Upgrading your SRT-8 Rotors/pads

[PBGas]

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.

Click to view the original image

EBC Redstuff pads....very nice quality!

Break in coating for ease of break-in on the rotors


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.



New rotor on....NOTE....please hang your caliper with a coat hanger or piece of wire. Never let it hang by the rubber hose!



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.



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.


These are your caliper bolts which hold everything onto the spindle:


Make sure you put the clip on correctly with the drift pins to hold your pads in securely.



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!



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.



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.



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!



These are the old Centric pads.


Rotor/caliper removed:


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.



Note the orientation of the clip.....


New rotor fully bedded in Rear


New rotor, fully bedded in front:


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.

[r1concepts]

Awesome write up. Here are some tips to try to help with the rear squeals.

1: Try to chamfer the edges of the rear pads.
2: After bed in, do some moderate to aggressive stops. ( The rears usually takes twice as long to seat in then the fronts. )


It sounds like you've done everything right. Hope this will help the eeech of the rears.

[Super T]

Without reading your whole post because it's not word-wrapping to my screen... you did use the anti-squeal jelly, right? In 20,000 I haven't heard a peep or gotten the slightest wobble out of my stock rotors... weird. Those R1's do look awesome though...

[X E Ryder]

Looks good.

Hey R1 guys; do you warrant your rotors against cracking from drilled hole-to-hole?

Thx

[MattRobertson]

Excellent write-up. Beans to you. PBGas I'd like to copy this post into the forum Knowledge Base so its on permanent record. Any objection to that or anything you want to add or tidy up (you will still have access to edit the copy in the KB just like you would here)? A direct pic of the jack holding up the rear and showing the contact point would be cool.

As an aside, I like the pad spreader and sure wish it would work for my Wilwoods. I use a C-clamp to fully recess the pots on my calipers.

[Super T]

^^ I've never used anything other than a C-clamp :-) I advise at least an 8", only because the longer handle means your hand doesn't feel like it's going to fall off by the time you get to wheel #4.

[RobAGD]

As a suggestion to push the caliper pistons into the housing, Open the bleeder, and use you hands to press in the pistons, close the bleeder when you have them flush. No special tools needed and your not forcing fluid backwards in the system.

Great write up, I did edit you post a tad to add thumbnail tags around the huge image ( I am guessing you goto to edit the size down).

-Robert

[Immo]

My R1's should be here tomorrow. I went with the Hawk HPS Pads.

[Braddah Jay]

Thats gotta be my next upgrade before i even think about getting my Diablo Predator......

[r1concepts]

[IMG]chrome://click2call/content/FONcall_icon.png[/IMG][/URL]
Call with FONcall™
1547552
Connecting...

Connected!

Error: could not place call

bug?

]Looks good.

Hey R1 guys; do you warrant your rotors against cracking from drilled hole-to-hole?

Thx

Sorry, must have missed this post. Yes, we do; 90 days replacement warranty against warping or cracking.

[MattRobertson]

...No special tools needed and your not forcing fluid backwards in the system.

Hah! What shiny happy world are you living in? :D

I used to do it that way, usually aided by a scraper as a sort of uber-skinny pry-bar (only the sturdiest of scrapers will work). Its not like they slide back in all nice and cooperative-like, and yes I open up the reservoir lid... or at least I do after I pop blood vessels in my temples trying to move them for 10 minutes and wonder why they aren't moving. The C clamp coming in behind the scraper, which you need to pry the pads out in the first place, is the only friggin' way to go. That pad spreader has plates too thick to work for me or I'd try that.

[RobAGD]

Open the bleeder you wanker :P

-R

[MattRobertson]

uh.... I'm gonna be real pissed at myself if you're right about that.

[RobAGD]

Rotflmao

-r

[Jaak]

Damn, am I ever happy I don't have R/T brakes...

The pads and pistons on the SRT Brembos are so damn easy to work with, it's ridiculous... Oh wait Matt, you changed yours. You really run in to those issues on the Wilwoods?