocrossers are terrible for both. They're not a track pad (although I've used them on lapping days, braking from 190 to about 140 for corner 1, and down to about 50-60km in short order for corner 3 at the local track), and I can't say how they might perform pulling you all the way down from high speed - although our front straight was a drag strip, so I suppose there's some parallel.

Brake pads are like assholes. Everyone has em and they all make noise once in a while.

I've used Porterfield R4Ss for decades and have no complaints.

https://www.porterfield-brakes.com/m...akes/R4-S.html

Try taking them off and beveling the edges that contact the rotor at a 45* angle. Clean every surface with parts cleaner. Only apply grease to the slides. Metallic compound pads need to be de-burred ever now and again to stop squealing.

I'll give that a shot, thanks. I tried block sanding the surface and hosing it all down really well before assembly with brake cleaner. Worked for about 2 miles. I grease the pins and hole lightly, and use the epoxy type stuff that fixes the pad to the caliper piston. All the springs and what not are newish and installed correctly.

I’m basically just slamming on the brakes hard for 5-7 seconds slowing down quick from 160ish to 40ish MPH. Ceramic pads were no better than the organic cheapies for stopping power. The HPS pads were better, but still faded pretty bad. The HP+ worked like a champ with little to no fade. Always had a little bit of squeal which I could live with. But after a year or so, squeal was unbearable. Excited to try beveling the edges this weekend. New HPS 5.0 compound pads should be here as well if that doesn’t work.

I had the same issue with the Hawk pads. Not even 6k miles and they were squealing. I sanded them down and cleaned up the pads. The squeal went away for a little while then came back. I just ended up swapping out the pads for Stop Tech Sport pads. I also replaced the hardware. No issues what so ever now. Mind you I'm using generic OEM vented disc. Idk what's going on with the Hawk Pads, from reading around reviews some people have noise problems others don't.

So to update this I beveled the edges of the HP+ pads on the grinder and wire wheeled the surface. Hosed it all down and reinstalled. Drove to my testing ground and did 10 hard 80mph down to 40mph stops with a little cooling time in between. Thought I had it licked, but as soon as the pad cooled on the way home it started the death squeal again.



So I installed the new beck arnley rotors with the 5.0 compound HAWK pads. The pads have a HUGE bevel on the surface... Broke them in the same way and I’m still squeal free. Not sure how these will do slowing down from 160, but we’ll find out!

These are the new 5.0 pads

Attachment 749851



Thanks for all the input!

I agree the old HPS were complete garbage- eager to hear how the HPS 5.0 are.

I use the HP+ for auto-x/street and love them for their fast warm-up and initial braking torque, but the sparks when hot and the squeal when cold are fairly well out of hand.

I used the Porterfield RS4S before like Natey and they were awesome for what they were.
Not nearly as much initial torque as warm HP+, but stayed quiet and they dust black (and dust prodigiously) which washes off instead of dusting shards of burning iron which burn through your wheels finish and then rust (HP+). RS4S lasted through street tuning (lots of 4th gear loading with brakes), 5 years street driving (so lots of 150+mph to 65mph braking) and then 3 more years of auto-x when I got into that. Never had pads that lasted that long with so much abuse. For reference my stock RX-8 pads lasted 3 years of just auto-x.

For auto-x I like that HP+ initial torque because you only brake initially (for an instant) and then you are back off the brakes and on the gas.

Just to revisit this... new pads are pretty quiet. Tiny squeal there but plenty good for my needs. Had the car to the track a few times. They do seem to fade a bit initially and don't heave near as firm of a pedal. But they slowed me down quick enough. Not a bad pad. Def. an improvement over the old street pad compound.

Maybe I missed it, but did you pad slap or replace/machine the rotors with the new pads? In my experience pad slapping will cause squealing due to uneven contact surface between the pad and rotor.