Clicking Brembos?

[Grease Monkey]

If you have installed Brembo brakes on your Z8, have you noticed a clicking sound coming from the outside front wheel well while cornering hard? For example, in a hard right turn, can you hear a repeating clicking sound coming from the left front wheel well area?

[macfly]

I've not noticed this, and my car has done a day at the track with the Brembo's during the suspension set up testing. As you know we just got home from Monterey, which included a couple of very fast back road drives involved with no sounds from the brakes.

During my time with my GT3 I went through several sets of front disks. It is usual on a heavily tracked GT3 to use a set of discs to every three or four sets of tires. The weakness with the drilled Brembo's is that in very hard use they will crack between the holes, which is why I got the slotted discs for the Z8. I'd suggest looking at the discs carefully to make sure that there are no hairline cracks there, and also that the springs that hold the rotors are tight. In my motorcycling days I had Brembos on all my track bikes and they used to rattle quite a bit, but they floated loosely on their hats unlike our much more solidly sprung rotors.

[thegunguy]

I've noticed the same on track/race cars with two-piece rotors (hats and discs). Many times the the rotors will chatter as there is a little play where they connect to the hat. To my knowledge, it's harmless.

[Grease Monkey]

Thanks for the input! I'll let you know what I discover.

[Z8doc]

I noticed this after installing my BB kit. My service advisor evaluated it over several weeks and on a couple different sessions. Even with a set of chassis ears on the suspension components to try and isolate the noise. Mine seemed to be coming from the right front. Started first with hard turns then eventually present and noticeable at low speeds going straight. More audible when driving past something that would reflect the noise back like a concrete wall or building.

After much investigation, no success. I contacted Brembo about it and with prodding and reluctance, they eventually shipped me a new set of front rotors and upgraded to the Kevlar pads. Before doing another install, I discussed this issue with Dave Zeckhausen and he suggested trying a different set of pads and a rebedding process. He stated that the Big Brake front rotors are so large that any uneven layering on those rotors would result in a slight vibration in the rotor. Since it is a floating rotor, that would in turn create a vibration in the hats and thus a noise. Simple enough so I did what he suggested.

Result -- I installed a full set of the Performance low dust Centric Posi-Quiets (higher temperature pad to burn off any prior uneven material) from Dave all around, and bedded them in again. Viola!! No noise. I still have the Kevlar pads and a spare set of front rotors, just in case this returns. But, I just did this right before the Monterrey trip. Put about 1000 miles on it those 2 weeks and still have not been back to Dallas to pick my car up (too much work to catch up on). If the noise returns, I will plan on replacing the entire rotors and use the Kevlar pads from Brembo.

Hope that helps.

[Grease Monkey]

After discussing the problem with Race Technologies, the U.S. Brembo Distributor, it seemed likely that the hardware which mounts the hats onto the rotors had lost its required spring tension, so we decided that it should be replaced. After removing the old hardware and installing the new parts, the noise has been eliminated completely. These brakes did not have a lot of miles on them, but were installed some years ago, so apparently it may be an age issue. In any case, this is an inexpensive cure and a good place to start if anyone else runs into the problem.

[ggg1]

I have them on my Z8 and they do not make any noise, but I just installed the Brembo Granturismo kit on my Ferrari 575 and it makes the same noise, but from the rears. My mechanics don't have a clue what it is, but I live near the Brembo office in Costa Mesa , so I will drive it in and have them give me some ideas.
Thanks