Reviving an old topic as I'm new to StopTech and this appears to be an old issue. Hopefully those with experience can chime in. I swapped out the pads on the ST60 fronts and ST40 rears with Hawk DTC60. The fronts were easy and the old pads slid right out while the new ones slid right in. On the rear I encountered the dreaded slightly oversized (too tall) backing plate issue. The old pads would only come out with significant force (I looped zip ties on the holes in the backing plates and used these for leverage to slowly pull out the pads). The new pads likewise were difficult to put in and I used a rubber mallet to tap them in slowly. I did not do the initial install of the kit when the old pads (StopTech street performance pads) were put in, but my guess is they were hard to put in given my difficulty in their removal. I did one track day with the old pads and the brakes worked very well. The car seems to brake fine on the street with the new pads I just placed. Should I be concerned that the rear brakes will not function properly given the need to rubber mallet the pads into position or does anybody have experience with similar difficulty in pad placement but a functional system when used at track? Is it true that the pads may not move in toward the rotor properly if they were placed so tightly? I do see a transfer layer on the rear rotors from the new pads - not uniform but ringlike and similar to the front rotors which had NO pad swap issues. Thanks for any words of wisdom as I'm off to Thermal this weekend and would like some piece of mind.
