I changed my front and rear pads. Put on the hawk hps. For some reason the brakes dont seem to bite as good as the stock ones did. Is this correct? Feels like you have to push harder for itnto stop. Its a bit mushy lol. Also, does anyone have a pic of the stock 06+ caliper. Im trying to c if this place left a piece out of place. Need a close up of the stock caliper. Thanx guys

 

i've heard this is normal for hawk pads. they need to heat up a bit more (from lots of breaking on the track) to really bite.

 

First did you resurface you rotor before you put on the new pads and then bleed the brake's with synthetic brake fluid and the burnish the pads 20 time's from 30-0 slowly ??? Just wondering.

 

That's the characteristic of Hawk HPS pads. They don't have as good cold, initial bite as stock pads do, especially in the cold and wet. They need to be warmed up well to work as effectively. It's been discussed here many times. That's the tradeoff for a higher temp pad/higherfade resistance.

As for the mushy pedal, you need to re-bleed the brakes to get the rest of the air out. You may need to tap the calipers with a rubber mallet to get the last remaining air bubbles out.

 

People have to decide between cold first stop of the day [or first stop every 5 minutes] [or just normal 60 mph panic stops and dust and fast wear. Soft pads and soft iron rotors are a matched set and physically impossible to equal oem cold without the same chacteristics.

5 -10 feet cold is important only if you hit something.

A good thing to look at is Tire rack 50 mph wet braking where tire brands can vary 25 feet, it's a shame that somone doesn't spend the $100,000 to show how good and bad pads are across the spectrum of companies.

 

During the summer I changed my oem pads for some Friction Masters because I couldn't stand the sqeeking. They worked ok during the summer but I lost some pedal feel. This winter though the brakes felt horrible. I was stopping some 5-10ft further than my oems. So I had saved my old nissan pads and put them back on. Pedal feel is great and the car stops on a dime again.

Mind you its been in the 20s for the last few weeks.

evo