Treating her to a little tlc......

[sjb]

After nearly 6 months of great times with my cecil I'm treating it to some TLC!
First up I'm fitting a brembo bbk with the parts sourced left right and centre!! Ebay boxster s and boxster calipers that have been stripped and refurbished. HEL brake lines. Rear caliper mounts from p0lar in the US. Front bought for £30 from a cutter in a state so blasted and plated at a local company for £20. Brake pads are standard road spec mintex for starters, the car will see a track maybe 5% of the time to be honest so I'm playing safe (unless someone can recommend pads for me?) A full set of 12mm spacers to clear the fronts (the rears don't need them but it will even out the track). Granted for the mo it's more for aesthetics than anything :gayfight:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v709/shawn63deluxe/photo61.jpg

The car has always pinked a little, a little while ago I passed the local BMW dealership to book it in for a leak down/comp test and the engineer told me not to worry they all pink these csl's :banghead: I drove off and popped over to Munich Legends where James confirmed that some cylinders were showing only 95psi. They should be 150+
To cut a long story short, I bought the car with a 6 month warranty from a company called 'the autogroup' I have nearly the top policy and after them trying it on briefly they have ok'd the work!!!! all the headgasket work, snapped rear spring, rear ball joint/bush are to be paid by them at a cost of around £2000. It runs out in a couple of weeks so I may consider carrying it on!!!
Despite the car being eligible for the BMW goodwill boot floor replacement I'd rather have just a well done repair kit fitted. When I bought the car I inspected it and found it had a hairline crack on the boot floor and negotiated the price to reflect this, so at the same time I'm having the bootfloor kit fitted, a new power steering hose to replace the weeping one at present, new diff seal and a few small odds and ends.
I'm going to miss it like hell for the week or so it'll be away but can't wait for the drive home with full compression again..... looking forward to the courtesy car from ML ;)

[mattCSLnut]

Nice stoppers you Tart :wink: :hahaha:
Who did you use to refurbish your callipers ?

[sjb]

Nice stoppers you Tart :wink: :hahaha:
Who did you use to refurbish your callipers ?

To be honest your thread from a couple of years back made my mind up !

I stripped and painted them myself, I did the same to my VW bus brembo's about 9 years ago and they still sparkle. £5 a can 'hycote' red caliper paint did the job :-D

[mattCSLnut]

To be honest your thread from a couple of years back made my mind up !

I stripped and painted them myself, I did the same to my VW bus brembo's about 9 years ago and they still sparkle. £5 a can 'hycote' red caliper paint did the job :-D

:smokin: Good job mate :thumbs:
Where did you get your HEL lines from ? Hook me up with a link please :)

[sjb]

Cheers.
I'm incapable of doing a link on my phone but if you take a look on the E46 section on the cutters there's a group buy on the go. £45 a set (rears) from porschecalipers.co.uk which is where I bought mine from for £50 for a pair, £100 the lot. They are fantastic quality !

[mattCSLnut]

Cheers.
I'm incapable of doing a link on my phone but if you take a look on the E46 section on the cutters there's a group buy on the go. £45 a set (rears) from porschecalipers.co.uk which is where I bought mine from for £50 for a pair, £100 the lot. They are fantastic quality !

No problem... I know that seller well :thumbs: based in North London and he has an eBay shop that's saved in my " Favourites"

[Neil M]

Seeing as it's you, these are the ones I fitted: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261212780761

[spoonz]

Which Boxster's are these from? Does it matter if "S" or not?

I am presuming these offer more stopping power than standard, but less than AP's

Are there any complication with fitting, or straight on?

[adem.csl]

http://porschecalipers.co.uk/produkty/59/bmw_e46_m3_front_brembo_upgrade_.html

Matt the link to Porsche shop

[mattCSLnut]

http://porschecalipers.co.uk/produkty/59/bmw_e46_m3_front_brembo_upgrade_.html

Matt the link to Porsche shop
THANX mate... I've had him saved in my eBay "Favourite Sellers" folder for a while now :smt023
BTW I'm not a big fan of these brackets he sells which require machining 5 mm off the BREMBO callipers :smt009

[sjb]

Seeing as it's you, these are the ones I fitted: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261212780761

Damn that's a good price, website price is £100 for the set :(

[sjb]

Which Boxster's are these from? Does it matter if "S" or not?

