78 replies to this topic

[kakabox]

One trick you can do with any brake pad to get more life out of it is to gradually shim the outer pad as they wear. I made a set of shims out of old backing plates ground down to various thicknesses. After each session, I check the wear and install a thicker shim.

What the shim does for you is keep more of the piston inside the caliper, which helps to reduce the amount of flexing that occurs in the caliper itself. The shim provides a stiffer caliper, and long term reduces the amount of tapered wear on the pads by keeping the pad more square to the rotor.

Another trick is to get some thin sheets of brass shim stock in .002" to .005" thickness and cut a strip slightly shorter than the slide pin on the caliper. Take the shim and roll it up to fit inside the slide pin hole leaving a small gap at 12 o'clock, until the pin still slides freely, but with less slop.

This is done by trial & error by hand fitting differnt thicknesses BTW. It's a bit time consuming but I have found that if you can reduce some of the slop in the slide pins, it further helps to reduce the slop in the caliper.

Nice! Excellent ideas.
Thank you Greg for sharing tips on optimizing the OE calipers...they do have a lot of slop.

Cheers!

[Zephyr]

I run the OEM shoes BTW and they typically last about 4-5 years! I wouldn't go with a shoe with a higher coefficient since that will just give you more rear bias and you don't need that. Maybe you can find a harder shoe material to get less rear bias? I would think that would help with trail braking...

I'll second what Greg said here. I ran some aftermarket race compound shoes on the back of my Civic for a couple events. They would lock up under hard braking due to the weight transfer and it was extremely easy to get the car into a spin. I went back to OEM shoes and ran the same set for two years and there was next to no wear on them.

Z

[EdLeake]

Thanks for that, I would have to agree that even on stock rear drums they offer more than enough stopping power - there is simply no weight at the rear!

[E-AT_me]

noticed your driveshaft question:

check to see you aren't low enough that your shafts are connecting with the body of the car itself.. this can happen.. if hit hard enough it definately can damage them. also since you are pretty darn low, the angle of the shaft can increase wear..