I bought brembo blanks (and Axxis MM pads) about 10K miles ago to deal with the warped nissan rotors. Now my steering wheel is starting to shake again under high speed braking. I thought the brembos were going to solve all of our problems. Do you think it's worth getting them resurfaced?

 

That's about all you can do. Unless you wanna step up the rotors by buying the Blehmco BBK w/ 2k4 rotors.

 

Are you tourquing the lug nuts with a tourqe wrench? If you are doing them by hand, I'll bet that is what's warping your rotors.

Do them in several passes with increasing tourqe on the torque wrench. Try it in 5lb increments until you get up to the factory tourque spec.

 

Also, make sure when you torque them, that you do so in a star pattern...

i.e (clockwise or counter clockwise)

1, 3, 5, 2, 4

I ALWAYS ask shops when they remove wheels on my vehicles to HAND TORQUE to FACTORY SPECS. If you don't, they'll use an impact wrench and go around in a circle... then when you want to remove your own wheels, they're so flipping tight you might end up shearing a stud... happened to me.

 

I always redo my lugnuts after a shop has it at them... and I do it in a star pattern, hand-tightening them first, then tightening them to full torque, not using a step system. 5lb increments sounds like ridiculous overkill to me. I can see doing it to ~30 ft/lbs first, then going up to 85 ft/lbs later, but I usually don't bother and just hand-tighten them first.

I'm interested in why the Brembo blanks warped with Axxis Metal Masters. I kinda thought Axxis MM would be more immune to pad material shedding than other pads. Assuming this is indeed what caused your warpage problems...
I'll be using PBR (aka Axxis) Metal Masters with 2k4 rotors soon w/ the BlehmCo BBK kit.

 

I think the issue is more that the rotors are undersized, get so bleeding hot, that pad transfer is inevitable. Thats only my .02...not fact.

 

I had the same thing happen on another car, which I still have, a '95 eagle Talon TSi. I used Brembo blanks on purpose hoping it would help but they warped sooner than stockers.

I always torgue my lugnuts too. I go to 90 fl-lbs.

After the Brembos warped on my Talon, I put on a big brake upgrade kit (13" rotors, SS lines, and dual piston calipers) hoping larger diameter rotors would help. The kit came with PowerSlots. These are now getting lumpy after 15k. The upgrade is awesome from a power stop standpoint, and I did go a lot longer than usual without warping, but they still got lumpy.

On my Max, the rotors were warped new, they had sat a while and rusted bad while on the car lot. They were cut and feel great but I can tell those are getting lumpy too after 13k.

I do mostly highway driving and I'm not rough on brakes. Makes me wonder if highway driving is the cause. I know that sounds counter intuitive, but I've always warped less when doing more city driving.

 

I dunno. Before this car I owned a 1990 Mazda 626 DX automatic, and I used to beat the hell out of that thing, driving it just as hard as I do my Maxima (granted it couldn't accelerate as fast...)

I did a front brake job on it once, never got the rotors turned, and within a month the rotors were warped. I replaced them with cheapos from Advance Auto, and they never warped again. Prior to the brake job, they never warped either.
I'm not entirely sure why they warped by changing pads w/o changing rotors, but I'm sure there's a reason for it. Either way, why didn't they warp before? I used to drive that thing to its limits on a routine basis, and the same stop'n'go driving I do in my Maxima.

So let's compare the Mazda to my Maxima.

Mazda: Lighter chassis. Smaller 14" steel wheels. OEM replacement pads were Semi-metallic. I'm sure the rotors were smaller than the Maxima's.
Maxima: Heavier chassis. Bigger, heavier 17" alloy wheels. Bigger rotors, but OEM ceramic pads.

I'm leaning towards the idea that MASS is what it's all about. Those massive wheels, the massive chassis... equals much more heat produced on the Maxima than on the Mazda. Considering I've heard that the 6th gen Maxima, whose smallest wheel is 17", has not experienced the chronic warpage problems us 5th gens deal with, plus its chassis is heavier, I'd be willing to bet the 6th gen rotors are sufficient to hold and dissipate the extra heat produced by the braking.

