OK, I took the lines off on Sat, along with front and rear calipers. Calipers were painted black and left to dry until Sun. News braided SS lines were installed...

Sun morning, calipers go back on with new Porterfield R4S pads, and aside from the initial problems I had getting the rear caliper pods back in , all went according to plan.

I have noticed, however, a persistent rubbing of the front right pads against the rotor. I suspect I did not properly lube the shim and backing plates.

Can anyone help? Do I need to tear the whole job apart to resolve this, or could this be a matter of seating the pad...?? I don't want to do any damage to the rotor.

Stopping power seems to also be a bit weak on this corner. I've done some brake exercises, ala Porterfield, but the constant rubbing and the kind of grinding sound that the new Porterfields make against the rotor is scaring me.

This may be a case of mechanical retardation on my part, but I've done brakes before and not had problems like this. Any ideas????

Thanks in advance to all you tech gurus.

 

I'm sure you didn't make the mistake I did putting in a pad with shim side to the rotor... . Really, I did that and got the terrible grinding sound, from the right front....

 

Here's one thing: Sometimes the ears on the Porterfields need to be trimmed a little bit so they'll slide back and forth in the calipers. This shouldn't really affect stopping power but might be the source of your noise.

 

When I went to install the R4S pads I noticed that they would not snap in like the OEM pads. The R4S pads were a little longer as jschmidt mentioned. I ended up having to file down the edges. If I tried to force them in, they may have "stuck" to the rotor as you mentioned.

Also, I did not use the OEM shims or any grease. The stopping power these the R4S pads is fine but they do make some sounds at lower speeds. Has anyone else used these pads with the shims? Do they still make noise?

 

I run the R4Ss with shims and grease. There is some pad to rotor contact at low speed and you can hear it just slightly. No squeal or squeek. The dust makes cleaning the wheels a more frequent operation.

 

I had the same constant grinding sound from the rears when running the CarboTec Panthers on the street - it also sounded hellish at low speeds when stopping. When I switched back to stock.. no noise (and no more dust )

 

Well, thanks to all!! Schmidt was right. I guess I had to force the pads into the shims a little more than I realized, and the inside pad on the right front was stuck.

Took it out, filed the edges and now all is good. I like the pads a lot. They're definitely going to be messy on the wheel though. As for noise, I haven't noticed anything else at this point.

Thanks again, guys!

John~