PBGas
05-05-2008, 10:47 AM
Hello Everyone,
Last year, I had a warped right rear and front left rotor to which I had all 4 of them turned. This happened after I changed to the Centric Posi-Quiet pads. I broke in the pads correctly and have always torqued my wheels carefully using a 110 lbs/ft torque stick on my impact gun. I've never had an issue with doing this over many of the vehicles that I have ordered. I could only attribute the issue to either the new pads or the rotors were defective from the start. I've found the stock slotted rotors somewhat soft as it is. When I switched over to the centric pads last summer, I immediately noticed a rather large decrease in braking performance over the stock pads that came on the SRT-8. It was even worse when it rained. The combination of the Centric pads and the stock rotors didn't make me feel very safe when doing any hard braking manouvers. I have a 1 year old that travels in my car fairly regularly and I'd much rather be safe then sorry.
Thus....I decided to do something about it. As soon as the springtime hit, I started researching what I could get that would be a marked improvement in making the car brake as it did in stock form. I looked up several different rotor companies and came to the decision on the R-1 Concepts rotors for several reasons. #1 - they communicated very well and in a timely fashion via email. #2 - they have a superb quality product with a very strong metallic content as well as being powdercoated for greater rust protection during the winter months #3 - I liked the overall design with the combo of drilled/chamfered holes and diamond slots #4 - they had no issues shipping to me here in Canada.
http://www.r1concepts.com/
Now....on their site, they had the other SRT-8 vehicles listed but not the Charger. I simply emailed them and they replied to me with a quote on what I needed as well as a shipping cost. They got to me in only 4 days which was great! The product arrived perfectly and undamaged and looks stunning on the car!
Brake pads was another entirely different piece to look at. I was going to go with the stock pads again but looked into the EBC Red pads. I purchased these from Autoanything.com who have always been very reliable and timely with any orders I have placed from them in the past. They arrived up here in 5 days which was perfectly fine.
On to the install. Here are the R-1 rotors:
They are big, beefy and precision crafted. I could not find a flaw on them.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r1.JPG
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r2.JPG
EBC Redstuff pads....very nice quality!
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r3.JPG
Break in coating for ease of break-in on the rotors
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r4.JPG
NOW....at this point in time, I'd ask all GARAGE QUEENS to please LOOK AWAY. The site you are about to see is a car that is actually driven through all seasons. You may have nightmares when you view the following images. You've been warned!
Rotor taken off of the front.....twas a hard, hard winter. I cleaned everything up back to a nice look. Don't worry. I'm changing out the shocks at the end of June for KW-V2s.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r5.JPG
New rotor on....NOTE....please hang your caliper with a coat hanger or piece of wire. Never let it hang by the rubber hose!
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r6.JPG
Before putting the pads in, I coated the backplates with CRC rubberized coating to prevent any caliper squealing. It worked great for the front pads. More on the rear pads later. I bought this from Napa.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r7.JPG
all pads, nicely coated: It's important to let the product sit on the backplates for about 10 minutes so that it dries to a slightly tacky state.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r8.JPG
These are your caliper bolts which hold everything onto the spindle:
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r9.JPG
Make sure you put the clip on correctly with the drift pins to hold your pads in securely.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r10.JPG
Torque your calipers back to factory spec using a torque wrench. Fronts are to be torqued at: 140 ft/lbs. while the rears are at: 96 ft/lbs. Something interesting to note....my rear calipers were NOT torqued to spec...not even close. They were at about 20 ft/lbs. Check that!
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r11.JPG
Only use an impact gun to put your wheels on if you have a 110 ft/lbs torque stick. It works perfectly and makes the job much, much quicker.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r12.JPG
On to the rears....disgusting how they look after a couple of winters. I cleaned them up real nice but it took a while. Lots of Simple green and I applied some Zaino CS over them after it was all done.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r13.JPG
This is what I use to separate the pads....It's a simple pad separator that I got from one of the local stores. It was about 8$. Does the job perfectly!
