For the brake gurus ...

Right - sorry if I wasnt clear guys - stock calipers. Six piston Brembos up front and stock single piston rental car calipers on rear.

The rear are the ones giving me grief. The fronts make a high pitched squeal under braking (like racing brakes do, but since these are street pads I wonder if I need to add a shim). The rears make a kind of scratching sound when rolling. But maybe all of that goes away with miles. I’m still thinking to go back to stock pads because they have all the anti noise stuff on them.

I will also clean up the inside of the caliper to make sure I have good contact across the face of the contact area.

FWIW I emailed RB and will report back. I’ll also screw it all back together and see how it goes.

BTW I confirmed all the weights and they are indeed 10 lbs lighter on both fronts and 2 lbs each on the rear.

Last question folks - if I put a couple of hundred miles on these pads and I change them to the stockers, can I get them to bed OK without doing anything special to these rotors?




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Couple suggestions - Did you spray off the protective coating on the new rotors? Most have an anti-rust layer that needs to be removed with brake cleaner before install or use.

As StrayBullitt mentioned, clean a grease the guide pins....or, they are cheap to replace. I make it part of my 3-4 year maintenance plan (pins still need fresh grease). Inspect the boot for damage and replace if necessary (also, very cheap). Also, be VERY generous with the brake cleaner...a simple streak of caliper grease, just by accidentally touching it with a dirty glove, can make for odd wear patterns on new pads and rotors.

A trick I have found to bed rears - Drive on an open road at about 40-50 mph and pull the E-brake (slowly). It engages only the rear pads. The warning light will pop on, but it wont hurt anything. Do this a few time and you will build heat in the rear and bed successfully. Many people bed too 'gently', so don't be shy! Pads should stink and smoke a little after proper bedding.

Did I mention to clean the ever-living-piss off the rotors with brake cleaner (before, during, after install)?

Also, make sure the rear brake caliper bracket is clear of any debris and caked on dust. Specifically where the brake pad tabs slide into the bracket. A dab of brake lubricant on the pad tabs should help keep them moveable. Also, lube between the shim and the caliper contact points, piston included.

Make darn sure the piston groove is aligned with the stud on the brake pad backing plate.

As others have mentioned, slide pins need a little love too. If a pin is sticking, it could cause abnormal wear like that.

As for the chamfer, the chamfer does help with performance a bit and noise. As the pads wear, they need more surface contact to work efficiently. Its not a bad thing to have a set of pads that are flat. All depends on the pad compound.

Front pads absolutely need shims. If the pads cam with a small rubber and or metallic insert already adhered to the back plate of the pad it needs just a bit of copper brake lube. Apply to all points where the pistons press on the shims. Also, highly advise applying copper brake lube on the edges where the backing plate of the pad touches the caliper housing.

Unfortunately, these will need cleaning and relube to keep them quiet during operation. The joy of race brakes!

Brembo pad kits we install on the Lexus F performance cars include a small tube of Brembo copper brake lubricant. 3M copper antiseize works well too. Just make sure you do NOT get any on teh pad material.

Thanks again folks. From the EBC link in an earlier post it seems this is pretty common for new rotors and pads, and I probably just need to give them some time.

Will get some lube and reassemble. Also likely will try to find some shims for the front. These didn’t come with any and I think it’s contributing to the noise. Ford doesn’t sell them separately - but maybe I can pull them off the old pads?


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Heard back from RB. They think my calipers may be malfunctioning.

I don’t buy it, based on what I’ve read here and the fact that they worked fine prior.

I’m going to go the route of cleaning all up with some added shims and make sure it’s all lubed properly and report back.


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I think you'll be OK on those rears. I was thinking you had 4-piston calipers, but my bad. Those are nice looking calipers, they sure fooled me!! I can easily see your issue happening with single-piston calipers, so maybe RB is correct about the calipers 'malfunctioning' (i.e., flexing a bit under load).

I like the idea from barspen a few posts earlier, about using the emergency brake to bed the rears. Not sure you need to do it at this point, but it's an interesting suggestion.

Yes - I do too. That way I can better control how long the bedding occurs. And also get some accelerated wear in there as well. The EBC link you sent me seemed to indicate that this isn’t that unusual.

I am still leaning towards just going to stock pads and starting over. That way I get the lightweight rotor benefit but have stock anti noise performance. And the brakes are not slouches in OE form at all. I beat the leaving hell out of my car at a track event and they held up nicely.

Thanks to everyone again. Really appreciate the suggestions.

PS - I can see how I may have confused you on my pics. The very first pic was my rear brake rotor. The next was the front brembos for comparison. My rear calipers are just single piston rental car crap.


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I think you're overthinking it, OP. Like mentioned, give your rotors AND calipers a good cleaning with some brake cleaner. Make sure the pad floats/slides freely and evenly when you install it. Another thing to do, and I know from experience that it's a royal pain to do, is to collapse the brake piston all the way back down so you can can re-seat it in the cylinder. That will [somewhat] ensure that it's coming out of the cylinder evenly and not at an angle. You already know that you need a special tool to collapse the piston. DON'T FORCE THE PISTON BACK INTO THE CYLINDER WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT. Just get it where the edge of the piston is level with the edge of the caliper/cylinder, then use a straight edge to make sure it's actually flush all the way around. If it's not level use a rubber mallet or small hammer and lightly tap on the high side of the piston and recheck it. Keep doing that until it is level.

OR skip everything I just said and throw the pad on a belt sander to level it out and see if the uneven contact continues.

The pads should have an alignment pin on the back of them that matches up to the piston rotation position. Be sure to align the piston dimple notching straight up and down (using a caliper adjustment tool) to match with the pad alignment pin.