[Toroinu]

Currently have 2nh brakes and have been wanting to switch to a smaller kit to fit 18in wheels. This will be my first time upgrading brake kits so a bit new to this area.

I know AP Racing kits are well recognized in the community and is what appears to be the "standard" for aftermarket brakes on this platform. However, i've noticed most reviews on AP kits are talking about temps which have little to no value to me as tracking is only wishful thinking. With that said, AP are significantly more expensive and seems a bit overkill for 99.9% street driving. Now if AP brakes offer better "Safety" and durability/longevity than other kits, I'm all ears, but if temps and lap times is what sets them apart, that may not be enough for me to dish out the extra cash.

I know BMW blue brakes are also another option but i personally don't want to go that route.

With that said, is anyone running ZL1 BBK kit from signature werks or the Alcon CAR97 kit?

Also for reference, a quick search for the front kit prices:
ZL1 BBK retrofit - caliper + rotor ~ 2.5k
Alcon CAR97 - Caliper + rotor + pad ~ 3k
AP 9660 - Caliper + rotor + pad ~ 5.5k

[F87source]

You don't want to run kits made for other cars on the m2, because the rotors simply won't fit the wheel hubs and the caliper carriers will not fit the stock carrier.

If you want a lower price BBK that can fit 18" wheels check out paragon brakes, they make BBK's specifically for the m2. Another benefit is that their BBK's are also top notch and track capable and can take track abuse as well (even if you don't need it).

[Toroinu]

Originally Posted by F87source

You don't want to run kits made for other cars on the m2, because the rotors simply won't fit the wheel hubs and the caliper carriers will not fit the stock carrier.

If you want a lower price BBK that can fit 18" wheels check out paragon brakes, they make BBK's specifically for the m2. Another benefit is that their BBK's are also top notch and track capable and can take track abuse as well (even if you don't need it).

The Alcon CAR97 kit is the Paragon kit im referring to.

https://paragonbrakes.com/paragon-al...80-m4-f82-f83/

have you heard about these?

[bunnathphot]

Following. I like the price of the signature werks brakes also

[F87source]

Originally Posted by Toroinu

The Alcon CAR97 kit is the Paragon kit im referring to.

https://paragonbrakes.com/paragon-al...80-m4-f82-f83/

have you heard about these?

I see, I thought you were talking about a different Alcon bbk and trying to retrofit it for the m2.

No I haven't heard anything about that bbk, but it should work because paragon is a pretty solid company. They have a lot of experience with the f8x platform so their rotors will fit just fine, and their caliper carrier adapters should fit fine too.

[FaRKle!]

IMO, if you're going to spend money on a big brake kit, make sure its one that makes swapping pads easier by not requiring you to remove the caliper from the knuckle...

[Toroinu]

Originally Posted by FaRKle!

IMO, if you're going to spend money on a big brake kit, make sure its one that makes swapping pads easier by not requiring you to remove the caliper from the knuckle...

Farkle! Big fan of your reviews/work/videos and being local to my area.

So would you say the only “negative” about the Alcon is the pad switching? Reason why I’m asking is I don’t plan to track. Now will that change down the road? Maybe but I’ve owned the car for a year and wanted to track but still never got the chance to. So I’m throwing in the towel to say it’s wishful thinking at this point.

So the pad switching luxury/hassle may only happen once a year or two from daily street driving.

[F87source]

Originally Posted by FaRKle!

IMO, if you're going to spend money on a big brake kit, make sure its one that makes swapping pads easier by not requiring you to remove the caliper from the knuckle...

Yup that's a pretty big deal if you swap pads alot for track use.

[FaRKle!]

Originally Posted by Toroinu

Farkle! Big fan of your reviews/work/videos and being local to my area.

So would you say the only “negative” about the Alcon is the pad switching? Reason why I’m asking is I don’t plan to track. Now will that change down the road? Maybe but I’ve owned the car for a year and wanted to track but still never got the chance to. So I’m throwing in the towel to say it’s wishful thinking at this point.

So the pad switching luxury/hassle may only happen once a year or two from daily street driving.

When I first started tracking I thought to myself, "I'll only do this infrequently, so I'll make do with x/y/z." After a year that turned into, "Aw man, I should've just done what I knew was the right thing for tracking more from the start." If you've been wanting to track the car, you'll get there .

Paragon has another front BBK that's pretty much the same price, probably will fit 18" with the 370mm rotor (use their template to check), and has quick pad change capability. You should check that one out. Somebody on the forums is putting together a group buy for it too.

Also, since you're local, keep an eye out for Audi Club's Winterfest track weekend at Thunderhill in late Jan '24. It hasn't been announced yet, but they always do it then. Pretty much the best event for people who want to get into tracking and haven't had the opportunity yet.

[Toroinu]

Originally Posted by FaRKle!