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r14.JPG
These are the old Centric pads.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r15.JPG
Rotor/caliper removed:
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r16.JPG
New R-1 Concepts rotor and CLEANED caliper installed. NOTE the jack below the spring pocket. You must do this to gain access to the caliper bolt. It makes life a bit easier. It basically lifts the spring up and allows the arm to be more out of the way so that you can access the lower bolt with a torque wrench.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r17.JPG
Note the orientation of the clip.....
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r18.JPG
New rotor fully bedded in Rear
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r19.JPG
New rotor, fully bedded in front:
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r20.JPG
Driving impressions?
I can tell you that as soon as I bedded in the pads and rotors, it was 10x better than the stock rotors and centrics. However, NOT all is perfect. The fronts pads remain on the car at this time and are working flawlessly. The rears however, I had a HUGE squealing issue with. It sounds worse than a bus in bad repair. It was so bad that I had to remove the rear pads as my one year old was getting scared over the sound. At this time, I am contacting EBC to see what they can do about it. If not, I may try to slightly feather the edges of the pad with the dremmel to help them work in a bit easier. I'm having a hard time understanding why the fronts have no squealing and the rears are just brutal. I ended up putting the Centrics back on the rear and the squealing stopped immediately. I found this very strange because the setup was prepped the same and installed with the same care. I may try to put them in again since it is such an easy job for anyone to do. I'll see what EBC comes up with. The other option for me would be to try one of the Hawk pads in rear and see how that goes.
Either way, the setup still brakes perfectly and is the same as stock. The front pads were the main issue with the Centric pads. The EBC pads work beautifully in the front. I believe that some of the Grand Cherokee SRT-8 guys were having the same squealing issues with the rears as well. Interesting. It has nothing to do with the backing plates because basically I checked for piston movement via the indentations in the CRC material and there was no movement.
I'll keep you posted as to what I come up with.
All in all, I am super pleased with this new setup. The front pads and the rotors are superb. I'm just hoping that I can get the rears working as well.
:)
Last year, I had a warped right rear and front left rotor to which I had all 4 of them turned. This happened after I changed to the Centric Posi-Quiet pads. I broke in the pads correctly and have always torqued my wheels carefully using a 110 lbs/ft torque stick on my impact gun. I've never had an issue with doing this over many of the vehicles that I have ordered. I could only attribute the issue to either the new pads or the rotors were defective from the start. I've found the stock slotted rotors somewhat soft as it is. When I switched over to the centric pads last summer, I immediately noticed a rather large decrease in braking performance over the stock pads that came on the SRT-8. It was even worse when it rained. The combination of the Centric pads and the stock rotors didn't make me feel very safe when doing any hard braking manouvers. I have a 1 year old that travels in my car fairly regularly and I'd much rather be safe then sorry.
Thus....I decided to do something about it. As soon as the springtime hit, I started researching what I could get that would be a marked improvement in making the car brake as it did in stock form. I looked up several different rotor companies and came to the decision on the R-1 Concepts rotors for several reasons. #1 - they communicated very well and in a timely fashion via email. #2 - they have a superb quality product with a very strong metallic content as well as being powdercoated for greater rust protection during the winter months #3 - I liked the overall design with the combo of drilled/chamfered holes and diamond slots #4 - they had no issues shipping to me here in Canada.
http://www.r1concepts.com/
Now....on their site, they had the other SRT-8 vehicles listed but not the Charger. I simply emailed them and they replied to me with a quote on what I needed as well as a shipping cost. They got to me in only 4 days which was great! The product arrived perfectly and undamaged and looks stunning on the car!
Brake pads was another entirely different piece to look at. I was going to go with the stock pads again but looked into the EBC Red pads. I purchased these from Autoanything.com who have always been very reliable and timely with any orders I have placed from them in the past. They arrived up here in 5 days which was perfectly fine.
On to the install. Here are the R-1 rotors:
They are big, beefy and precision crafted. I could not find a flaw on them.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r1.JPG
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r2.JPG
EBC Redstuff pads....very nice quality!