About your Talon... that's interesting that they started warping again. What other mods did you have? Heavy 17" wheels? Sound system? Enough to compare it to a Maxima in the heat produced by braking?

 

I've got 20k on my stockers and they're still relatively true.

Maybe I got lucky, who knows.

To me -it's more about how you drive your car. I don't HAMMER this thing mercilously but I DO drive agressively at EVERY possible opportunity!

Constant stop and go (especially in an auto) is a recipe for disaster, if you ask me.
I'll buy into what the Colonel says too -- these brakes are WAY undersized for the weight and size of our vehicles.
BMW 3-series cars have larger rotors overall, and they're MUCH smaller cars.
Go Figure.

gr

 

So while we're all grasping at straws for clues to why our brakes warp, what about the cooling ability?
I understand that rotors cool by using the vents in the rotor like a centrifuge, bringing air near the backside and passing it through the channels to the exterior. Could the cool air supply going to the rotor vents be improved? Perhaps it would be of benefit to remove some of the plastic guard panels around the bumper area to improve airflow into the center of the wheels?

 

Stock 17" alloy wheels, medium weight. I know it's about 550 lbs lighter than my max.

When I installed the new rotors, I had almost 0 runout on the hubs, cleaned them up nice. Always torqued wheels.

It's inevitable though that even new rotors have some runout. I had no more than .004" on the powerslots. I've been trying to figure it out for a long time. Good thing my brother-in-law owns a shop and a lathe, I get 'em cut for free. I replace them after the 1st cut gets lumpy.

Here's where it gets weird. I just read that PowerSlots OEM for their rotors is Brembo!!! I give UP!!

 

Beleive it or not, it may not be related to the rotor overheating, more to do with the pads overheating.

Here's a good read on it: http://www.raceshopper.com/tech.shtml#warped_rotors

 

On that note: one more thing I've noticed while trying to rethink my brakes --

Every hi-performance car including Porsche 911's, BWM's entire line, and Mercedes come stock with SOLID brake rotors.

Ok, there are exceptions with hi-perf upgrades on some of the pricey sport models -- but trust me, I've been looking, and it's true.

Interesting, eh? What's different between theirs and ours?? Is it SIMPLY the size, or it is also the composition of the Iron being used and the forging process?
If I could fit these brake rotors to my car -- I'd do it in a hot minute.

Of course, I've not spent anytime on teh Beemer sites to see if they have the same problems. But somebody's doing something right -- BMW is STILL making more money per car than ANY other manufacturer in the world.

Dang, i just want some good stopping power -- is that too much to ask for without warping in 15k miles???

The general concensus is that slotted/drilled rotors have a tendency to warp sooner due to the inherent weakening of the foudation of the rotors thru the reomoval of materials to dissapate heat.
I'm no rocket scientist - but, I'm not sure

 

Not true. My friend's S500 has cross drilled rotors on it.

Here's my story on warped rotors. I went through 3 sets of brand new OEM rotors in the first 20K miles I had my car. On my third set I switched over to carbon metallic pads and I've been on the same set of rotors for the last 30K miles. I've also adjusted my driving habits a bit so that I'm not a complete maniac on the roads now.

If you don't tourque the lug nuts with a tourque wrench then the rotors will warp that day. When I had my car corner weighted, they were using an impact wrench to tighten the lugs. Before I dropped my car off at the shop that did the work, the rotors were fine. The day after I got it back, the rotors were warped.

 

I'm sick of everyone complaining about their rotors. You can learn the hard way or you can learn the easy way and listen to someone who has gone through the headaches already. ME!

Get yourself a set of FROZEN ROTORS and be done with it! Couple it with a set of Performance Friction Carbon Metallic or some of their Z-Rated Pads. You're done! No more warped rotors!

Forget about Powerslots, Stillens, and those crappy Brembo blanks. They all warp just as fast as stockers. I've been through all of them on five different cars. Now all my cars are equipped with Frozen Rotors.

One last time for you hard heads, here is the link.
Frozen Rotor Website

I don't mean to harp, its just that I feel for you folks and want to help.

