staticlag

Okay, I got some EBC RedStuff ceramic pads for my front a few weeks ago, and just got the rears in on friday.

The pads look pretty different, I'm kind of afraid that I got some of the first gen Red Stuff pads that I heard were bad for your rotors and squeaky and dusty. My new rear have a "brake-in" kind of silicone coating on the pad surface that EBC says should help the pads bed-in sooner. My fronts did not have this, but EBC advertises even this on their website! How can I tell for sure the difference between 1st and 2nd gen?

Secondly, on to brake squeal:

I've been having some squeal with the front pads when I put them in according to the stock directions of pad replacement, you know with the 2 metal backing plates between the piston and the inner pad? But my EBCs come with a 3M rubbery coating on the back of the pad, so I just tried taking out the two metal plates between the pad and the piston, and no squeal!

Do I really need these flimsy metal parts? Will the piston damage the pad in any way by leaving them off? Because the squeal is totally gone now that I've taken them off the fronts.

DPE

iTrader: (1)

I can't answer the question on the 'Brake-In' coating. I doubt it'll make that much difference, just be sure to bed the pads well. 5-7 hard (but not ABS-inducing) applications from 65ish down to 25ish repeatedly, followed by a long cool-down cruise on the highway without touching the brakes for at least 15 minutes should do the trick.

As for the pad shims, you can get rid of them. They're only there to stop noise, and in your case it sounds like they weren't doing a good job. When we put in race pads with nothing but a metal backing plate we run without shims and have zero problems. Other than they squeak a bit, but race pads do that . If they're working well without shims, go without shims. If they get noisy again, try the shims with some caliper grease or 'anti-squeal' grease or spray on them.