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r3.JPG
Break in coating for ease of break-in on the rotors
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r4.JPG
NOW....at this point in time, I'd ask all GARAGE QUEENS to please LOOK AWAY. The site you are about to see is a car that is actually driven through all seasons. You may have nightmares when you view the following images. You've been warned!
Rotor taken off of the front.....twas a hard, hard winter. I cleaned everything up back to a nice look. Don't worry. I'm changing out the shocks at the end of June for KW-V2s.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r5.JPG
New rotor on....NOTE....please hang your caliper with a coat hanger or piece of wire. Never let it hang by the rubber hose!
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r6.JPG
Before putting the pads in, I coated the backplates with CRC rubberized coating to prevent any caliper squealing. It worked great for the front pads. More on the rear pads later. I bought this from Napa.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r7.JPG
all pads, nicely coated: It's important to let the product sit on the backplates for about 10 minutes so that it dries to a slightly tacky state.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r8.JPG
These are your caliper bolts which hold everything onto the spindle:
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r9.JPG
Make sure you put the clip on correctly with the drift pins to hold your pads in securely.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r10.JPG
Torque your calipers back to factory spec using a torque wrench. Fronts are to be torqued at: 140 ft/lbs. while the rears are at: 96 ft/lbs. Something interesting to note....my rear calipers were NOT torqued to spec...not even close. They were at about 20 ft/lbs. Check that!
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r11.JPG
Only use an impact gun to put your wheels on if you have a 110 ft/lbs torque stick. It works perfectly and makes the job much, much quicker.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r12.JPG
On to the rears....disgusting how they look after a couple of winters. I cleaned them up real nice but it took a while. Lots of Simple green and I applied some Zaino CS over them after it was all done.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r13.JPG
This is what I use to separate the pads....It's a simple pad separator that I got from one of the local stores. It was about 8$. Does the job perfectly!
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r14.JPG
These are the old Centric pads.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r15.JPG
Rotor/caliper removed:
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r16.JPG
New R-1 Concepts rotor and CLEANED caliper installed. NOTE the jack below the spring pocket. You must do this to gain access to the caliper bolt. It makes life a bit easier. It basically lifts the spring up and allows the arm to be more out of the way so that you can access the lower bolt with a torque wrench.
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r17.JPG
Note the orientation of the clip.....
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r18.JPG
New rotor fully bedded in Rear
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r19.JPG
New rotor, fully bedded in front:
http://www.addcentre.com/Images/Misc/Rotors/r20.JPG
Driving impressions?
I can tell you that as soon as I bedded in the pads and rotors, it was 10x better than the stock rotors and centrics. However, NOT all is perfect. The fronts pads remain on the car at this time and are working flawlessly. The rears however, I had a HUGE squealing issue with. It sounds worse than a bus in bad repair. It was so bad that I had to remove the rear pads as my one year old was getting scared over the sound. At this time, I am contacting EBC to see what they can do about it. If not, I may try to slightly feather the edges of the pad with the dremmel to help them work in a bit easier. I'm having a hard time understanding why the fronts have no squealing and the rears are just brutal. I ended up putting the Centrics back on the rear and the squealing stopped immediately. I found this very strange because the setup was prepped the same and installed with the same care. I may try to put them in again since it is such an easy job for anyone to do. I'll see what EBC comes up with. The other option for me would be to try one of the Hawk pads in rear and see how that goes.
Either way, the setup still brakes perfectly and is the same as stock. The front pads were the main issue with the Centric pads. The EBC pads work beautifully in the front. I believe that some of the Grand Cherokee SRT-8 guys were having the same squealing issues with the rears as well. Interesting. It has nothing to do with the backing plates because basically I checked for piston movement via the indentations in the CRC material and there was no movement.
I'll keep you posted as to what I come up with.
All in all, I am super pleased with this new setup. The front pads and the rotors are superb. I'm just hoping that I can get the rears working as well.
:)