Best retrofit for M3 brakes?

Bmwdoubles_ wrote

I'm running the JQweks brakes on track and have 0 issues. He lives not far from me and I meet with him often. He has several M3's and tracks regularly too dog fooding his own products.

The 17z calipers are from a 2004-05 Porsche Cayenne base model and need to be ran with proper pads EBC, Hawk, etc. The rotors are steel and have excellent heat dissipation when paired with a cooling kit. Another thing I think some people are missing is using the proper brake bleeding procedure using ISTA+ routine. The DCS gets air bubbles and the routine uses a process called edging to do a proper bleed. There's is also another routine that has be run to reset the bite point. By not doing this your new 4 or 6 piston brake set up will feel mushy.

Remember, brake kits on or off brand are about managing heat more than stopping power. Your tires are the biggest braking factor in stopping over brakes. If your kit has amazing clamping force, your bias is off, and your tires are not up to the task you'll skid or constantly be in the abs zone.

Can you give more details on the brake cooling setup pictured? Where would I find the bite point reset in ista?

romero1990 wrote

Does that brake duct shield work for OE/ST brakes? Been looking for something fits

Yes they're actually made for stock. I had to cut them to fir around the upgraded carrier.

Gossypiboma wrote

Can you give more details on the brake cooling setup pictured? Where would I find the bite point reset in ista?

Hit up https://instagram.com/signature_werks?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

About the brake cooling and tell Jeremy BMWDoubles said to connect. Maybe he'll throw you a discount.

For brake bite reset check this vid

Bmwdoubles_ wrote

Hit up https://instagram.com/signature_werks?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

About the brake cooling and tell Jeremy BMWDoubles said to connect. Maybe he'll throw you a discount.

For brake bite reset check this vid

"just one click away"

::290 clicks later::

now you have a firm brake pedal.

Received my Freaky Parts Brembo caliper upgrade. They had a Black Friday sale which sealed the deal for me. The calipers are brand new and come in OEM Renault boxes.

Thanks to user Grillpt for confirming these will clear stock M219 18" wheels.

I am pairing it with some Project Mu track pads. Will see how these do on track!

Has anyone mounted the rear alfa caliper yet with pics? I went F80 on the rear and I'm not satisficed with them. If so what are the pad options?

Bmwdoubles_ wrote

Hit up https://instagram.com/signature_werks?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

About the brake cooling and tell Jeremy BMWDoubles said to connect. Maybe he'll throw you a discount.

For brake bite reset check this vid

Anyone tried this reset? Does it work?

Redd wrote

Anyone tried this reset? Does it work?

I have a tool that does ABS auto bleeding from Autel. It definitely works. It will activate the ABS and pump fluid through the ABS system. It will also work with INPA as the video shows. I have both but the handheld unit is easier to use rather than using my laptop with coding cable.

I usually do my normal bleed then run the ABS pump afterward. If you had a soft pedal after brake bleeding, you get a rock hard pedal after ABS bleed.

Chalkbr wrote

Has anyone mounted the rear alfa caliper yet with pics? I went F80 on the rear and I'm not satisficed with them. If so what are the pad options?

Pad sweep looked like a major turnoff w/ the rear alfa caliper. The piston sizing is also too far off from stock (30% larger).

Anyone tried this AP racing rear kit now available at freakyparts? May be a good option for those wanting to keep the stock 350mm rotors. Not sure if piston sizes are comparable (might be since it's from a e9x kit to begin with). anyone have this kit?

https://freakyparts.co.uk/collections/bmw-e9x-m3-brakes/products/bmw-e9x-m3-ap-racing-4-pot-rear-big-brake-kit?variant=36879218933913

jritt@essex wrote

Ding ding ding ding...we have a winner!

jritt@essex I get what you’re trying to say here, but Essex doesn’t really offer a great cost effective solution. The Essex/AP street kit is in the ballpark of $10k. Not many people are going to want to spend 25-50% of their cars value on that.

It would be cool if you came up with a less expensive, modular kit that could use appropriate AP calipers with and have the choice to bring your own rotors (maybe f80 fitment?) or buy the Essex/AP rotors.

kk2 wrote

jritt@essex I get what you’re trying to say here, but Essex doesn’t really offer a great cost effective solution. The Essex/AP street kit is in the ballpark of $10k. Not many people are going to want to spend 25-50% of their cars value on that.

It would be cool if you came up with a less expensive, modular kit that could use appropriate AP calipers with and have the choice to bring your own rotors (maybe f80 fitment?) or buy the Essex/AP rotors.