When I first started tracking I thought to myself, "I'll only do this infrequently, so I'll make do with x/y/z." After a year that turned into, "Aw man, I should've just done what I knew was the right thing for tracking more from the start." If you've been wanting to track the car, you'll get there .

Paragon has another front BBK that's pretty much the same price, probably will fit 18" with the 370mm rotor (use their template to check), and has quick pad change capability. You should check that one out. Somebody on the forums is putting together a group buy for it too.

Also, since you're local, keep an eye out for Audi Club's Winterfest track weekend at Thunderhill in late Jan '24. It hasn't been announced yet, but they always do it then. Pretty much the best event for people who want to get into tracking and haven't had the opportunity yet.

oh deff looking into them. Might be a bit late to the group buy since it said end of August but im going to highly consider these. Going to see if anyone have ran them with TE37 or other 18s to see what will clear.

A couple buddies and I have been wanting to dip our toes in the track scene but seems to always fall through. Will deff check this event out too!

[Brokenbones]

yeah, get into tracking is so easy if you live in bay area compared to when i lived in NYC, it was 3-8 hours minimim without traffic. Here in bay area there're 3 great tracks within 2ish hours drive. even talked my rep into going with his ancient panamera on all seasons. he loved going "full send"

done a few this year and its been fun. never fully meshed with my M2 comp until tracking it on 5 mile full thunderhill track at 110+ degree days... brutal days but the car just kept asking for more.

[Maynard]

Unless you start to track fairly hard and often, stock brakes are already overkill;
a BBK would be purely for cosmetics or the urge to mod - any of the changes that make a BBK 'better' are going to compromise street manners because of this (no real market for BBKs that don't do better on track).

Somebody on this forum has developed new mounting brackets to use stock 2NH with 380mm rotors (fits 18" wheels), and this would be a good factory option. DK why you aren't into the original blue brakes for this but those would be my go-to for 18" capability and street/limited track, since all the engineering is factory-done and well proven. You could repaint the original blue brakes to a different color if you want s/t unusual.

[projekt-]

Originally Posted by Maynard

Somebody on this forum has developed new mounting brackets to use stock 2NH with 380mm rotors (fits 18" wheels), and this would be a good factory option. DK why you aren't into the original blue brakes for this but those would be my go-to for 18" capability and street/limited track, since all the engineering is factory-done and well proven. You could repaint the original blue brakes to a different color if you want s/t unusual.

Interested in this mounting bracket...do you have the link to the thread by chance?

[Maynard]

Can't spot it offhand, but probably in the brakes or wheels subsection, run a searach for 380 and 2NH?

[medphysdave]

Originally Posted by projekt-

Interested in this mounting bracket...do you have the link to the thread by chance?

Track/S

[F87source]

Originally Posted by projekt-

Interested in this mounting bracket...do you have the link to the thread by chance?

Here's the thread: https://f87.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh...1984711&page=5


IMO this is the dumbest thing you can do to your brake calipers.... Because the problem with brake calipers is that the rotor side is all open and the back side has alot of openings for either easy pad changes or ventilation, so the two halves are susceptible to flex. This means brake caliper manufacturers focus heavily on the bridge region (back side or spine) to ensure that the calipers are as rigid as possible. This is why these calipers have extremely thick bridge and spine regions, so shaving them down (in conjunction with the entire spine of the caliper) to get wheel clearance is imo possibly the dumbest thing you can do... These are aluminium calipers, so they already are quite soft, so with every mm of material you take away you like reduce alot of rigidity. Then if you remove enough material to the point where the calipers actually can flex, then faitigue now becomes a worry. This also reduces thermal capacity of your calipers as well, so the end result is your calipers are even less capable of track duty.

IMO I would just buy a BBK at this point.

[medphysdave]

Originally Posted by F87source

Here's the thread: https://f87.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh...1984711&page=5


IMO this is the dumbest thing you can do to your brake calipers.... Because the problem with brake calipers is that the rotor side is all open and the back side has alot of openings for either easy pad changes or ventilation, so the two halves are susceptible to flex. This means brake caliper manufacturers focus heavily on the bridge region (back side or spine) to ensure that the calipers are as rigid as possible. This is why these calipers have extremely thick bridge and spine regions, so shaving them down (in conjunction with the entire spine of the caliper) to get wheel clearance is imo possibly the dumbest thing you can do... These are aluminium calipers, so they already are quite soft, so with every mm of material you take away you like reduce alot of rigidity. Then if you remove enough material to the point where the calipers actually can flex, then faitigue now becomes a worry. This also reduces thermal capacity of your calipers as well, so the end result is your calipers are even less capable of track duty.

IMO I would just buy a BBK at this point.

The mounting bracket requires no shaved calipers, but does require a 380mm disc. Calipers are shaved if you want to run stock 400mm rotors with 18" wheels.

I understand the logic behind the fear of shaving down the calipers. However, I haven't seen any torsional rigidity testing on any calipers. Maybe they are over engineered, maybe not. Maybe it's a design that BMW picks off the brembo shelf and requires little modification. Could just be a cost mechanism for why they are the way they are. Why didn't they select a caliper that could easily swap pads.

