FasTTr

For anyone who has considered Porterfields here's my experience after 300 miles on them. I thought I'd write up the overall experience for others considering the use of Porterfields.

My main drive was to get rid of the OEM brake dust. I just put new wheels on my car with chrome trim and the OEM brake dust would have required me to wash the car every other day to keep the chrome shiny. I was not looking to improve track braking performance.

Installation and break-in
1) I used the supplied "Noise Free" anti-squeal compound, applying exactly as instructed (20-30 minute set-up time). My calipers were pretty clean in general since I had painted my calipers about 4 weeks ago but I cleaned them real well again. I made sure I removed all of the existing anti-squeal material before applying the Noise Free.
2) After installation, I did 6 runs with gentle breaking from 20 mph to 5 mph and then let the car sit for 1 hour.
3) For the first 50 miles I really babied the pads. I only took short trips of less than 10 miles at a time and barely touched the brake while rolling to stops.
4) After the first 50 miles I started to be less cautious but continued to avoid any quick stops. I could see the pad contact area on the fronts was not symmetrical. More pressure was being applied to the outer edge of the rotors. The rear pad contact area looked real consistent after the first 50 miles.
5) At about 200 miles the front pad contact areas looked to have worn in with consistent pressure across the rotors. I began to treat braking close to normal although still watching out to avoid any panic stops.
6) I just crossed 300 miles and I'm driving normal again as I did on the OEM pads. Made one fairly quick stop yesterday to avoid running a red light without incident.

Results
1) Brake dust is essentially non-existent even though I was warned that it could take a couple of weeks before all of the OEM dust would vanish. It definitely accomplished my goal.
2) The brakes are generally quiet. I will hear a slight squeal maybe once or twice a day. I can't pinpoint the conditions though. Sometimes I think it occurs when the car has been sitting and is cold but it has happened after warm-up also. I should point out that I did have some squeal from the OEM pads but that started after 10K miles. My only concern is if the squeal will get worse or better over time. I drove over 20 miles in traffic at lunch today without any squeal so I'm encouraged by that.

Notes
1) The front pads do not have a wear sensor. You must clip the wires from the OEM pad and short them together. I cut the wires so that the rubber tube would extend beyond the connection and then sealed the end with silicone to reduce moisture formation around the connection. I then "folded" the wire back on itself and used a cable tie to hold it near the support bracket. This left the main connector in place to allow the use of pads with sensors in the future.
2) The Porterfield pads are not asymmetric. That is they do not have the little cut out area where the caliper strikes the pad. Audi does this to compensate for the rotational forces during braking (I think). I'm not knowledgable enough to know if this creates a problem or not. I also don't know if the Mintex pads are asymmetric.
3) The rear caliper pistons must be rotated CW while applying pressure to get the pistons to retract. Jeff Bipes has photos at his web site that explain a work-around to buying a special brake tool.
4) They are expensive. $185 for front and rears at myroadster.net. If I had it do all over again I probably would have tried the Mintex pads first, since people do not seem to complain about brake squeal with those pads.

economisTTwo

i had some squeal for the first 500-1000 miles with portfields, but it is now gone.

FasTTr

I should have added one more important fact. My pads arrived already chamfered by the factory.