I understand your price concerns, but one of the main reasons people purchase our AP Racing by Essex Brake Kits is because they know that all the components in the box are the finest available and designed to work together and integrate properly on the vehicle. In other words, we offer a complete solution that has been tested over many, many thousands of track miles and has won races and championships in true competition. It shows up at your door in one box and you can expect it to always get the job done.

I'll give you the example of our caliper brackets...before they go into production, they are designed in CAD, and stress-tested with FEA (Finite Element Analysis) software. They're then cut from the highest quality billet aluminum, and every single piece produced is put through our quality control process to ensure that they were manufactured to spec. That includes measuring them on our Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM), which ensures accuracy down to 0.001 mm or half a ten-thousandth of an inch. Then we install high-quality ARP studs into them and include aircraft quality fasteners to mount the calipers onto them.

When someone purchases a set of 'hand-fabricated' caliper brackets produced in a dungeon on the other side of the world, the quality and results are going to vary considerably from our product and how we do things. Given that brakes are one of the most important safety items on any vehicle, and the only thing keeping a track driver out of a wall at 150+mph, most of our customers place a great deal of value on our product. After owning our brake kit for some period of time, just about all of our clients tell us it was worth every penny they paid for it or more.

Using your disc example, running sub-par discs with the best calipers in the world negates the utility and capability of the overall brake system. A brake system is just that, a system. It's not just a bunch of random parts thrown together to look bigger and cooler than the OEM parts. A proper chain of brake components is only as good as its weakest link. If you install a set of junk brake discs that run at ridiculously high temperatures, it renders the entire brake system ineffective. Hot discs lead to hot pads, which lead to hot caliper pistons, which leads to boiled brake fluid. Overheated discs also lead to vibration and judder when they overheat the pads, cracking of the discs themselves, and wear and tear on surrounding parts such as ball joints, etc.

Here's an article that further explains why we don't sell our brake kits in bits and pieces: https://www.essexparts.com/news-blog/can-i-buy-ap-racing-by-essex-brake-kit-components-separately

If we sold individual components for people to Frankenstein their own 'brake kit' together, the vehicle owner is ultimately the one who loses out for a laundry list of reasons as described in the article above. We see it here on this forum every day, and on every other automotive forum I've ever been on. I can't tell you how many posts I've seen over the years in which someone got burned when trying to piece their own brake setup together.

We understand that some people are just looking for a cosmetic change that looks bigger and cooler than the ugly stock e90 M3 brakes. There are available options on the market for those types of products. That's just not the product we offer or how we do things, nor do we have any plans to go down that path.

If you are on a budget and want a legitimate brake kit, I'd suggest just waiting until a used one of ours comes up for sale here on the forum. People are always trading out and parting their cars, so they do come up fairly regularly.

As for being 'cost-effective', our systems are actually extremely cost-effective and offer great value. When potential customers initially consider our AP Racing by Essex brake products, they’re sometimes discouraged by the premium prices. What they typically aren’t considering however, is the long-term cost per mile over the course of ownership. They also tend to confuse price and value, which are NOT the same thing. Below is an article I wrote on the value of a good brake kit, which includes an e90 M3 owner who got 5 years and 50,000 miles out of the smallest AP Racing by Essex Brake Kit we ever offered for this chassis: https://www.essexparts.com/news-blog/price-vs-value-and-miles-per-dollar

My BBK has better clamping force towards the end of a full stop over stock. The pads I use determine the initial bite. Pads are subjective to their heat range before and after.

The size of the pad and rotors will determine heat resistance and dissipation. But overall the thing that will give you the best braking and stop power is your tires. I would spend your money there before a BBK.

When I was running my stocks brakes and rotors. Upgrading my pads to EBC yellows decreased my stopping distance and gave me a very good initial bite. Pads that are supposed to be similar to EBC yellows for daily and light track are Hawk DTC-30 and Ferodo DS2500.

BBKs are more about managing heat. That's not to say they don't help with stopping power. Tires play a bigger role when increasing your clamping force. Imagine having whatever tires on a BBK, you'll either skid or quickly engage DSC antilock. That's why I would say get a better set of shoes and pads before dropping 5-10k on a BBK.

Anyone see Signature Werks Instagram story recently claiming to have a AP Racing Pro 5000r "Custom Kit" coming soon? Seems very sketchy given their reputation/transparency. Also note the same angle, setup, and carpet in the picture is the same/similar to every other known fake kits...

