AP Racing, Freaky Parts, 996, Cooling? School me on BBK to help pad consumption

[Nate047]

*edit* @Pklauser dried to DM you but wouldn't let me

I'm kind of circling the drain overthinking this same situation, I assume you have stock brake calipers currently?

First point I make is that no two people agree on this subject. Like you said there is no "go to" solution that everyone likes. So I can only share some info I have gathered, I'm not an expert but I have been looking into this a lot lately so take it with a grain of salt.

Post 09/2002 build date / MK60 car:
996/986 calipers are pretty good, slightly more rear bias than stock. I would probably do this since it's easy. These calipers are getting more expensive though, the early pages of that long 996 caliper thread have prices that simply do not exist anymore.
Megane RS / Freaky Parts have symmetrical 40mm pistons so you may experience tapered pad wear. These use D1001 pads which you can get Volvo S60/V60R pads for on FCP. Most people pair these with 996 rears, and you can get Hawk DTC-60 pads for both applications. These Megane RS calipers are cheaper, brand new, and you can shop around to Germany and Poland as well if shipping and duty is too much form the UK. I paid an extra $80 ior so in duty upon delivery when I bought my kit from Freaky Parts. There is a company in Poland called K System Pro that makes a similar kit to Freaky Parts, shipping may or may not be less. I have a set of their E36 Megane RS brackets and they actually appear to be much nicer and more thoughtfully machined than the Freaky Parts brackets, which are sloppy.

Pre 09/02 / MK20 car:
Stock bias is noticeably more towards the rear. Considering doing the Aston Martin DB9 retrofit in light of this which is will move the bias forward. These calipers have 40mm and 44mm pistons so tapered pad wear is unlikely. They also use D1001 pads, calipers are more expensive and hard to come by. Brackets are only made by one company and they will not ship to the US currently. For a post 09/2002 / MK60 car, unsure if the bias will move too far forward for favorability. That's probably subjective.

AP / proper Brembos / Alcon / etc... All are "better" solutions but cost you double, tripple, more in some cases. Might not be street friendly. All monoblock calipers, be it 996, Megane, or Alcon or big boy Brembo, can theoretically flex more than a two piece bolted caliper. Will that matter on a track day car doing 20 or 30 minutes at a time vs a race car doing 2 or 3 hour stints? Probably not but maybe? Stock 345mm rotors can only go so far, but these are fairly cheap and you can use the FCP hack.

Heat wise, do some paint on the side of the rotor as well as the pad, and you can get stickers for the calipers. If you are really overheating, and or feeling slop in the pedal etc... You can add a brake ducting setup, and tape half or all of the vent off if the cooling proves is too much on any given day or track scenario.

[repoman89]

The AP racing kit is the dream, but yeah it’s pricy. I’m happy with the 996 kit on my car and rotating between FCP OEM Textar pads for the street and DS1.11 pads for track. So far they’re lasting me 35-40ish sessions and the feel is excellent. Haven’t removed my backing plates yet but I’m going to this spring, and also wrap the ball joints as in this article https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/im...s-of-the-trade

[Pklauser]

The FCP selection seems pretty dynamic too. The 996 DTC-70s were gone for awhile, but appear to be back...for now.

Curious where you're seeing Brembo kits coming up used for around $1500, maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

Good ask, I'm on Hankook RS4s.

Totally open to the idea that it's a technique issue, but I haven't received feedback from my instructors that I'm over braking, and I'm fairly confident in my pace. For context, I have about 40 days on track in the last two years and have started instructing for SCCA based on instructor recommendations. Not a ton of time in the grand scheme of things, but wanted to share that background.

I haven't yet removed my backing plates, which it sounds like I should probably do. Do people usually remove them wholesale or chop them up to keep some protection for the ball joints?

[Sharocks]

If you're trying to use FCP warranties, stick with the 996 conversion and understand that the pad selection is sorta limited on FCP.

Also using the stock semi floating CSL rotors has it's limits.

I like the idea of the Megane setup better but TBH because it's slightly newer, but you would do better with a dedicated kit even used.

You can find a Brembo kit for around 1500ish used and rebuild what you need and go from there.

It's more than enough and you can learn with it.

The car doesn't need THAT much brake, it's not that heavy, what tires are you running btw?

Maybe lack of confidence in grip is making you brake harder and/or earlier?

Stock brake ducting is adequate, unless it's a dedicated race car.

I know of a few folks running the Essex kit and they love it, costly but you get what you pay for.

[Pklauser]

As I continue to learn in HPDE and carry more speed into braking zones, I am chewing through brakes. I'm currently running DTC-70s on the "FCP Brake Special", and I'm going through a set of front pads every event. If I get a lot of track time at one event, I won't even make it through the whole thing on the same set.

A track friend suggested I try, and provided, some temperature paint. I put some on the brake pad packing plate that's visible through the wheel. According to the paint, the backing plate is reaching 1400F+. DTC-70's optimal range is 800F-1200F with a "min/max" of 400F-1600F. Unclear if I'm over the 1600F mark, since the paint doesn't read that high, but safe to say heat is not helping my situation.

Unfortunately, unlike the CSL Airbox, or Supersprint headers, there doesn't seem to be a de facto brake setup that people have converged on with these cars, or at least that I'm aware of. This thread by Maxhouse97 gets into a similar predicament that he had, but it doesn't appear there was a satisfactory resolution.

Chatting with some folks at the track, I know several BRZ/86 guys that are really happy with their AP Racing setups, but I don't ever see any BMW guys running them. I know there used to be the PFC setup back in the day, which a lot of folks still have, but alas, it's dead. Does anyone here have any experience with the AP Racing kit?

Then there are the "budget" options:

• The not-so-documented Freaky Parts Brembos: https://freakyparts.co.uk/collections/bmw-e46-m3-brakes
• The well-documented 996 setup: https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/m...bbk-conversion

Between the budget options, I'd probably go Freaky Parts just to avoid needing to rebuild old calipers. I imagine heat capacity between them is similar as they're both 4-piston, using the same 345mm rotors.

And finally: cooling. Does the hivemind think that no matter what, I'll need to suck it up and add some hose? I feel as though for every "add hose" post, there's another about the hose sucks and over cools your brakes 🤷♂️. Ideally I would love to avoid needing to put on and take off the hose for track days, but if buying an expensive brake kit is still going to require me to run more ducting, then I may as well start there with the current brakes. Fwiw, AP Racing says not to add more ducting with their kit, but who's to say that's actually true in practice.