i_love_cars Posted May 29, 2017 Author Report Share Posted May 29, 2017 I know, I'm light on the updates because I don't have an actual "build" car like everyone else, but every now and again I do a thing. Today is one of those days. Yes I know it's overkill especially at Road America which isn't too terribly hard on brakes, and money I didn't *need* to spend, and my original plan was to just get some PFC race pads, SS lines, and good fluid for the track which is plenty adequate, but I was able to pick up this PFC ZR-54 enduro front BBK for $3k today. I just couldn't say no at that price, it's almost criminal to let that deal disappear. The price also included 1 each brand new sets of 07 and 01 compound race pads ($500 each), so about $1000 in brake pads. All components and rotors are nearly brand new, all original boxes, etc. - basically it was a test kit for a shop car at Fall Line Motorsports as indicated by the original PFC packing slip/invoice. Bimmerworld is now selling a PFC street pad that fits this bbk for $195/set which isn't bad, so I'm going to order those tomorrow and hopefully get this thing installed in the next week or so, and then swap the pads for RA in July The race pads are like frickin hamburgers they're so huge. From what I know they wear quickly at the track though so I guess it's not too surprising. patsbimmer1, bk335 and DrLeadFoot 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earl Posted May 30, 2017 Report Share Posted May 30, 2017 Holy hell! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YoungCR Posted May 30, 2017 Report Share Posted May 30, 2017 Yeah holy shit, great deal! Those pads look like patio pavers. i_love_cars 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jc43089 Posted May 30, 2017 Report Share Posted May 30, 2017 Sweet action! Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daggerty Posted May 30, 2017 Report Share Posted May 30, 2017 The car should've came from the factory with fixed calipers. A pure performance car that is going to be tracked shouldn't come with single piston fixed calipers just because they have a good stopping distance after one run. Im sure with the right pads and brake fluid they would do alright but seriously if your selling a car for 90k put some decent calipers on. If Ford can put fixed brembos on a 40k focus, I think Bmw can sacrifice a little money for the upgrade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daggerty Posted May 30, 2017 Report Share Posted May 30, 2017 But over kill is just saying your tires have room for improvement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YoungCR Posted May 30, 2017 Report Share Posted May 30, 2017 2 hours ago, Daggerty said: Im sure with the right pads and brake fluid they would do alright but seriously if your selling a car for 90k put some decent calipers on. If Ford can put fixed brembos on a 40k focus, I think Bmw can sacrifice a little money for the upgrade. They gotta make it comfy for 90% of the first owners that buy it as a status symbol and not a track car. Logically you'd want a 328/335i for that but we all know it's not how it really works haha. One of the sales guys asked me about upgrades for his e92 back in 2012. Really all there was were AFE intakes and he simply asked why BMW just didn't put the higher performance intake on from the factory. Not everybody wants to hear the glorious induction noise while taking business calls. #firstworldprobs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jc43089 Posted May 30, 2017 Report Share Posted May 30, 2017 8 hours ago, Daggerty said: The car should've came from the factory with fixed calipers. A pure performance car that is going to be tracked shouldn't come with single piston fixed calipers just because they have a good stopping distance after one run. Im sure with the right pads and brake fluid they would do alright but seriously if your selling a car for 90k put some decent calipers on. If Ford can put fixed brembos on a 40k focus, I think Bmw can sacrifice a little money for the upgrade. I agree. My Volvo has 4 piston Brembos and 330mm rotors at all 4 corners from the factory, and the R is never really meant to be a track car anyway. They are perfectly comfortable on the street. Downside is 400$ each to replace them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earl Posted May 30, 2017 Report Share Posted May 30, 2017 1 minute ago, jc43089 said: I agree. My Volvo has 4 piston Brembos and 330mm rotors at all 4 corners from the factory, and the R is never really meant to be a track car anyway. They are perfectly comfortable on the street. Downside is 400$ each to replace them. That's why you rebuild them instead=) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jc43089 Posted May 30, 2017 Report Share Posted May 30, 2017 1 minute ago, Earl said: That's why you rebuild them instead=) Yep, I have a couple kits to do that this summer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted May 30, 2017 Author Report Share Posted May 30, 2017 8 hours ago, Daggerty said: The car should've came from the factory with fixed calipers. A pure performance car that is going to be tracked shouldn't come with single piston fixed calipers just because they have a good stopping distance after one run. Im sure with the right pads and brake fluid they would do alright but seriously if your selling a car for 90k put some decent calipers on. If Ford can put fixed brembos on a 40k focus, I think Bmw can sacrifice a little money for the upgrade. I agree that BMW should offer better caliper design, to an extent. For new drivers who aren't gonna go that fast or push that hard, the car will be safe on track. For someone like me, it'll cook the brakes in 2-3 laps though. If you want to roll an M3 off the showroom floor and take it to the track, then it doesn't matter what kind of caliper they give you - street pads are going to fall apart and overheat quickly at the track. There's no getting around it. So yes, a good race pad and fluid is honestly all you need in the e92 to do well at the track with braking (the e46 was the real weak link). Which is why I said buying this BBK is kindof overkill, but at the price I just couldn't say no. Bottom line is, you're gonna need a good race pad no matter what if you want to go through a day of braking at the track without issues. Also, "Brembos" don't really mean much. The 135i comes with 6-pot brembos in front and they come with sacrifices like shitty piston material that has literally been known to start on fire and melt during hard braking at the track. You need to drop another $400 to upgrade the pistons. They also didn't do that great at the track. Hell even my Acura TL-S came with 4-pot brembos in front standard and they were just not that great. You are still getting generic, mass-produced parts that are only slightly better than what a regular caliper would be. Also, remember that piston counts don't mean anything. These PFCs I bought have 4 pot and they will stop better than any 6-piston caliper you can buy for this car. There is math and science behind why that is. 8 hours ago, Daggerty