So over the past week or so, me and my dad have been working on the brake system, nothing major. We painted the callipers, bled the brake system, and bought new brake pads for the front, and also got the front rotors turned because they had some grooves in them. We bought the Performance Friction Pads by Pinnacle? Thinking they were going to be a step up from the stock brakes the car came with. We finished everything last night, and took it out for a drive today, and wow. The pedal is fluttering, the car isn't stopping, the E-Brake will stop the car better than the brakes. It's actually dangerous to drive right now, I mashed the pedal to the floor multiple times, and it just slowly comes to a halt. We put everything on right, my dad knows what he's doing, worked on G.M. cars since he was 13 or so with this dad. The only thing he can think of, (Aside from the brakes being god awful) Is that there is still oil on the rotors, we drove the car for 30 minutes or so, trying to burn it off and break in the pads, it was however to no avail. We're going to be putting on the stock pads to see if they work better.

Has anybody ever had this problem? I'm pretty sure this is the first new pads the car has ever had, Car had 43k miles when we bought it, now has 44k. I'm pretty sure they were the first pads.

Off Topic question; Thinking about putting on a Twin Turbo system with my dad when I graduate. Is it worth it at all, if I did it, I'd put on 4:10 gears and be taking it to the track.

Thanks everyone for the help

 

Bad news is....something was not done right. Go over your work. Make sure the lines to the calipers are sealing. Make sure you do not have any leaks anywhere. Check the master, to see if you've lost fluid. I would also mic the calipers, to make sure they were not turned under spec. If nothing is found, bleed the brakes again, and check for air.

 

We're going to basically take everything apart and start over. We'll be bleeding the brakes again to see if there's any air.

 

I think that's a drastic first step. You don't want to fix it by accident, you want to find the problem. Shotguns are nice, but I do my best work with a rifle. You car.....your choice.

 

Not exactly all at once, but we are going to take the rotors off, clean them again to make sure there's not oil left on from being turned. Put the old brakes on and test them again, and if that doesn't work we're probably going to bleed the brakes again. I guess that I worded it badly ;\

 

Don't assume the rotors are to spec. It will take 5 minutes to verify.

 

You might want to do a power-flush of the braking system therefore forcing new fluid through everything including the BPMV. Now you might want to make that actuate as well just to be sure there's no air in there although unless you ran out of fluid in the master cylinder, that shouldn't have happened.

 

They weren't hawk brakes actually. Performance Friction Pads By Pinnacle. Never buy them.

Nothing was wrong with the brake system, the brake fluid was perfectly fine. We swapped out the Pinnacle brake pads for the old stock half used ones and the car stopped on a dime. Worst pads ever.

 

some new pads have a compound on them to help then seat. Until that wears off, the car will barely stop. Also, you should not be able to push the brake pedal to the floor. Regardless of the pad.

 

I think you understand what I mean when I say to the floor. Not literally, but until the pedal stops and cannot be pushed down to the floor. I'll be researching and buying a pad that will actually be able to stop a corvette.

 

may have air in the lines. Need to bleed each caliper, then go for a short slow drive and cycle the brakes, then rebleed each caliper.

 

I've always bought stock pads for my '99 from Delco with no issues. Once, I did try some industrial strength super stop something pads...think they were Durastop or similiar. While they did stop the car well, the squealing was unbearable. I went back to Delco OEM pads and all was fine other than the heavy dusting which no one likes. I then later tried Delco ceramic pads. Dust was essentially gone but I noted it took a hair more pressure on the pedal to stop the car. Now I was using it as a DD so this wasn't an issue. If you are tracking your car, then you need more stopping power. For everyday driving, the ceramics are more than enough to safely stop you and fast.

 

Hawk HPS pads do the job just fine for me-a little dust,but nothing I find excessive.
I've heard ceramics are less dusty,but kind of hard on the rotors,but I don't have any first hand experience with them.

 

I've already bought a new set of rotors and ceramics for my '07 but waiting to get maximum life out of the originals before I put them on.

 

What do you mean when you say the pedal flutters? Is it like when the ABS kicks in?

No pad could made could be possibly as bad as you say or cause the problems you describe. Rotors that are out of spec would not cause it either.

You may have let air into to your ABS system when you did the bleed. Oil on a caliper would burn off very fast. Even with oil it would still stop somewhat.

 

What I mean by fluttering is that it's like when the ABS kicks on, however less severe and with more time in between pulse. It did it before the new brakes a little, however you could never feel it in the pedal. With the new brakes, it was unbearably annoying. We put the old brakes on though and they worked great, I think I'll be sticking with stock brakes for now until I can find some better brake pads.