I just had some Project Mu NS pads installed by a local shop but there's a clip that does not seem to be clipped in on the front pads. I have attached a picture to show the clip.

Is it necessary and should I bring it back to have them correct it?

 

it doesnt HAVE to be in, it wont hurt anything if its out, same thing happened on my friends car when we painted his calipers. Might want to take it back to them just so you know they did the job the right way.
-GP-

 

I just kinda bent the clip a little so it fit and straightened it back once the clip was in.

The brake pads don't seem to have the same initial bite as OEM pads but I wasn't expecting it to outperform OEM pads since these have less dust.

 

The service manual says this is the "Pad return spring". I would think Infiniti put this there for a reason, even though it doesn't seem to do much...

did you bed the pads/rotors? Just curious... I didn't notice any difference in initial-bite with OEM, and I was pretty concerned about that, because the Hawk pads in my other car had such crappy initial bite when cold, I would accidently blow past the stop sign in our cul-de-sac in the mornings.

I remember somewhere something saying it takes about 100-300 miles or so to burn off the top layer of the pads, afterwhich you should get maximum brake performance or something like that... But like you said... I'm just glad I don't have to clean my rims every day anymore

 

I did try to bed them in but there's only so much you can do to try to run some sort of a bed in procedure but there was only so much i could do with traffic and short roads in the city. Well still I am happy with them for now. They stop the car without any squealing so that's a good thing.

 

That tab goes inside the little loop on the brake pad (the brake pad wear indicator) so just stick it in there with your fingers. It won't hurt anything if it's not in there though.

OEM pads will have better initial bite when the pads and rotors are cold. They are designed to wear faster and have more cold bite. The hawks will work better when hotter. Less dust usually means less initial bite. But I think the hawk pads will work better after a few hundred miles, when the rotors and pads fully mate.