 

This testimony was pulled from Diversified's web site:

I first tried them back in 1999 for a street car, which as time progressed turned into a Race Car. Everything on the vehicle had been changed except the brake rotors. Today, one set of the Frozen Rotors has survived 2 years of stop and go traffic, 13 driving schools, 6 club race weekends, and 3 enduro races, not to mention numerous testing days. While other competitors have changed rotors on a regular basis, due to warping and cracking, I have never thought about my rotors for 3 years and over 20 brake pad changes. Frozen Rotors is a product which gives me an “unfair advantage”. We have compared rotor temperatures with cars built similarly to mine, and the difference has been between 75 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit! Because of my experience with them on a race car, I have now replaced all the rotors on all of my cars, and will ONLY use Frozen Rotors. They have saved me money, effort, time, and most importantly, piece of mind. While I do not want my competitors to find out about them, I feel this is a product which gives more then a performance gain; it also increases safety on and off track. I am more then merely satisfied; I am in awe of the product.

 

I'm seriously considering them. It's at least $100 more for the set than OEM 2k4 rotors though. But it'd be about the same if I bought OEM 2k4 rotors and sent them to, say, Alpine Cryogenics and had the same thing done.

 

I can believe that. If that's the case, we have 2 options-

1. Go with bigger pads, which would undoubtedly require a different caliper. That's what most BBKs do. Probably not an option for most of us.

2. Figure out what inefficiencies exist in the existing pads' cooling (i.e. how can you cool the pads/calipers?)

I'm handling the high-perf. pads by using Axxis MM. I have not used shims on my pads since my first brake job. Do these help with cooling at all, or are they just there to reduce noise? (I use copious amounts of anti-squeal brake grease when I do my brake jobs, so I've never had trouble with noise...)

As for the rotors, maybe frozen rotors can help, but to help they would have to either dissipate heat away from the pads quicker, or reduce the likelihood of pad material depositing on the rotor. Either way, I'm seriously pondering them. But it's like $288 shipped for the set of 2k4 rotors. I was planning on spending more like $178

 

It's either 288 x 1

Or it's 178 x 2 or 3 or ...

Whatever the case, I was speaking with some brake manufacturers and the info that I got is that some pads (i.e. ceramic) actually do not generate enough heat from the friction thereby forcing the rotor to absorb most of the heat causing it to warp.

 

So back to my original question...


If the warping is really being caused by overtorquing with the impact wrench, will loosening the wheels and retorquing them by hand undo the damage that's been done?

 

What is the difference between the 2k3 and 2k4 rotors? are they just a better bolt on replacement or do they requires new calipers also?

 

If they are already warped then the damage is done already. You may be able to cut them if they are only warped on the disc portion. But if the warpage is on the "hub" portion of the rotor then they are done. You can "try" to ask your mechanic to put shims under there and even it out with a set of dial calipers, but they'll probably just give you a weird look.

In my experience, three sets of rotors gone with the OEM pads in 20K. Switched to Performance Friction carbon metallic pads and adjusted my driving a bit, and have had this last set of rotors for some time now. Over 30K I think.

The Nissan pads would start to smoke on me after driving really hard, I haven't experienced that once with the Performance Friction yet.

 

yeah, that's what I'm thinking too...

That doesn't make sense. If the pads didn't "generate enough heat", then there wouldn't be any extra heat for the rotor to absorb. Do you mean the pads don't absorb enough of the heat generated? If so, I'd like more proof on this idea--I am reminded of http://www.stoptech.com/whitepapers/...otors_myth.htm where the guy states-

If pad material transfer is the problem, then the issue here is that pads absorb TOO MUCH heat and reach the temperature at which the material starts to shed...

You know, I wonder how many times this whole topic has been discussed on the Internet, with all kinds of various ideas, technologies and techniques proposed for curing the problem. I want to know what the auto manufacturers know--what's the trick for making a car that DOESN'T warp its brakes nonstop? What goes into the selection of rotor size, pad surface area, caliper design, etc?

 

2k4 rotors can be bolted on so long as you have the BlehmCo BBK bracket kit, which relocates the stock caliper so it fits. 2k4 rotors are much bigger than 2k4 rotors.