Chalkbr wrote

Anyone see Signature Werks Instagram story recently claiming to have a AP Racing Pro 5000r "Custom Kit" coming soon? Seems very sketchy given their reputation/transparency. Also note the same angle, setup, and carpet in the picture is the same/similar to every other known fake kits...

I saw this and messaged them.. Once he told me starting price, I lost interest.. Starting at $3k.

for $3k, I'll save a few more bucks and get a dedicated kit designed for the e92.

1FastSicilian wrote

I saw this and messaged them.. Once he told me starting price, I lost interest.. Starting at $3k.

for $3k, I'll save a few more bucks and get a dedicated kit designed for the e92.

That’s suspiciously cheap for AP, and that’s probably on stock rotors or their alibaba ones🙄

https://rctuningshop.com/product/bmw-calipers-porsche-17z-18z-brembo-e90-e92-e93-bbk-brakes-upgrade-front-rears/

Anyone tried rct ?

Refurbished calipers are ok on my end . I don't trust the 2 piece rotors . He says he can do 1 piece cast iron rotors.

Chalkbr wrote

That’s suspiciously cheap for AP, and that’s probably on stock rotors or their alibaba ones

The AP calipers Signature Werks is selling are at worst are fakes, and at best gray market imports. We (Essex Parts Services) are under contract as the exclusive North American importers for AP Racing products. That means any and all AP Racing product in the USA is supposed to flow through us. Signature Werks is violating our territorial contracts with AP Racing, and they are NOT purchasing these supposed 'AP Racing' calipers from us. As such, anyone purchasing these calipers will have no technical support or recourse if they run into any problems, they won't be able to get spare parts, etc. I would strongly discourage anyone from pursuing those products. You might think you're going to save a few bucks up front, but your long-term ownership experience will likely not be very pleasant.

jritt@essex wrote

The AP calipers Signature Werks is selling are at worst are fakes, and at best gray market imports. We (Essex Parts Services) are under contract as the exclusive North American importers for AP Racing products. That means any and all AP Racing product in the USA is supposed to flow through us. Signature Werks is violating our territorial contracts with AP Racing, and they are NOT purchasing these supposed 'AP Racing' calipers from us. As such, anyone purchasing these calipers will have no technical support or recourse if they run into any problems, they won't be able to get spare parts, etc. I would strongly discourage anyone from pursuing those products. You might think you're going to save a few bucks up front, but your long-term ownership experience will likely not be very pleasant.

Thank you for saying what needed to be said, the Facebook e9x m3 group is raving about these fake calipers.

jritt@essex wrote

The AP calipers Signature Werks is selling are at worst are fakes, and at best gray market imports. We (Essex Parts Services) are under contract as the exclusive North American importers for AP Racing products. That means any and all AP Racing product in the USA is supposed to flow through us. Signature Werks is violating our territorial contracts with AP Racing, and they are NOT purchasing these supposed 'AP Racing' calipers from us. As such, anyone purchasing these calipers will have no technical support or recourse if they run into any problems, they won't be able to get spare parts, etc. I would strongly discourage anyone from pursuing those products. You might think you're going to save a few bucks up front, but your long-term ownership experience will likely not be very pleasant.

Can you comment on the AP Racing calipers seen on FreakyParts.com? They have 6 pot and 4 pots listed on their site currently.

Soden82 wrote

Can you comment on the AP Racing calipers seen on FreakyParts.com? They have 6 pot and 4 pots listed on their site currently.

Yes, all our calipers at FreakyParts are genuine.
We buy from the official UK distributor. We’ve been around long enough (est 2002) to know selling fake parts does nothing for your reputation, just a short term gain.
It’s perfectly acceptable for businesses in the UK to buy from official distributors and develop a custom kit to resell which is what we also do with our Brembo and Wilwood kits.
If a customer is the USA wishes to buy from a supplier in the UK, it’s perfectly acceptable. All parts for the calipers we sell are widely available.

Chalkbr wrote

Thank you for saying what needed to be said, the Facebook e9x m3 group is raving about these fake calipers.

Please by all means share my comments there if you can. I can't post there as a commercial entity.

Also, do you have a hyperlink to that group? I'd love to see what is being said. Thanks!

jritt@essex wrote

Please by all means share my comments there if you can. I can't post there as a commercial entity.

Also, do you have a hyperlink to that group? I'd love to see what is being said. Thanks!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1281553018523429

that's the group and here's the specific post

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10160683043874532&set=gm.6190364884308860&idorvanity=1281553018523429