Decided to use this winter to gather some more parts for the M having done a few track days last year and some general driving and found a few areas that were, in my opinion, lacking.
Brakes
Firstly, and most importantly! While the standard setup is certainly not bad at all, I did find that they fade relatively quickly when pushing on which is probably the most unnerving (and potentially dangerous) part of doing track days. Good brakes give you so much more confidence to push on a bit and once the pedal starts getting longer it also makes it more difficult to heel and toe and it all starts getting a bit hairy. At least for a bit of a novice such as myself! On the road the standard setup I feel is less of an issue, but then I don't drive like a lunatic on the roads.
So in respect of keeping one eye on still being useable on the road (albeit not a daily driver) I decided to go for the K Sport front brake kit and Pagid RSL-29 pads all round keeping the standard rear calipers and discs. Obviously there are better kits available, AP, Alcon etc. However with the usage my car gets I struggled to do the man maths on those. No doubt better kits, and if I was doing more track work than road usage the maths would have made more sense. The RSL-29 pads however are not cheap whichever way you cut it but for me they made sense in that (from what I've read) they wear well, are relatively kind to the discs and you won't have to worry about stopping power or fade so that made my mind up. I was apprehensive about potential noise, performance from cold etc. I'll come to that in a bit.
I used RBM in Hook to fit all these parts by the way, good stuff from Ross and happy with his work and well priced as well so would certainly recommend him in future and to anyone else in the area.
I had concerns initially that the K Sports wouldn't clear the 18" track wheels I have, luckily no problems though and fitted without needing spacers or any other work, bonus! Obviously no issues clearing the 19" wheels. (Yes I have new wheel nuts to replace the old shabby looking ones
)- 5.jpeg (190.02 KiB) Viewed 776 times
- 4.jpeg (153.61 KiB) Viewed 776 times
Ross said there were no issues when coming to fitment of the kit. Nice and easy, just a trim of the RSL pads backing plate to get them to fit all the way in the calipers. The pads aren't made specifically for the K Sports, they use the AP caliper fitment hence the slight trim of the backing plates needed. Obviously rears are no issue. When I get a chance I'll weigh the OEM calipers to see the weight difference to the K Sports. I know the K Sports calipers weigh 3.1kg each and the discs 10kg each so I'm expecting a reasonable saving there, possibly offset by the bigger disc though. Discs are floating by the way and grooved rather than drilled. I believe grooved are better if you intend to go on track due to drilled discs potentially cracking around the holes when hot, remember TomK demonstrating this nicely on a previous thread I believe! It does mean I have drilled at the rear and grooved at the front, not great for the OCD but function over form! Fresh RBF600 brake fluid as well.
On the road.....wow, very impressed. The initial bite...even from cold (and it has been cold the last few days!) is insane. It's hard to not chuck yourself through the windscreen the first few stops, it really bites...and like I say that's from relatively cold. Pedal feel is excellent and you don't get that massively loud groaning on heavy stops you get with drilled discs either, at least not the same extent. My only slight concern is that they bite so well near the top of the pedal my heel and toe technique might have to be adjusted but I think once they bed in and the pads wear down a bit it'll be a bit better in that respect. In short, the difference really is night and day, it's almost a bit of a shock initially. I can't comment on fade yet until I get on track and really try them in anger, hopefully next week at Bedford. I'm really not expecting many problems in that area anymore, given reasonable stints and breaks in-between, it's still a heavy car of course regardless so still have to bear that in mind.
Niggles, well none really. Initially the fronts do bind slightly but I put this down to bedding both the calipers and the pads in. I think I could have taken a couple of mm off the pads to alleviate the issue as I think there is just a fraction too much material from new for the calipers. I'll keep an eye on it but I'm not expecting any issues after a few hundred miles and certainly after a track day, imagine it will be fine before then though.
On the noise front, way better than I was expecting. Haven't heard the pads rattling around at all and any squeal on stopping is very very minor and often none at all so both are none issues for me. I'll update if this changes. I have heard some people have mixed results with the RSL's in this respect so maybe I just got lucky but I wouldn't let it put you off them if your considering it.
