I went through a pair of Carbotech intermediate compound, XP8, front pads in a single day (they had about 70% left in the morning). I sure am not using that compound again. My real problem is to get the damn things out. I wrestled with the caliper assembly at the track in a semi-lit area, and as far as I could tell with limited light, it is not enough to unscrew the two 7mm caliper retaining bolts on the back of the caliper (#6 and #7 below). Releasing those simply disconnects the caliper, but the whole assembly seems to be restricted in place by another component (#2 below) that is bolted onto the suspension with 18mm nuts (#3 below). The only way to remove that restriction seems to be to undo those nuts as well. Again, I couldn't see very well, so I am hoping that I am not missing something here. Anyway, I tried to unscrew the 18mm nuts but they were torqued way too high for me to undo with a long wrench that would fit into the space available. I tried everything, including banging on the wrench with a hammer and so on, but the thing would not give. It seemed like the only way to get them out would be to put the car on a lift and use a very long lever arm from underneath to apply more torque. Since I was using a floor jack, I didn't have space for that kind of leverage. I am thinking I must be missing something here as it should not be this complicated to swap pads on this car. The rears don't have the same problem as they don't have that additional component, and look very similar to the E46 M3 front caliper assembly. Any suggestions?
