Small brake upgrade

[Lee in Ottawa]

where the hell is our update

[5mall5nail5]

Oops!

Got my 10mm vac spacers they are nice, BUT, the caliper still just rubs the wheel So, I have two options, pursue 348mm rotors but make clearances REALLY close. Or go to the 334mm rotor. I am leaning toward 334mm. This is the 17" Rondells - 18's would clear for sure.

[kipwinger]

Are you using the SL6R Wilwoods?

[5mall5nail5]

Yes

[thespeedfactory]

Oops!

Got my 10mm vac spacers they are nice, BUT, the caliper still just rubs the wheel So, I have two options, pursue 348mm rotors but make clearances REALLY close. Or go to the 334mm rotor. I am leaning toward 334mm. This is the 17" Rondells - 18's would clear for sure.

Guess you need to buy my RD staggered 18's.

Why are you not running the welds and drag radials anymore?

[5mall5nail5]

Nah I got my eye on some 18" Keskins

I can still run the welds in the rear. I wanted to do this to figure out some alternatives for E34 guys.

[325isBoosted]

looking very good so far, trying to hold out on brakes till i see the results of this venture, Im running 18s so should have plenty of room. Im think im definitely taxing the stock set up with the supercharger.

[5mall5nail5]

A little progress!

I was a doofus and didn't bring the material up to Jays on Sunday but that worked out best because I had to get home and put the Suburban back together - gah.

I received my fittings in the mail today. These are the fittings necessary to adapt BMW brake lines to the Wilwood calipers. Very hard to find - I think there is ONE manufacturer and they were a little difficult to order (2) from.



BMW Meet in west chester area this saturday I am going to try and get to. Leaving the NJ shore saturday at 9AM, so hopefully that all works out. Then maybe up to Jays on sunday with the material if hes around.

[hellohi]

What scent is that candle?

[kipwinger]

^^^
wtf



Jon- Stop fiddling with the burb, we need more progress & updates.

[5mall5nail5]

Haha trying man, trying

[5mall5nail5]

Today Jay and I tackled the BBK adapters. We made a prototype a few months ago and I finally found the fittings needed for the calipers so we followed up. Saturday we'll be hitting the final steps of the brackets. Until then here are some pics from today, and a video:











[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc_FR8ENtZ8[/ame]

[525fourthew1n]

Whoa. Bitchin' Can't wait to see them on the car. I've always wanted that bigass kit to slow down my 2.5L of fury heh

I love how the rotor surface has more width than the pad.

Also, who did that Such Great Heights remix?

[busterhax]

Ugh and i thought playing around on a lathe was cool.

[5mall5nail5]

From concept to creation - we make more than t-shirts.







Better pics tomorrow!

[stoney85]

mmmm, looks nice, i took my E34 for a spirited drive today through the mountainside with my mates, 1999 WRX, 1993 S13 SR20DET, and a Cefiro, mine braked as good if not better than the last two, at the bottom of the mountain though, the brakes definately had a noticable amount of heat in them as they were glowing when i pulled over, still no fade though!

However, what does a set of the willwoods generally cost?

[MacR]

mmmm, looks nice, i took my E34 for a spirited drive today through the mountainside with my mates, 1999 WRX, 1993 S13 SR20DET, and a Cefiro, mine braked as good if not better than the last two, at the bottom of the mountain though, the brakes definately had a noticable amount of heat in them as they were glowing when i pulled over, still no fade though!

However, what does a set of the willwoods generally cost?

~800 a set.

[Sam Son]

very sweet Jon!

[scyrusurcys]

Holy crap, when you say you're going to do something, you get it done!

+Rep for making your own bracket, and great quality too!

The only downside I see from this is not a lot of market profit if you were to offer these for sale. $800+ for better brakes is pretty steep considering there aren't a lot of high-powered E34s that need better stopping power. Still, it's a great step forward for E34 performance parts .

[TouringGuy]

Damn, this is close fitment...





Probably going to need to use a 5mm spacer. It fits, but is tight.

[Sherman]

What's the surface contact of the pads on those rotors? Looks by the pic like about 60%. They designed for a much smaller rotor?

[Binjammin]

Holy crap, when you say you're going to do something, you get it done!

+Rep for making your own bracket, and great quality too!

The only downside I see from this is not a lot of market profit if you were to offer these for sale. $800+ for better brakes is pretty steep considering there aren't a lot of high-powered E34s that need better stopping power. Still, it's a great step forward for E34 performance parts .

This kit is going to make a big brake kit on the e34 an affordable scenario. There's hardly a whole lot of aftermarket parts for our cars, it's awesome that we have options now. Look for more in the future.

[5mall5nail5]

What's the surface contact of the pads on those rotors? Looks by the pic like about 60%. They designed for a much smaller rotor?

The model is SL6R14. They're designed for up to 14" rotors. To keep costs down we use another models BMW rotor. The coverage is not the full face of the rotor, but thats not what matters. What matters is the torque arm (distance of pad engagement to the center of the hub) which provides you with your ability to grab the rotor and slow it more effectively. The pad footprint is farther out, and is not as tall as a factory pad, but its ~2x longer. Alternatively you can run rotors like these:



But the rotor blanks are $250/ea and the hats are $550 for ap air, so that's another $1,000 to have your pads "touch the full rotor face" which is just smaller in that scenario. The two piece design is nice, but should not be necessary - the caliper is definitely not designed for a smaller rotor, however.

[janders211]

The model is SL6R14. They're designed for up to 14" rotors. To keep costs down we use another models BMW rotor. The coverage is not the full face of the rotor, but thats not what matters. What matters is the torque arm (distance of pad engagement to the center of the hub) which provides you with your ability to grab the rotor and slow it more effectively. The pad footprint is farther out, and is not as tall as a factory pad, but its ~2x longer. Alternatively you can run rotors like these:

But the rotor blanks are $250/ea and the hats are $550 for ap air, so that's another $1,000 to have your pads "touch the full rotor face" which is just smaller in that scenario. The two piece design is nice, but should not be necessary - the caliper is definitely not designed for a smaller rotor, however.

I think what he meant is that there is room to increase pad size inwards( this would likely mean a bigger caliper either longer or extending further inward)., not to decrease rotor size.

Pad surface area does matter, as does torque arm. Another, often not mentioned, benefit of larger rotors is increased mass, and surface area for heat disipation (especially important for roadcourse work). In my personal use, functionally- nothing matters more than this. I mean with track pads my miniature stock brakes work great, until they start causing fires and boiling fluid...both of which obviously have little to do with pad size or or torque arm.

For around $800- I think this looks like a 'win'.

[5mall5nail5]

The calipers are $410 ea, the rotors are $80 - $100, and the adapters are $265 w/ hardware + s/h, so its more than $800, but its not that bad at all.

Increasing pad size toward the center of the rotor doesn't do you anything. The length of the pad (more area) and the even pressure of 6 pistons evenly pressing across the surface makes all the difference. If you compare it to a Brembo/Wilwood/Stoptech/etc kit, it has more "uncovered rotor", but thats only because we aren't using mounting hats that are large - we're using a stock big BMW rotor