Stoptech Slotted Rotor And Turner Tracksport Rotor Match

[dpeete]

TL;DR: scroll down to see the Stoptech Trophy 355mm front rotors from the ST40R kit and how they match the Turner Tracksport rear rotors. I was attempting to create a match and I think it works.

I deliberated for a long time on brakes… at 65k it was time to replace the pads and rotors, and I always try to lean OEM+ when I need parts, so my goal was to gain some fade resistance and drop some lbs in the process.

The Euro ****** Clubsport fronts were a top choice for the performance and weight savings, but the price has become not that much different than a good condition used 6-piston Radi-Cal (sorry Matt… it is cool stuff, my pocketbook just can’t handle it). The 18z/17z options left me a bit shaky on the provenance of the caliper and the quality of the rotor. The Freaky Parts Brembo fronts were also a top candidate but I was a bit concerned about the calipers coming from a car that uses 2mm skinnier rotors (more on that below). Ultimately Bimmerworld had a good price on the Trophy ST40R front ($2700), so that is how I went… brand new, so no worries about shoddy refurb, and light enough for my needs.

But I didn’t want to run slotted fronts and drilled rears - call me vain or OCD, but I wanted things to match. I didn’t want to drop the cash for the matching ST40 rear kit, so I looked at all of the options I could find for slotted rotors. Paragon looked good, but then I noticed their hubs are iron instead of aluminum. RacingBrake looked interesting, but didn’t look like a good visual match and includes pads which I don’t need. (One plan I had was to use the lightweight RacingBrake front and rear stock rotor setup with the FreakyPart Brembo kit, but the RacingBrake rotors are 2mm bigger in the front and the Brembos are designed for a 2mm smaller rotor… so the RB rotors wouldn’t fit). Ultimately I bought the Turner Tracksport rotors along with matching Stoptech pads and brake lines. I believe the Tuner rears are probably the same or less weight than the Paragon rears and I think the match will look good enough when installed in the wheel and broken in. And I think they’ll resist fade better than stock when combined with matching Stoptech pads and brake lines.

If it helps anybody in the same boat, here is the match… I think the slots will appear roughly the same when installed and the metal color will converge from use and being inside the wheel shade:


Someday I hope to get a matching ST40R rear set to get a bit more rear brake bias (stock piston ratios are 63.0%, STR40 front is 63.9% and the full Stoptech kit brings it down to 62.9%… but I imagine the efficiency of the multi-piston fixed calipers skews the actual behavior).

[M3SQRD]

Steel is an odd choice for a rotor mounting hat but it makes it easy to integrate a steel ring for the drum-brake parking brake.

You could have had Coleman Racing make custom rotors and mounting hats (I think they offer this but would require an existing mounting hat) at a surprisingly low cost. StopTech recently stopped making their wide annulus brake rotor rings and I suggested Coleman. He expected pricing of a custom rotor to be prohibitively expensive but he was surprised by how inexpensive the custom rotor is.

I know one member (kolosy) uses the Paragon rear rotor on his e9x M. You can ask him about the pros and cons of the 2-piece rotor with a steel mounting hat.

[dpeete]

Thank you… I already bought the Turner rotors as shown in the pic… I thought other folks might want to know it is a match.

FWIW: I had seen the Coleman reference in a number of posts here on the board by you and Lufty. I went to the Coleman site and they didn’t have any info on them after searching for “BMW” or “M3”. I get that they could make custom brakes, but if they have already made them once, why wouldn’t they advertise them?

[nicksm3]

I did something very similar as I downsized my braking system from the PFC racing BBK. I needed rotors to match the Stoptech ST40R Trophy kit just bought
The rear rotors are from PARAGON and significantly cheaper than Turners. Hope this helps.