Thread: Brake squeal

Well, my brakes are noisy. It's a loud squealing that happens under light braking pressure. If I let up, it goes away, and if I step down harder it likewise disappears.

This is an 11" Fastbrakes setup with Wilwood forged Dynalite 4-piston calipers on the front, stock rear, stock BMC and booster. Car was originally automatic so it has the larger booster. S13 without ABS.

Pads are Hawk HPS all around, and the pads are nowhere near worn out. When I contacted Brian at Fastbrakes about the noise, he advised me to take the pads out and scuff them up on the sidewalk and put them back. While I was doing that I broke out the tin-snips and cut away most of the rest of the dust shields (I'd originally just cut the lip off to fit the larger rotors).

Anyway, the noise was gone for about a day but has returned, though less than before. I'm 90% sure it's coming from the front and not the rear. According to Fastbrakes the HPS pads shouldn't make any noise.

I did a bunch of searching with no results. Anybody have any ideas? My big concern is that the wheel bearings might be going, but I've never heard of wheel bearings making a brake-squeal sort of noise.

This is an inherent problem with this kit, I've seen threads about it posted on the old forum somewhere. The HPS pads I have on mine (same calipers) don't make as much noise as the pads that originally came with it, and the noise isn't always there. But often (especially it seems if I have other people in the car), my brakes will squeak in exactly the same situation you described. I have not found a way yet to fully get rid of it, other than avoiding that "sweet spot" of squeaking. I was told that If you do find a solution, please let me know about it. I've heard that squeal-reducer stuff might work :
http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=LCT%2D40299&N=700+4294925094+4294798191+115&autoview=sku
but it might actually act like a glue between the pad and the piston, thus making swapping pads out a real pain in the glutes.

I've just recently changed out my front brakes with new rotors and Axxis Metal Masters on my G20 and I'm getting the same results. I'm going to subscribe to this thread to see if you come up with an answer.

I run HPS in my Z and usually after some hard driving they will get noisy for a while, but eventually it calms down.

I run the HP+ in my SE-R and while downright unliveable on the street as a result of low speed noise, they stop soo nice!

You should account for some noise with the more aggressive pads, but HPS's shouldn't be too bad, the occasional noise coming to a stop, but shouldn't be as bad as my HP+'s