Brake Grease/Quiet, do you use it?

[02rsxpilot]

Just curious if folks have any recommendations or tips on using brake grease/quiet when they swap pads. Obviously, I could care less about noise when I'm on the track, but the timing of my track events and work schedules, etc... doesn't always leave me the luxury of swapping pads right before driving to the event, so sometimes I have to endure a few days of DD'ing on track pads.

A while back I bought some of this goo (CRC Disc Brake Quiet) for use on my fiancee's Nissan that had been squeaking. I haven't used it since, but was thinking about applying a real thin layer when I swap the track pads back in this week. I've got to drive up to Tahoe and then all the way to San Jose/Monterey this weekend with the Hawk DTC-70s in, hence my inquiry on making them even slightly more streetable.

Anyone use a lube/grease they really like? Do you apply between the brake pad and shim, or between the shim and pistons, or any other contact points, or some combo of all the above?

I've scoured multiple boards across the internet and pretty much found a wide variety of opinions, nothing conclusive. Wasn't sure if anyone had found a good solution specific to the 1 series calipers.

[Nugget]

I use CRC Disk Brake Quiet between the pads and the shims.

[Pig Farmer]

Brake quiet on street pads helps a bit. The brake quiet is some form of liquid rubber. It's best to apply it to the back of the shim/pad where the pad makes contact with the caliper pistons. The rubber making contact with the piston is eventually compressed and/or burnt away leaving little circles where the pistons touch the back of the pad... Picture some rolled out cookie dough after using a cookie cutter. The rubber left around the pistons helps quiet the vibrations. There's a couple reasons I wouldn't use this stuff on track pads... First, it makes removing the pad from the caliper a bit of a pain. The caliper pistons tends to stick to the back of the pad. When you pull the pad out, some of the rubber can remain on the piston or get pulled off the pad which requires additional clean up. You would need to reapply the brake quiet each time. Second, for some period of time, you will have some compressible material between the caliper piston and pad. This is not the ideal situation on the track where a consistent pedal feel is important. Third, and this is just a thought and not something I have proven, the rubber probably acts as a insulator inhibiting the cooling of the pad/caliper piston. For track pads I would just use a thin layer of high temperature brake grease on the back of the pad/shims, along the edge of the backing plate where it makes contact with the caliper, a some on the guide pins. Just don't go overboard with the grease.

[Focusedintntions]

I've never use this kind of stuff anymore. Found it didn't really do anything for my cars.

[Kgolf31]

After 1 track day this stuff burns up and becomes useless.

[3002 tii]

Originally Posted by Kgolf31

After 1 track day this stuff burns up and becomes useless.

And on street, it attracts so much crap the area just gets nasty and the next brake job more annoying. I only put on caliper guide pins.

[02rsxpilot]

Originally Posted by Kgolf31

After 1 track day this stuff burns up and becomes useless.

Originally Posted by 3002 tii

And on street, it attracts so much crap the area just gets nasty and the next brake job more annoying. I only put on caliper guide pins.

Thanks guys. That was my experience as well. It didn't impress me the first time I used it when it turned to glue and didn't make any difference on noise. I applied it to the back of the brake pads and the shim where the piston (the Nissan had a single piston caliper) made contact with the shim, and when I went to remove them a few days later the shim was practically glued to the piston and the pad was glued to the shim. And it made a mess...

The only reason I even thought about trying it again was A) maybe it was user error the first time, and B) the back of race pad looks like this after one event (and this was with reusing the OEM shims):


As you can see, the Hawk pads have some sort of coating on them, and it disintegrated to look like this:

Close up:


Wasn't sure if that was normal or if a little lubrication of some kind might help. My OEM shims are similarly gnarly. I tried to get the dealer to replace them with shiny new ones but no luck.

[Kgolf31]

I don't even use shims on my Hawk HP+s