 

Really good points! I have a feeling that manufacturers know exactly how to prevent but they don't.

On this whole heat transfer issue, IMHO, I don't think it has anything to do with whether the rotors or the pads are absorbing too much heat. No matter what, heat is going to be generated. The very essence of brakes is that they turn kinetic energy into heat. So it has to go somewhere. Both components have to be designed to handle it.

I can remember a time when rotor "warpage" was never an issue. I had a 70 Chevelle SS that never warped rotors. I also had a 77 Nova, same thing. The front rotors never warped. The only difference I can think of was pad material. Back then you could only get organic pads. They wore quick and dusted like all heck, but we never had "warped" rotors.

I really think the whole issue is pad material transfer with semi-metalic pads. I've been on many boards for cars these days, Volovo, Acuara, Honda, Chevy, Toyota, Antyhing GM or Ford..... Everyone "warps" rotors.

I'm going to really check my PowerSLots on my talon. I'm going to check run out in an area where the pads do no contact *and* the swept area. I have feeling run out is fine, the surface will be wavy, but not a lot of run out.

I emailed tech at powerslot about cutting their rotors. They said it was fine to do a clean-up cut on them (guess that means to remove deposited pad material).

I've always blamed the rotors, but I think it really has more to do with pad desposit.

 

It's just so strange that same manufacturer can have great brakes on one car and very poor ones on the other. I have a 97 Altima with 190k miles on it. Front rotors have not been replaced or cut since I got it at 70k miles (maybe even longer, since I did not have any service records). Always used OEM pads and brakes are great on that car. Stops on a dime. Hard traffic, un-even torqing of lugs....you name it - it experienced it. I just wish my Max had the same brakes.

Question to owners with Blemco kit. Who has highest milage on the kit? Any issues? Anybody took it to the dealer with the kit - to have them say "What the he11 kind of set up is that ?

 

I doubt anybody has enough miles on the BlehmCo kit to tell for sure, seeing as Matt just released them in March. I'd have them on already, but I was financially strained by moving out Next month I intend to put it on though. I got the bracket kit, and the PBR Metal Master pads, just need to purchase the rotors, and I'm in a little bit of a dilemma on that (pay extra for Frozen Rotors, or just buy OEMs? I'd almost want to buy OEMs so I'm including myself in a more controlled experiment--using 2k4 OEM rotors with PBR/Axxis MM, the pads being the main difference between my setup and others' setups (i.e. irish44j))

 

Here's another site for our reading pleasure: http://www.garageboy.com/bmw/brakefaq.html#why (The BMW Brake FAQ)

Applies to older BMWs, but it has some good information. Maybe this is why older cars rarely warped brakes--their pads were made of Asbestos. I'm sure it's been a real challenge to formulate pads which don't shed like a snake every time you encounter traffic performing a 60-0 experiment in the middle of the highway.
On this note, it reaffirms my suspicion that the source of our issues is heat-related. Our rotors are definitely too small, so our pads likely run at a higher operating temperature than a lot of cars. Since people have experienced warpage using ALL different types of pads, the rotors' size and operating temperature is definitely suspect here.

Overtorqued lugnuts makes a difference, as I've come to understand from some FAQs I've read, in that the rotor's "hat" needs to be able to expand/contract with the heating/cooling of the rotor, and if the hat portion is overtorqued then it cannot do that properly as intended. Floating rotors eliminate that problem to a certain extent. But I doubt that's our core problem, seeing as I religiously torque mine by hand to 85 ft/lbs (I'm considering reducing that a little...) and redo it anytime a shop overtorques it.

 

The one thing I haven't seen in this thread is proper break-in. Have all of you followed proper break-in procedures when you get new rotors and pads?

 

Good question. I always try to, typically using the swift 50MPH-~10MPH stops, followed by a period of cooling for a minute or so.
The new PBR Metal Master pads I received for the fronts have a small slip which recommend using slow 30MPH-5 stops with a short cooling period in-between stops. I am going to try this method when I install the BlehmCo kit, since the pads recommend it.

 

I've done a lot of thinking on this topic... every time i stop from 60 or so mph...

