Good stuff sir ^^^

 

To follow up on the hub-centric aftermarket wheels. I just switched to my stock rim summer setup and took a closer look at my aftermarket winter setup. The rims have a plastic spacer to make the aftermarket rims fit the hub correctly. They are marked 66.1 and when measured they look to be 66.1. Maybe the plastic spacer is causing the issue. Is the plastic spacer strong enough to properly space the rim? Maybe switching to a metal spacer will help with the judder.

 

i've had the brake jiggers since i put on my first set of tires @ ~25,000 miles, now i'm ~30,000

never had the original stock tires rotated and brakes were perfect until i purchase my fist set of new tires. i just put on new stop tech street pads that didn't help even with the text book bed in procedure.

i was going to buy new rotors until i read this thread. looks like thats a waste of time.

so i'm going to try a set of racing pads that eats rotors to attempt to true the rotors on the car. i've had good luck with this on other cars and trucks in the past. the pads will clean the rotors up with a good bed in job. then i put the street pads back on. i'm going to give this a try and let u know.

like others have noted - i've never had this much trouble with rotors. and i have never had a car with rotors that only have the wheel lugs to hold them on. simple but i'm guessing this has something to do with our problem. so i torqued the lugs with a torque wrench and that did not help. The guys that installed my tires also used a torque wrench on the wheel lugs.

 

I have wrestled with this brake judder issue for many years on Acura as well as the G37. Interestingly, both cars had TSBs for this issue. My experience with this is as follows. VQSMILE hit the nail right on the head. Rotors rarely "warp". Have you ever looked at how they are built? I don't think I could warp the cast iron rotor with a sledgehammer! The problem is caused by pad material transfer (usually the pad's binding agent) to a hot rotor once the car is stopped. The friction coefficient differences of the bare cast iron vs the transferred pad material (which turns into a concrete-like substance on the rotor) is what causes the judder. The cure is to have the rotors turned. Period. Now as to how to keep the problem from coming back as often? Two things: 1) keep the pads off the red hot rotors after extended brake usage or a quick stop from hi-speed. 2) Choose your pads wisely. I had bad luck with ceramic pads as they act as a thermal insulator and don't help draw heat away from the rotor at all. I hear they are impregnating ceramic pads with chunks of copper now to help this. The "organic" pads are just an asbestos substitute and are also not very good at dissipating the rotor heat but the semi-metallic pads do the best job of this. If you can cool down the rotor as quickly as possible, the pad material transfer won't happen as readily. The more metal in the pad the better. The only downside is semi-metallic pads eat rotors - but then so does turning the rotors. The OEM pads are semi-metallic, I believe, and are probably the best choice for minimizing this brake judder issue. Note there is also a G37 TSB for adding a front rotor backplate cover that concentrates air flow to the rotor a bit. I got the dealer to put new pads in and turn the rotors when I got the TSB installed.
That's my 2 cents. Keeping rotors cool and keep your foot off the brake after you do that panic stop or at bottom of the long downhill run.

Cheers!
Easy Rider

 

thanks for the info. i plan to turn the rotors with a set of race pads...

fyi - the oem pads are ceramic and i agree with u that ceramics is a big part of the problem.

simi-metallics are the lowest form on the food chain. carbon metallics are sweet..

fyi - never had an issue with my pure bread honda/acura cars. is your experience with a usa built acura? which model and year is the acura(s)?

 

So I'm glad I stumbled upon this thread. My '08 G37S has close to 50k on it. I've noticed judder/shaking when braking for quite some time now and just figured my rotors were warped and needed replacing but after reading through this thread, I'm thinking that it won't make a difference since a lot of people are having issues even after the change? The pads and rotors are the original ones and 2 weeks back when I took everything out to grease the shims and backing plates, I still had about half of the padlife left.

So...should I go ahead with the pad/rotor change or just wait until my pads are lower? Again, I was only going to swap everything out because of the shaking when braking.

Thanks.

 

since you have the sport brakes, you can put an end to the problem by switching to carbon metallic pads. you can purchase Performance Friction brand pads at your local parts store. if you're lucky the bed in process will clean your rotors and eliminate the jitters.

if not, you will need new rotors or have the oem rotors turned. but either way the carbon metallics will prevent the jitters from coming back like other folks are experiencing with the street ceramic pads.

FYI - as the old saying goes - i'd rather be lucky than good. but, to be lucky you have to be good...



since carbon metallics are not available for my standard brakes , i'm trying to find a ceramic that will do the same...

i just put on new pads (stoptech streets) that are a little more aggressive than oem and they have cleaned the rotors to the point that the shimmy is must better but not completely gone.


if you install new rotors or even have the oem rotors turned, make sure the hub is well cleaned with a wire brush / aggressive cleaning pad to to minimize rotor runout from dirt between the rotor and hub.

if you want to go a step further buy a dial indicator and index the rotor to further minimize runout or find a shop that has a gauge.

if you want to stay with a ceramic pads and can stand the dust/noise, i would recommend going with an aggressive autocross pad to keep the rotors clean. another option is to buy race pads to clean the rotors after a few stops / bed in and switch back to street pads.

$35 dial indicator with mounting arm

 

Thank you tsb! I'll be sure to look for carbon metallic pads when I do the brake job.

 

Wow... I've been dealing with this for a while now and I only got my brake pads and rotors replaced in March/April of last year. After reading through all three pages, I decided to finally order the OEM R spec pads (since I had no idea what could be the cause of the judder) and have my front rotors turned and have the hub cleaned. Hopefully this will solve my judder issue which is quite bad above 60mph.

Should I give it an extra precaution and have the shims and backing plates greased especially since when I had my BBK powdercoated, that wasn't done after wards?