- 1.jpg (194.72 KiB) Viewed 776 times
I don't think these are necessary for most to be honest as there are other ways to get camber which are a lot cheaper. I got a good deal on them though from the good old US of A and the 'man maths' again worked out for me. I did have this rather misguided idea though that you could easily chop and change the camber between a road setting and track setting myself with just a jack and a spanner, in short it's not that simple and if that's your goal for camber plates then I wouldn't bother. In short, because of the slotted nature of the original top mount holes it's more faff and possibility of getting it wrong even if you mark the plates with separate road and track setting. So yeah, I won't be doing that (plus I believe it messes with the toe when you change camber also).
However! The plus side is you can get a nice range of camber adjustment on them which is really the point, stupid as it sounds. I went for the Ground Control 'street' versions and they are a lovely bit of kit and can probably be adjusted to around -2.7 though I haven't maxed it out that far yet.....road car first, track work second!
- 8.jpg (135.68 KiB) Viewed 776 times
- 2.jpg (190.09 KiB) Viewed 776 times
I suspect a few people have heard of these chaps. Based up near Birmingham and do a lot of work on Porsche's and high end machinery. A very nice Ferrari was there while I was, as an example! Was the only picture I got while my car was out getting tested, forgot to get any others amongst the chatting and coffee drinking
Really need to get on top of my photo taking efforts.- 9.jpg (145.14 KiB) Viewed 774 times
,it's not for you. Think £400 as a baseline.....Having said that, I feel it was worth every penny. They book you on for a whole day as a worst case scenario so you know your not just getting a quick adjustment. Pete talked me through the process on arrival, talking about the car's previous behaviour handling wise and what I now wanted out of it. I would say suspension / geo is probably my weakest knowledge area when it comes to cars so to have him talk me through loads of different settings, the effect one area can have on another etc. was incredibly useful, I learnt a lot.
Anyway he took the car for a drive to get a baseline feeling then the work was underway. It's very much a whole chassis evaluation, any parts that are worn, not fitted correctly, improvements that can be made etc. Biggest one for me...the suspension was lowered far too much, so much so it was basically riding on the bump stops. Not good. I thought it felt a bit 'crashy'
. So ride height was sorted, raised up a bit front and back. Various other tweaks also, the brake cooling, greasing tie rods, checking for rubbing of wheels / suspension etc. Corner weighting, my weight simulated in the drivers seat (85kg, it's been a tough lockdown!
) and a roughly full to 3/4 tank of fuel as that's mostly how I drive, and turn up to tracks with an almost full tank. So it's a bit on the tubby side certainly, though not so bad bearing in mind the above.....- 7.jpg (110.26 KiB) Viewed 776 times
- 6.jpg (106.79 KiB) Viewed 775 times
The guys are very friendly here and we chatted at length about various things, more than happy to share their knowledge and answer my questions all things suspension and geo. Nice place to relax also, get a full view of your car being worked on and also often go into the workshop to ask any questions or go through anything at all / see what's being done. You are very much part of the process, very very far from your usual setup shops. Having said that, I'm sure there are other places equally as good, I felt more comfortable going with tried and tested on this occasion though and glad I did. I would highly recommend them especially if you've had new suspension fitted and you want to go through set up and how to get the best out of it. It's the first time I think I've had a geo setup where I wasn't a bit sceptical afterwards or didn't feel like I really knew what was being adjusted and why. Say's it all that I was running around on the bump stops for the best part of 6 months.....
Anyway, yes be aware it's not a cheap day out, but well worth it in my opinion.
Hope that helps someone! Will probably add to this in future as I get more experience with how everything's working. So far though, so good!
Also did a few other bits that get an honourable mention, M3 strut brace, new front arch liners....on these if you do replace them, get normal Z4 ones and they just require a tiny bit of trimming to fit. A LOT cheaper than M one's and they're exactly the same otherwise, thanks to someone on here for that tip, can't remember who now! Strut brace also fits fine and plenty of M3 one's about so easy to get a bargain, such as I did, Z4M one's are rocking horse poo and have the price to go with it.
- 3.jpg (201.06 KiB) Viewed 775 times
Luckily no damage and rebuilt fine, but I'll be keen to get shot of them when I can justify the cost of some decent shockers. KW customer service must be the worst I've ever experienced to top things off!