said: But over kill is just saying your tires have room for improvement. For sure I've now got more braking than my tires can make use of. In order to fully extract what this bbk is capable of, I need to run r-comps at the track, which will be next year. I jumped right into the E30 with slicks and it was very easy to manage because of how light the car was. I am going to run the M3 on street tires for a few events to learn the car a bit - r-comps just carry so much more speed through corners and with how heavy this car is, I want to get a feel for the weight transfer. Earl and bk335 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bk335 Posted May 30, 2017 Report Share Posted May 30, 2017 1 hour ago, i_love_cars said: I agree that BMW should offer better caliper design, to an extent. For new drivers who aren't gonna go that fast or push that hard, the car will be safe on track. For someone like me, it'll cook the brakes in 2-3 laps though. If you want to roll an M3 off the showroom floor and take it to the track, then it doesn't matter what kind of caliper they give you - street pads are going to fall apart and overheat quickly at the track. There's no getting around it. So yes, a good race pad and fluid is honestly all you need in the e92 to do well at the track with braking (the e46 was the real weak link). Which is why I said buying this BBK is kindof overkill, but at the price I just couldn't say no. Bottom line is, you're gonna need a good race pad no matter what if you want to go through a day of braking at the track without issues. Also, "Brembos" don't really mean much. The 135i comes with 6-pot brembos in front and they come with sacrifices like shitty piston material that has literally been known to start on fire and melt during hard braking at the track. You need to drop another $400 to upgrade the pistons. They also didn't do that great at the track. Hell even my Acura TL-S came with 4-pot brembos in front standard and they were just not that great. You are still getting generic, mass-produced parts that are only slightly better than what a regular caliper would be. Also, remember that piston counts don't mean anything. These PFCs I bought have 4 pot and they will stop better than any 6-piston caliper you can buy for this car. There is math and science behind why that is. For sure I've now got more braking than my tires can make use of. In order to fully extract what this bbk is capable of, I need to run r-comps at the track, which will be next year. I jumped right into the E30 with slicks and it was very easy to manage because of how light the car was. I am going to run the M3 on street tires for a few events to learn the car a bit - r-comps just carry so much more speed through corners and with how heavy this car is, I want to get a feel for the weight transfer. Nailed it. Even though the 135i has 6 pot calipers, they're a big downgrade from the single piston 335i brakes in stopping power. I think a common misconception is more pistons are always better. 10 hours ago, Daggerty said: The car should've came from the factory with fixed calipers. A pure performance car that is going to be tracked shouldn't come with single piston fixed calipers just because they have a good stopping distance after one run. Im sure with the right pads and brake fluid they would do alright but seriously if your selling a car for 90k put some decent calipers on. If Ford can put fixed brembos on a 40k focus, I think Bmw can sacrifice a little money for the upgrade. Any street car sucks on track without track pads and fluid (excluding hyper cars, etc.). The F80 4 piston brakes are terrible on track as well. Also, the E9x M3 started at ≈$58k IIRC, not $90k. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted January 6, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2018 Something is happening in Spring 2018. DrLeadFoot, m42b32, suspenceful and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaiserRolls Posted January 6, 2018 Report Share Posted January 6, 2018 Something is happening in Spring 2018.I sure hope so! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B C Posted January 6, 2018 Report Share Posted January 6, 2018 This is gonna be awesome! DrLeadFoot, m42b32, i_love_cars and 2 others 1 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YoungCR Posted January 8, 2018 Report Share Posted January 8, 2018 Yasss! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B C Posted January 8, 2018 Report Share Posted January 8, 2018 Marina! patsbimmer1 and i_love_cars 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted February 21, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2018 Things are happening. Xpipe arrived today and I have sourced the below ESS 625 kit. Fortuitous timing given the color-matching. The seller will be shipping it out to me either next week or the week after. Once the salt clears and the car is out on the road, I will also be getting the rod bearings replaced. As it turns out, I've already got a head start on the install because I saw a bunch of fucking coolant under the M3 a couple days ago. Car hasn't been touched since Nov. 4th. I couldn't find anything wet in the front of the car. Pulled the intake manifold and found a bunch of standing coolant on top of the block below the thermostat housing where there are some coolant elbows that go to the heads. Seems to be the likely culprit that one of those seals failed somehow. I'm borrowing a coolant pressurizer kit from a friend to verify. P_Roloff and m42b32 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YoungCR Posted February 21, 2018 Report Share Posted February 21, 2018 Very excited for this. I got to drive a ESS E92 M3 at the dealer once, the noises were incredible! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunMetalGrey Posted February 21, 2018 Report Share Posted February 21, 2018 Oh boy! That will be fantastic! Can't wait to see the install and final product! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaiserRolls Posted February 21, 2018 Report Share Posted February 21, 2018 SteelBlue 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m42b32 Posted February 21, 2018 Report Share Posted February 21, 2018 That color matching looks fantastic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patsbimmer1 Posted February 21, 2018 Report Share Posted February 21, 2018 #rollraceking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jc43089 Posted February 22, 2018 Report Share Posted February 22, 2018 Are you sure the coolant was mixed strong enough to prevent freezing? Could have frozen and that's what caused a leak just sitting? Doubtful because it's such a new car though, likely it hasn't been touched yet.Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdesign Posted February 22, 2018 Report Share Posted February 22, 2018 WOWza. This is awesome. The coolant leak sucks but I assume that's just your engine crying for more power anyways, so I think you are making the right choice here. jc43089 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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