I am presuming these offer more stopping power than standard, but less than AP's

Are there any complication with fitting, or straight on?


The generally agreed conversion is to use porsche boxster fronts part number 996.351.425/426 and boxster rears 996.352.421/422. Pistons for the front are 40mm & 36mm, rears 30mm & 28mm. If you are a bit handy in the garage it's a very easy job to get a set off ebay and refurb them yourself or porschecalipers.co.uk sell them ready refurb. Yes some may mock that it's a bit Heath Robinson but done right they will look and work like a ready bought kit but save you £££££££££££££££££££££'s I paid £320 for my front set and £180 for the rears which is the usual cost. They will indeed give a substantial increase in stopping compared to standard, I doubt at this level there's much difference to compare between them and the AP's even if the AP's are 6 pots unless someone has tried both. Pad choice could make or break either caliper. As for brembo, if they use them on Ferrari, Lambo's and Porsche then they are good enough for me.
Here's an excellent link that details all you need to know, scroll down to 'additional information' and open that up ;)

http://www.ca-automotive.co.uk/single_prod-cHJvZF9pZD0zMTA1.html

[73CSL]

what discs are you using with these ? ( EDIT: just read that link .. using stock csl discs & machining 5 mm off calliper ?? )

Do you know what the front to rear brake balance is like using callipers from a mid engined car on a front engine one ?

[sjb]

what discs are you using with these ? ( EDIT: just read that link .. using stock csl discs & machining 5 mm off calliper ?? )

Do you know what the front to rear brake balance is like using callipers from a mid engined car on a front engine one ?

Correct re. the discs and machining.

Regarding the balance / available torque I looked into it and there appears to be no more than 10% difference in aftermarket/OE calipers and their piston sizes, there's an industry standard maybe. I read somewhere that using this set up does alter the balance by 2% but can't even remember if that was to the front or back I was so little concerned with that figure. The fact that for example you can buy 4 or 6 piston AP kits for the front of an m3 and either leave it at that or fit 4 pots to the rear with either 4 or 6 pots to the front shows that IN THEORY manufacturers aren't too concerned that you can mix up the brake balance to the extent that your car becomes dangerous. I fitted a full brembo setup to my '63 VW bus and at first I was locking up the front with gentle braking. I changed the front conti sport contact2's for yokohamas and it can now outbrake even modern hot hatch's!!

My thinking is there are too many variables regarding BBK's and brake balance that include pad choice, tyre choice, tread depth even pressures. My set up comes from a similar weight car with similar tyres sizes and apparently a near 50/50 weight distribution too.

This is a common DIY kit and until I hear someone has had an incident with the rear overtaking the front under braking round a bend I'll stick with it.

The Yanks had a good chin wag about this very issue and after reading it I stopped worrying ;)

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=699892

mattcslnut has this set up and I think has even been on the track with it, he may pop along and chime in ;-)

[sjb]

p0lar is the guy who sold me the rear caliper brackets and also started this thread,

http://www.m3forum.net/m3forum/showthread.php?t=412927

He knows his stuff and recommends these particular calipers for a balanced upgrade :smokin:

[mattCSLnut]

mattcslnut has this set up and I think has even been on the track with it, he may pop along and chime in ;-)