The problem is not that our ROTORS are too small, it is that our PAD is too small. We're basically stopping a 3200 lb vehicle with a surface area of like 6 square inches. Also if you look at the actual sweep area of the pad/rotor contact, it's like this thin stripe across our rotor.

My theory: Small surface area of pad combined with ever growing rotor size but not WIDTH contributes to a hot 'stripe' being heated across the center diameter of our rotor. Heat is disappated unevenly causing warpage. Also, since pad is soooooo small (single caliper) the equivalent heat required to stop a big *** car with big *** wheels and big *** rotors, is distributed over a much smaller surface area. THUS, our pads melt like butter.

Solution: Frozen rotors with metallic pads, or a THICKER rotor, or best yet, a caliper that more evenly distributes braking force across the face of the rotor. ie.. 2 or more pistons.

 

Unfortunately Frozen does not make rotors for 2002/2003. I emailed them yesterday requesting information on whether they will make some for us...

 

It's probably both. But at this rate, the cheapest solution we can at least consider is larger rotors to hopefully dissipate some of that extra heat.
Keep in mind, the 2k4 rotors are wider AND have a larger diameter than stock. If somebody came out with a caliper kit that was cheap and cleared stock 17x7 wheels, even with the BlehmCo kit, I'd consider it if the pads weren't god-awful expensive (I'm not paying $300/set of pads, when PBR/Axxis MM for the fronts cost me around $48 shipped for the stock calipers)

 

I wonder if we can get somebody from Nissan USA to shed some "official" light on this, even "off-the-record". does anybody know somebody who works at Nissan? Should we write some kind of letter with ton of signatures to them?

 

OK, I just talked to a guy at Frozen. He said that they DO make front rotors for 2002/2003. They are $114.50 a piece. He highly recommended Hawk HPS pads for daily driving. They use Brembo for base rotors or if Brembo not available, some other brands, but all sourced in US, not Mexico or China.

I don't know, but once mine warp again, I am going to try these frozen ones....what the heck. They better be good....!!

 

I put a BBK on my other car about 18 months ago thinking that. I went from 11" rotors / sinlge piston calipers to 13" rotors (powerslots) w/ dual piston calipers, HUGE pads. The rotors are now lumpy after about 15k miles. Not too bad but I can tell the rotors are starting to lump.

I think it all boils down to semi - metalic pads. No matter what, semi-mets are probably going to deposit metal on the rotor.

 

Why semi-metallic? My Raybestos QuietStop ceramic pads warped just like true stockers. The stockers can warp and they're ceramic too.

 

For those of us 2k-2k1 guys, here are the prices for the frozen rotors:

Front FrozenRotors $110.60 each
Rear " " $108.00 each
front pads $ 53.00 the set
Rear Pads $ 55.00 the set
Slotting if desired $ 45.00 per rotor
Freight (est) $ 35 to $40

The pricing is a bit rich for my blood, however if I had the means I would wait for the Frozen 2004s and get the BlehmCo kit with Hawk HPS pads. (I also hear that Matt is currently planning a rear setup for the Max Sweet!).

 

I'm not positive, but aren't the cermaics semi-metalic? The ceramic is mixed with copper strands from what I understand. You may even find some cermic pads that use steel strands, depends on the manufacturer. Check out the surface, any shiny strands in them?

There's a lot of conflicting info from what I've read, but I'm pretty sure that most street pads are technically semi-metalic because they all use copper or steel strands in the pad to conduct heat away and to extend the life of the pad. It's been the main drive for a lot of years, to design pads that last longer. In turn we're left with pads that eat up rotors (makes the surface wavy--"warped")

 

You're probably right... my QuietStop pads did have some shiny material in them.
Oh well, if that's the case, I'm going to a further extreme this time around--PBR/Axxis Metal Masters. These pads are shiny silver
We'll see how it goes.

But are you implying that the "wavy-grooves" are suggestive of WHY the rotors "warp"? i.e. maybe the pad material sheds off onto the rotor during the process by which the metal strands in the pad cut those grooves? That'd be an interesting theory to test... (in which case, Axxis MM should be the worst for such purposes)