I'll want them someday but need to spend my money on rear subframe stuff instead. Unless I have catastrophic brake failure next week... I'm glad you're going with the mini rotors. I've been itching to do it for years now. Be sure to post up pics. Did you check for caliper clearance with them mounted on the outside of the strut yet?
You can check clearance with just the calipers, no rotors installed...
well, I have well over 22mm of clearance inside the calipers, so as long as the rotors end up being centered in the caliper, that won't be a problem.
However, it appears that I will need to use a 10mm wheel spacer on my OZ faux-Alpinas (J7X15 H2 E12) in order for the outside edge of the caliper to clear the spokes, but it appears H&R's only come in 5mm, 8mm, 15mm & +. I'm going to wait until I have my new rotors in hand to test fit & make measurements. There just aren't enough dimensions listed above to make all of the proper calcs.
rotors arrived, and confirmed that I do need 10mm wheel spacers. There is a very minor rotor scrub on the inside of the caliper that contacts the outer edge of the rotor. I have about 1-2mm that I could push the caliper out before it will overhang the rotor. Rather than grinding the inside of the calipers, I think I will do about a 1mm slot in the mounting holes to push them out.
Regarding the mounting bolts, I think that I'm going to go with a nut & bolt. Do you think the assembly will get too hot to use a nylok?
I doubt it, but a crimped lock nut would be best.
turns out that 10mm spacers are bad mojo in the bimmer community. Although, with the e21, there is about a 15mm hub length in which the wheel can mount on. but with the champher the wheel, and on the hub, if I use a 10mm spacer, I'll only have about 1mm of hub length left for the wheel to center on. might be enough. I wish I had a pair of both 10mm & 8mm spacers on hand to test.
I pulled a piston out of an old spare Volvo 240 caliper I had laying around & verified that there is no way that you could shave a full mm off of the outside of the caliper casting without significant weakening it. The casting only has about 1.5mm of material there in the first place.
I got a pair of h&r 8mm spacers i can sell you
Hi guys, I installed the girling caliper on the driver's side today. I spent most of my time getting the second set of hard lines bent. I had my friend who works at a machine shop do the caliper slotting, 5mm.
I am having a problem that I can't figure out. I will admit that I didn't take everything apart to inspect, but I still have a considerable overhang (pads overhanging the rotors). I didn't measure, but I'd say it's at least 4mm. I did notice that the bottom slotted hole can't be pushed to the edge of the slot for some reason. It's getting hung up, and I can't figure out why. Here are some pics...
it looks to me that the rotor might be getting pinched by the caliper casting? Other than that, there are not enough camera angles taken to determine.
Last edited by Jester323; 04-09-2011 at 10:58 PM.
The inside pad hits the caliper mount ears on the strut unless you also grind down the backing plate and/or the mount ears.
That was it guys, thanks for your help! I am now looking at 1-2mm overhang.
Okay, So I have completed the 240 caliper, mini rotor, e12 MC swap on mine, and thought I would share my experience. JKJRBAD had it all mostly right, but I can fill in some more details.
First, I made the decision early on that I was going to run the e12 Master Cylinder and dual hard lines. This required a couple of small brackets to be made where the hard lines meet the soft lines. some small pieces of scrap angle iron & a step drill bit is all you need. Also, I ran the hard lines to the calipers behind the strut, this makes for much easier removal of the caliper for future pad changes or whatever, without the need to disconnect the fluid lines.
I wasted my time & trimmed the backing plates as needed to get the calipers to mount up to the strut. This was silly because the rotor face is now so much further out that they are doing zero good. Throw them away at this point.
I opted to go with the bolt/nut option in order to mount the caliper. Separating the halves of the calipers every time you need to change the pads (in addition to the 10 times I mounted/dismounted as I was fitting everything up) is asking for a mess & leaks that you don't need. "walking" the bolts in place with the rotors also seemed obtuse. The nut idea worked pretty well. You will need 4ea M12x40x1.5 bolts with no shoulder (threaded all the way to the cap) and nuts to go with each. Using an open end wrench, I was able to hold the nuts in place while I threaded the bolts all the way in, which will just slightly pinch the nut up against the inside face of the rotor, and you can then hand thread it into place. This would probably be easier if I had removed the backing plates.
I am running 15x7 et 12 OZ faux Alpina turbine wheels. I needed 8mm wheel spacers in order for the inside of the spokes to clear the outside edge of the calipers. However, remember that you are not installing the calipers using the mating surface to the strut that they were originally intended. On mine, I found that the back side of the mount hole (the new mating surface) needed to be ground down on one of my calipers, but not the other. I suspect that this is due to the fact that the back side was never intended to be a tight manufacturing tolerance.
Also, the inside of the calipers needed to be ground down approximately 1mm to make clearance where they conflicted with the outer edge of the rotor. I did one caliper with a hand file, took me nearly 3hrs, and the inside edge of the caliper (that no one other than the outer edge of the rotor will ever see) looks perfectly machined. I did the second one with a 7" grinding wheel in about 30 seconds.
Jason at Miller's Mule came through for me and milled some hubcentric spacers for me. I believe that he now has the material on hand, so if you would like a set... just make sure that you know the dimensions. The e21 center bore for the rotor only is 63.0mm, the New Mini rotor center bore is 64.1mm. However, the shoulder on mine was only 6mm wide (not 14mm Jason! :p ) luckily with a steady hand, a vice, and a cutoff wheel on an angle grinder, I was able to make two spacers from one, and make it so that my new 8mm wheel spacers also still fit. If you get a set from him, remind him of this 6mm width dimension. I may poke a little fun at him for this, but in all honesty, he was the only machine shop that would even touch it, and the quality was amazing. No doubt they were difficult to find the correct material for and difficult to build. I commend and thank you Jason.
There is a bit of pad overhang on the inside...
but the outside is dang near perfect in my opinion, and not worth slotting.
Once I finally got the pads bedded, I was amazed at the stopping power compared to the stock 323i calipers and vented rotors.
Last edited by Jester323; 07-12-2011 at 01:49 PM.
Hi guys!
I am kinda wondering, why aren't you using the Volvo Girling calipers for an ABS version of a 240 turbo? They have only 1 inlet, so no need for the MC swap or multi-line mess that you are busy with..
And, if possible, could someone link me up to a lug&nut conversion suitable for our cars?
Well I think they are the same - like 1980-1984, 4-pot Girling just for the ABS equipped cars..
Nightbear - VAC Motorsport in Philadelphia offers a kit.
So how much do the front MINI rotors cost, and what year do I use?
Do you have a part number?
I hope to run these on my car - and I just replaced my master cylinder - I had Josh make me a kit to T my brake lines....I am running the hartge/volvo calipers up front with Green Stuff brake pads...
And where can I get the e30 325i rear calipers rebuilt...
"..Horsepower is a measure of work done over time, or the rate at which work is done."
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/579694/1
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