CHIME ! :-D
Indeed I do... I've had this set up now for well over 2 years and 15 000 miles 50:50 Road:Track use... in excess of 100 laps @ the Ring and 10 + UK Track Days. Infact it was the UK Track Days that highlighted the weakness of the OEM CSL brake set up :banghead: even though I was already running HOT pads, SS braided lines & ATE Racing Blue fluid with the OEM set up on my Cecil. It was the UK TDs alone that made me go for the Pork. DIY BREMBO BBK.
The biggest problem I found with the OEM HOT set up was lack of feel & the On/Off on track nature of the brakes, very imprecise with very little modulation or trail braking possible.
What the DIY Pork BREMBO set up offered me was not only a bigger pad, but also brake feel / finesse :thumbs: ... not to mention weight saving around each wheel :smokin:
As for back to back comparison with APs ... without a shadow of a doubt the APs are the Daddy :supz: of BBK world having experienced them on a CSL first hand :beer: however I'd say that a well set up Pork BREMBO BBK on the CSL is about 80-90% of the APs performance for less than half of the initial £££ outlay with much lower consumable costs :supz: OEM CSL front discs are about £150 each & a full set of semi decent pads is about £160 all round :smokin: Ideal for Captain "Tight Wads" like me :-D

[73CSL]

THANX mate... I've had him saved in my eBay "Favourite Sellers" folder for a while now :smt023
BTW I'm not a big fan of these brackets he sells which require machining 5 mm off the BREMBO callipers :smt009

what brackets did you use for your conversion ?

This looks an interesting set up I'm going to make a note of for the future :) Its only the issue it migh invalidate my warrenty that I've not done a BBK conversion yet

[mattCSLnut]

what brackets did you use for your conversion ?

This looks an interesting set up I'm going to make a note of for the future :) Its only the issue it migh invalidate my warrenty that I've not done a BBK conversion yet

One off custom "MOVIT" inspired ;) brackets which do NOT require any BREMBO butchery ;)
I've not had any Warranty issues with mine :thumbs: Over 60K miles and brakes are not covered by Warranty anyway.

[sjb]

Porschecalipers.co.uk and CA Automotive both do front and rear mounting brackets but I think there is some machining required to all to get them to fit... it can't be difficult to manufacture some that are 100% bolt on as Matt has shown :beer:
To be honest it doesn't bother me though, I love a bit of tinkering in the man cave sorting issues like that out :-D

[jay2020]

I have just spent the morning fitting my porsche brembo kit.
Even though I said id keep her standard!

I purchased boxster s calipers from a 2003 car for £500

I also purchased 12mm spacers for the rear 15mm for the front.
Brackets were the issue, I purchased front brackets from creation motorsport, DONT DO IT!!!!! I spent more time machining them and filing them then trying to find 6mm spacers than I did on the job.

They are easily the worst piece of engineering ive ever seen.

I then decided to do the rears at the same time so purchased rear brackets from porschecalipers, they were excellent.

I also used HEL hoses and ATE blue fluid.

the brakes are a world apart from the oem crap :

[sjb]

You can't beat some sexy red calipers behind a nice wheel :smt055

Interesting to hear the porschecalipers.co.uk rear bracket works, turns out my rears are 1.5mm out with regards to centralising the caliper over the disc and need 3mm extra height for the calipers to sit off of the disc rim :whistle: I may just buy the porschecalipers ones instead of all the faffing of machining and spacers :whistle:

[jay2020]

Forgot to ask, what's all this maching the caliper malrky??? Didn't need to do that on mine!

[sjb]

Certain brackets still require the mounting 'pads' on the caliper to have 5mm or so to be machined off to bring the caliper down towards the hub..... god knows why it's easy enough make a bracket without doing this!

[jay2020]

Just avoid those brackets and the sh1tty creation motorsport ones I bought and youll be o.k.

[mattCSLnut]

I have just spent the morning fitting my porsche brembo kit.
Even though I said id keep her standard!

I then decided to do the rears at the same time so purchased rear brackets from porschecalipers, they were excellent.

I also used HEL hoses and ATE blue fluid.

the brakes are a world apart from the oem crap :

:thumbs: It's a slippery slope ;) Did you remember to flip & swap your rear callipers "Left to Right" to avoid uneven pad wear ? :whistle:

[jay2020]

:thumbs: It's a slippery slope ;) Did you remember to flip & swap your rear callipers "Left to Right" to avoid uneven pad wear ? :whistle:

No I didnt, whats the actual difference?

[sjb]

Smallest piston should be at the bottom. Chances are the rears will be ipside down. You flip them and swap the bleed nipples and link pipes end for end :thumbs: