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frostnettenes
Samba Member
Joined: February 19, 2009
Posts: 33
Location: West Baden Springs
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 Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 6:57 am Post subject: Front and Rear Disc Brakes... EMPI... pads? I know- junk. |
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| I installed discs on all four corners of the '69 last summer, and have been having the same EMPI sounds-like-a-semi-coming-to-a-stop horrible brake roar that many others have been having. The fronts are perfectly fine, with no noise whatsoever. The rears can be so loud as to literally make my head ring. It always gets worse after a few times of applying the brakes, and at times does it when I rock the car/get in it and sit down. I have thought about changing to ceramic pads front and rear to at least HELP to control the noise, but I am unsure of exactly which pads would be the best to buy. I haven't delved into looking at rotor/caliper/bolt clearances yet, as I want to change pads regardless of what else may be causing the noise. What do some of you run for pads, and has anyone had the same problem and can post their fix? Thanks! |
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frostnettenes
Samba Member
Joined: February 19, 2009
Posts: 33
Location: West Baden Springs
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| Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:43 am Post subject: |
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Here's how the driver's side had been wearing... there's no WONDER I was getting vibration:
Hard to see, but about .050" gap between the "bottom" of the pad and rotor. The "top" was only about .010":
First thing off, both caliper mounting bolts were almost completely backed out- it was only a matter of a few miles, and catastrophe would've happened. I looked on the side of the caliper, and I found (I think) a major part of the problem:
Yep. Not good. So, I took it apart, and found that the anti-rattle spring was actually mounted upside-down, and had literally flared flat. A little bit of massaging, and right back in it went. I'll take the passenger side one off tomorrow and see how it looks.
The backside of the rotor tells me that all was good there:
I'm STILL going ceramic, eventually.[/img] |
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flyboat
Samba Member
Joined: April 21, 2010
Posts: 2752
Location: Bath NC
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| Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:54 pm Post subject: |
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When I installed my empi set up, I noticed the rear caliper was not pulling the pad square to the rotor (same gap as yours). I created a thread about this. Some people said Empi is crap and others said they have been running theirs for years with no problems. The caliper is too weak and when you apply pressure to it, it flexes giving the pedal a spongy feel and making the rotor wear exactly like your picture. Basically, the Empi caliper is Chinese junk. The best fix may be a rear brake set up from a 944
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79 super Vert
62 Ragtop Bug
66 tintop Westy
Porsche 914
09 Z06 Vette track car |
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Gerrelt
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Joined: December 22, 2004
Posts: 682
Location: The Netherlands
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| Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:04 am Post subject: |
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Take a look at my DIY setup, using Golf calipers on Porsche 914 disks: Rear Disk Brakes
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Last edited by Gerrelt on Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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catbox
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Joined: May 16, 2007
Posts: 866
Location: Portland, Oregon
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| Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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| That is a cool way to tackle your own brake setup. |
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torsionbar
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Joined: December 11, 2010
Posts: 2215
Location: earf
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| Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:36 pm Post subject: |
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| flyboat wrote: |
| Some people said Empi is crap and others said they have been running theirs for years with no problems. |
that is exactly the reason why it is crap. it's called quality control. or rather, the lack thereof. some work fine, while others do not. personally, i'd rather spend a few bucks more on something that isn't a crap-shoot gamble.
also, there really isn't any great rear-disc kits on the market. all the ones i've seen use a floating caliper with integrated parking brake. those suck. a lot. a better arrangement would be a fixed caliper (like what's on the front) with a small parking brake drum inside the rotor hat. like the late 944's use, but perhaps not so large. afaik, nobody offers such a kit. |
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torsionbar
Samba Member
Joined: December 11, 2010
Posts: 2215
Location: earf
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| Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Gerrelt wrote: |
| Take a look at my DIY setup, using Golf calipers on Porsche 914 disks: Rear Disk Brakes |
if you went to the trouble of using 914 rotors, why didn't you also use the 914 calipers and drum parking brake? that's why the 914 rotor has such a large hat - to house the drum parking brake inside.
golf & jetta rear calipers suck, they're terrible and unreliable. they seize up, they're a crappy design, they need a special tool to rotate the piston as it compresses when you change pads, they're just a plain crappy caliper. the parking brake cable design is shit as well, since it forces the cable to curve downwards, which allows water to collect inside the jacket and rusts the cable apart from the inside out, causing the parking brake to seize in position. i would honestly rather have rear drums than rear golf calipers. |
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Gerrelt
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Joined: December 22, 2004
Posts: 682
Location: The Netherlands
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| Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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| torsionbar wrote: |
| Gerrelt wrote: |
| Take a look at my DIY setup, using Golf calipers on Porsche 914 disks: Rear Disk Brakes |
if you went to the trouble of using 914 rotors, why didn't you also use the 914 calipers and drum parking brake? that's why the 914 rotor has such a large hat - to house the drum parking brake inside.
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Which is a terrible design. So you have a little brake inside your brake, more parts to go wrong, and a weak parking brake.
Plus the 914 calipers are expensive and rare, and I've read that they are not so good.
Think about it, Golf calipers can be bought everywhere, including the pads.
| torsionbar wrote: |
golf & jetta rear calipers suck, they're terrible and unreliable. they seize up, they're a crappy design,
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Hmm...Volkswagen used millions of these calipers, they can't be that bad.
"X million owners can't be wrong" 
| torsionbar wrote: |
they need a special tool to rotate the piston as it compresses when you change pads,
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No, you don't need a special tool: 
| torsionbar wrote: |
i would honestly rather have rear drums than rear golf calipers. |
So you like adjusting your drum brakes every year?
I am not trying to attack you, but I just wanted to tell the other side of the story. If you want to use drums, that's fine, no problem. I like my disk brakes, you like your drum brakes. 
The main reason for switching to rear disk brakes was maintenance. I didn't like the way the play in the brake pedal slowly got more, and then you have to adjust the brakes again.
These brakes are self adjusting, brake better, and, of course, look cool...which were a big bonus.
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Nelson64Baja
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Joined: January 29, 2013
Posts: 10
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 10:44 pm Post subject: Empi Disk Brakes, Squeal and Rattle |
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Don't know if this is 100% relevant but I want to share a helpful revelation regarding the EMPI wide five front disk brake kit:
They don't come with rattle clips and they clack and rattle and squeal like a stuck pig. Crazy loud.
I fixed both problems with magnets and anti-seize. The small neodenium magnets were placed on the caliper and backs of the pads to change the mass of the pads (and thus the resonating frequency) and to keep the pads from clacking up and down uncontrollably with the wobble of the Empi warped rotor. I gooped on anti-seize to the rails of the caliper bracket that the pads slide on to make a fluid-ish connection between the pads and the bracket which deters the pads from singing.
I now have cheap brakes that work really well and don't sound like a violin parade in a mine field. |
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