i did the 4 piston caliper swap this past saturday. it was cake. well all except for the removal of the caliper bolts. my god 12 year old suspension hardware sucks ***** to take off. that and my slick self almost stripped my passenger side flare nut.

i bought crap *** bargain pads from Discount auto and the brakes already feel better than whatever pads i was running on the single pistons. is this partially because both sides of the caliper are pushing equally vs. the dragging of the slide pins on the single piston?

 

Basic brake pads are fine unless you race.

Those lifetime pads may wear better, but they are hard on your rotors

 

Agreed. Competition pads will also wear your rotors pretty fast. I had some on my base rotors and they were warped by the time I swapped the brakes from a GXL.

 

My buddy runs cheappie $20 pepboys pads on his 1988 N/A track car and has never had any break fad whatsoever. The beauty part is pep boy pads have a lifetime guarantee. I think he is on his fifth set of free pads.

 

Hmm, are you sure about those pepboys pads (Raybestos, I believe)? My friend has them on his daily driver and they feel like they're perpetually wet...

I run Porterfields on mine, no brake fade whatsoever and they are quite easy on your rotors (R4S, not R4). Only drawback to them is that you need to warm them up coz they really suck when they're cold.

 

mine are Everwear pads and my rotors are stock anyway. i plan on getting new rotors eventually.

one of the main causes of rotor warping is sitting on your brakes at stop lights. having the pads sit on the rotors lets the rest of the rotor cool while that one spot stays hot.

 

put it in neutral and use your Ebrake. I do this usually just because I'm lazy.

 

that warps the rear rotors

 

There's no such thing as warped rotors, what you're feeling is thickness variation of the pad left on the rotor.

This happens when the brakes aren't properly broken in, or get very hot and the pedal is left depressed when stopped.

 

There's no such thing as warped rotors, what you're feeling is thickness variation of the pad left on the rotor.

What....Ive been doing mechanic work for many years, and Ive turned many a warped rotor. I'm not undersdtanding what your saying?

 

I don't really want to hi-jack this thread too much.

Take a look at this website: http://www.stoptech.com/whitepapers/...otors_myth.htm

HTH

 

that very well may, but how? this is one thing that confused me about friction/heat/brakes. i learned that heat, not friction, was what caused brakes to work. okay, simple enough. you apply brakes, there's your friction + heat. but what about your parking brake? it grabs the rotor and (can) completely stops it. i see this as friction because i remember an example of an object being jammed in a doorway not allowing a door to open being considered friction.
so anyways, the pad grabs the rotor completely not allowing it to spin. so there's friction, but little heat (less than a pad riding a rotor). how would this damage a rotor (assuming the pad wasnt smoking hot when applied nor the rotor).

 

so how do you avoid break warping at a stop light then?
Could you just leave it in first and keep your foot on the gas lightly?

 

in a standard, if i just hard braked, i keep it in first, foot on clutch and gas and sit still; no brakes. brakes get hot and i dont like the idea of a hot pad sitting on a cooking rotor. if someone can convince me that it does no damage (hard braking mind you), than i'll sit on the brake.
in an auto, sometimes i'll put it in neutral and let off the brakes. i rarely have to drive an auto, thankfully.

 

Back on topic of brake pads, I use bendix pads, can get them from most any parts store. I felt a considerable difference between these pads and the usual "wear-ever silvers " that I was using before...athough they are almost twice as expensive.

 

Unless you have shitty drum brakes like on my sentra.

Don't the rear brake rotors stay pretty cool as there is less load on them?

-Max

 

I almost always get the discount brake pads.. I've had to change pads 2 times in the past 2 years... I don't suppose that is bad is it? And how much money all together did you spend on that 4 piston caliper swap?

 

That was a good right up, and for the most part is true, but to say that there arent any warped rotors....no. I have seen many that you could put on the lathe, and actually watch the rotor move from side to side...WARPED. Yes there are times that uneven brake pad wear will cause rotor imperfections that will cause the rotor to do basically the smae thing as a warped rotor, but you would use these identifying marks when you troubleshoot the braking problem to decide if maybe the caliper mount or caliper itself were not lining up as they should. In the event that you had a regular warped rotor, with no differences in rotor thickness all the way around, only lateral movement when it should be straight, you then would look to over heating causes, such as sticking calipers(internaly in the pistons or externaly in the guides) or a heavy breaking foot riding the break pedal. Or some one as myself who just does alot of heavy acceleration and hard breaking right after. These are reasons they make slotted and vented rotors. All to help reduce brake fade and rotor warpage. But that was a knice right up.

Leslie

 

i was with you until here. you dont really give reasons for slotted rotors (if you mean slotted like drilled). vented is good, but slotted serve a different purpose as far as i know. they are for reducing brake fade, but not from heat. unless i was taught wrong, i was told the purpose was for brushing the surface to remove oils and dirt (grime, whatever be on the track that makes it onto your rotors/pads causing fade). i dont know of these rotors being less susceptible to damage from heat (unless they're bigger).

 

Wow i can't belive there would be a well done write up saying that there is no such thing as warped rotors. If you look long enough you can find a rotor that has unifor thickness but still feels bad and when turned as rotilla said they look warped and are

 

slotted is not drilled. drilled is for aided cooling, slotted is for wiping the gasses and brakedust off the face of the rotor and pads.

i live in florida so at a stoplight i just leave it in neutral.

the rears do have less force applied to them (usually) but they also have worse cooling. when you put a parking brake on you're just applying on of the hot pads to the rotor. this is what leads to warping. when i drive into my neighborhood i engine brake most the time and try to stay off the brakes.

 

How good would that be for the clutch? Think people...later

 

Not to steal the thread or anything, but where can I pick up some of these Porterfield pads? Also, what type are they (ferro-carbon, full carbon, ...?) and how much do they cost?

 

i've thought about it. we've all smelt a clutch. ya know, i still never convinced myself to sit on the brakes. i live in texas, not san fran. its not written in stone. i use *best judgement at a given time.*

 

drilled doesn't cool any better. Drilled simply lightens the rotor in addition to shortening it's life.