Hi; I recently purchased a used set of OEM Brembos to replace the stock brakes on my 05 Touring. I already had Goodridge ss lines installed. Rotors have very low miles on them (slotted Brembo fronts, blank Brembo rears). I did not have them turned or anything before putting them on. I got factory seal kits in and replaced the gaskets and dust seals in the calipers before installing. Installed the brakes today with new Carbotech XP10 pads and a full bleed/flush, and had no issues or problems arise during the install. We put a little over 1/2 a litre of fluid through the system bleeding, using left rear, right front, right rear, left front as the order (found this order on another thread), bleeding outer then inner on each corner.

Took the car out for a test drive and to bed in the pads, and found that the pedal felt quite low compared to previously with the stock brakes. I can raise the pedal with a couple of pumps and it will hold, but it goes lower again immediately once the pedal has been released once. I can still generate huge brake torque (no problem engaging the abs doing the bed in stops, even with oversize RT615's on). Second; I have been getting some odd squeeking from the rear when I release the brakes after coming to a near stop (mainly noticed during the bed in stops). Last, my son (a mechanic who assisted with the conversion today) took it out for a run, and noticed a bit of a click from the rears when applied; he mentioned that when we were bleeding the rears he noticed that the rear pads seemed to be resting quite a ways off the rotor, would click in when I applied the pedal, and would return to the seemingly unusually large gap when the pedal was released. When he drove the car he didn't feel the pedal was soft, but did notice that it felt low.

Sorry for writing a novel, but I thought if I included the details it might save a lot of questions about the install and give people more to work with.

So; any thoughts on this? Do the Brembo rears normally have that gap between the pads and the rotors? Is their still air in the system despite what seemed to be a very thorough bleed? Any insights appreciated.

 

One other question; do the brembos use the same master cylinder as the non-brembo brakes? It occurred to me that perhaps there just isn't quite enough pressure in the system to hold the pads on the rear rotors. BTW I will bleed the entire system again tonight to see if that was the problem.

 

I can't speak to the gap in the rears.. that seems odd. The clicking seems familiar - the retaining pins possibly clicking when switching from reverse to forward braking or vice-versa. I believe this is normal.

I've found the a second bleed is often needed after major brake system work - especially if a power bleeder is used. Kind of a pain to lift the car again for another bleed.. but seems to help a LOT.

Good luck.

 

^^Thanks; much appreciated

 

I'm having a set of OEM brembo's swapped onto my 2006 on Thursday. I'll let you know if I have similar results. Although since the non-brembo 2006 brakes are bigger than 2003-2005, I might have a bigger master cylinder (someone can confirm this...?)

 

Good question. Hope your install goes well. Hopefully I can draft my kid and we'll get the system bled again tomorrow. He had a bad day with a power steering hose and was in no mood for more mechanical troubleshooting when he got home from work lol.

 

After sitting for 48 hours, I went back to the car tonight, and noticed a harder pedal even as I was moving the car around in the garage before doing the bleed. We went through another full bleed (maybe a tiny bit of air at one wheel, but mostly a lot of clear fluid), took the car for a test drive and the pedal is right back to the normal hard pedal I'm used to. We're thinking that the reservoir/master drained out too much while we were changing the calipers over and ended up with an air lock up at the master. I think it probably bubbled out into the reservoir over the 2 days the car sat and fixed itself. In any case seems good now, and I feel much more confident about the first time I come off the straight into turn one and have to go from 125 to 60 to avoid becoming part of the landscaping Since that will be in a week and a half, I am quite relieved. Thanks to thekinn for the help.

Oh...the rear pads are now sitting much closer to the rotors as well; the system pressure must have just been a little low.

 

^^ Good news! Glad you got your issues worked out.

I had my Brembos installed yesterday and the pedal feel is decent, and the brakes grab very hard, which is good. My issue is a "shhh shhh shhh shhh" sound once per wheel revolution coming from the rear driver side which I suspect is a result of installing used brake pads on new rotors, so the pads are not bedded to the rotors yet and I guess there's a high spot. I'll be keeping my eye on it in the coming week or so to see if it beds in and the noise goes away.

In the meantime, they sure are purty!

 

Probably bedding issue, but you might want to re-torque everything down just to be sure, (calipers, wheels).

 

Alright well I took the wheel off and checked out the situation and saw that there was a bit of the dust shield (which had to be trimmed to fit the rotors) dragging against the back side of the rotor. I trimmed off that piece and the sound went away for my first test drive. But now I have a "squeak squeak squeak" when I am coming to a stop with the brake pedal applied lightly. Sometimes there is a "scraaaaaape" sound once per wheel revolution when I am coming to a slow stop also.

Any other OEM Brembo owners experiencing similar phenomenon? It's only coming from the rear driver side.

Also as a side note, the OEM Brembo brake pads produce a CRAPLOAD of dust! The machined lips on my wheels are basically gray after a couple days of driving. The rears are ok, probably because they aren't doing much work anyway. Thinking I need to swap out the front pads to something less dusty. Anyone have suggestions? Stoptech SP's?