I've had these sitting in my garage for a couple months now, and decided to install them a couple nights ago, as the winter track season is coming up. I've driven on race pads before, so I was expecting more dust/noise/etc.

Bedded the pads in per instructions, drove around for another 15 minutes to let everything cool down and parked the car for the night. So far so good...

Drove the car to work the next day. Everything was fine until about 15 miles down the road, and the pads started making A LOT of noise. Squealing, squeaking, etc. All the sounds track pads typically make when driving around at freeway speeds, but much louder and very noticeable at 70 mph. The screaching stops immediately when the brakes are pressed, and go away for good in around town driving where the brakes are used more often.

At this point, I'm thinking that my daily commute doesn't get or keep enough heat in the pads. I'm literally two turns away from an open rural highway, which I travel on for a good 18 miles before turning onto another highway, so the pads don't get much heat in them. That said, the noise I'm experiencing seems to me to be a bit excessive, especially considering the fact that the local track is about 45 miles away from me...will make a painful drive to the track Saturday if this is still going on.

Any thoughts? The only difficulty I had with the install was that one of the rear pad sets physically wouldn't fit into the caliper, so I had to file the end down (didn't touch or compromise the pad material). The other issue is that somebody recommended addding anti-seize to the shims vs. using the grease you get in autoparts stores...I'm wondering if that could have affected the noise?

 

The reason the rear set wouldn't go in is probably that you had them backwards. There should be little dots on the inboard side

 

Have you checked your fluid reservior? If you've "tppped off" the system and put in thicker (new) pads this will push back the pistons with nowhere for the displaced fluid to go which creates pressure in the system and basically makes the brakes scrub the rotor the entire time you are driving.

 

Put 'em in the right way - noted the little dots on the stock pads and re-installed them correctly on the R4s. Only one corner wouldn't go in willingly, and the backing plate on both of those pads was noticeably longer than the stock pads. Filed it down enough to get it in, but maybe not enough.

Also checked the MC while I was doing the fronts. I was surprised at how much the fluid level increased vs. my fairly good condition stock pads. Still, used the turkey baster to pull out the excess fluid.

Talked to Tim at Porterfield (great tech support, by the way) and mentioned the problem fitting the rear pads. He suggested that if the pad was in too tight, it won't follow the piston when it releases, and could stay stuck to the rotor. I'll double check tonight and see if I need to file the backing plate down more - I remember it being a tight fit.