[F87source]

Originally Posted by medphysdave

The mounting bracket requires no shaved calipers, but does require a 380mm disc. Calipers are shaved if you want to run stock 400mm rotors with 18" wheels.

I understand the logic behind the fear of shaving down the calipers. However, I haven't seen any torsional rigidity testing on any calipers. Maybe they are over engineered, maybe not. Maybe it's a design that BMW picks off the brembo shelf and requires little modification. Could just be a cost mechanism for why they are the way they are. Why didn't they select a caliper that could easily swap pads.

So the thing is with Brake calipers there are alot of stresses in play like: extreme heat on track which makes the metals more malleable, brake piston stress where the pistons forces the caliper body outwards, braking stresses where the pad pulls agains the body of the caliper (and this is even higher when you use high friction pads on the track and really sticky tires that allow more of the braking force to be utilized), and all of these stresses have to be transferred to the inboard side where the 2 bolts hold the caliper to the wheel hub assembly. Brembo has all the data of these events to design a caliper using FEA, so pretty much every bit of material there is needed to ensure the caliper does not fail. They're not going to make the caliper excessively large for no reason. You can't just shave stuff off all over the place and expect that to be OK, especially when you don't have a single bit of test data to prove that this doesn't cause the stresses to exceed the material strength.


Now imagine this on track, where the calipers get extremely hot, and now the caliper bridge and spine is alot thinner, can it cope with all of these stresses?


Most of the time these OEM brembo 6 pot calipers have a closed back design to improve rigidity, the ones with an open back to allow for easy pad changes have large bolts to try and regain that rigidity back. Aftermarket calipers like AP racing and Paragon have really large supports that go across the bridge to make sure the caliper is stiff, and they pay alot of attention in FEA to ensure that they can get as much rigidity as possible.

[MooMooM2]

I think what Track/S is doing is super cool. Nothing but respect, tons of cool things in that thread.

However there is a few places I would not mess with and the brakes are one of them. Shaving calipers or brackets, nope, not for me unless there was proper testing that would make me feel comfortable with it and even then. If I was going with 18s Id just get AP and call it a day.

[Track/S]

Originally Posted by F87source

So the thing is with Brake calipers there are alot of stresses in play like: extreme heat on track which makes the metals more malleable, brake piston stress where the pistons forces the caliper body outwards, braking stresses where the pad pulls agains the body of the caliper (and this is even higher when you use high friction pads on the track and really sticky tires that allow more of the braking force to be utilized), and all of these stresses have to be transferred to the inboard side where the 2 bolts hold the caliper to the wheel hub assembly. Brembo has all the data of these events to design a caliper using FEA, so pretty much every bit of material there is needed to ensure the caliper does not fail. They're not going to make the caliper excessively large for no reason. You can't just shave stuff off all over the place and expect that to be OK, especially when you don't have a single bit of test data to prove that this doesn't cause the stresses to exceed the material strength.


Now imagine this on track, where the calipers get extremely hot, and now the caliper bridge and spine is alot thinner, can it cope with all of these stresses?


Most of the time these OEM brembo 6 pot calipers have a closed back design to improve rigidity, the ones with an open back to allow for easy pad changes have large bolts to try and regain that rigidity back. Aftermarket calipers like AP racing and Paragon have really large supports that go across the bridge to make sure the caliper is stiff, and they pay alot of attention in FEA to ensure that they can get as much rigidity as possible.

They take you out of ista and you don't know where to go 😂😂😂.


The walls of the apracing pro5000 are much thinner than the shaved calipers, so stop saying stupid things.


My custom brackets are 5 times stronger than the oem ones.

Fucking envy corrodes you.

[F87source]

Originally Posted by Track/S

They take you out of ista and you don't know where to go ������.


The walls of the apracing pro5000 are much thinner than the shaved calipers, so stop saying stupid things.


My custom brackets are 5 times stronger than the oem ones.

Fucking envy corrodes you.

AP racing designs their calipers from the ground up with likely FEA in mind. So ever single bit of their caliper geometry is there for a reason, and the end result satisfies their stress requirements allowing the shape to be what it is. You cannot just compare this design and a completely stock caliper design which was designed by brembo for their own stress needs.

Now you just took that carefully designed caliper and shaved it down to clear a wheel. So unless you have actual FEA analysis done showing that it's still as strong as it needs to be under the most rigorous braking scenarios, then your shaved calipers cannot be considered as safe as OEM standards. Don't forget this is a braking component, people's lives (the driver, passengers and surrounding traffic) depend on this.


Where's your proof your brackets are 5x stronger than OEM? Your words mean nothing to me without proof.


Envy? Lol you wish. I would never ever want to be you.

[Track/S]

Originally Posted by F87source

.

Proof for a miserable guy who spends all day messing with my parts? Lol lay down...