3D printed brake cooling kit

[TomK]

I'd been chatting with a guy on zpost for some while now about his development of a brake cooling kit for our cars. After a long wait a couple of months ago I was the receiver of the 1st kit

new vent attaches to the factory mountings

Some small cutting is required to route the hose

The kit is designed for the stock brake setup but with a little modding it worked well with my 32mm discs.


Super happy with it overall and it's fantastic that people are still creating product for these old cars! I guess that's the beauty of 3D printing.
I think Andre will be along soon enough to offer this as a product to the forum, for now his supply is exceeded on the US forum by demand.
Track day at the nurburgring next month which will be a good test of it's effectiveness and also robustness!

 

[MrPT]

Brilliant. Only a matter of time before someone printed some ducts like this. Well done that man.

I actually scanned my OEM ducts with the intent of doing the same thing, but I couldn’t get a high enough res model to directly modify, so am permanently stalled at the remodelling (re-topo’ing) stage.

Good to know that ducting can be routed inboard of the wheel arch - I was wondering about that. Means you can reinstall the lower blanking plates in the arch (do you want some, btw? I’m sure I have a pair somewhere).

 

[AndyBeech]

Awesome work. Was looking up Exdos method from some time back about this and considering how to get it done but this would is a massive help. Hopefully he’ll have some more kits up soon, cheers for heads up Tom!

 

[buzyg]

Like the look of that.

 

[BMWZ4MC]

That looks brilliant. I wonder if he’d be able to sell me just the heat shields and the couples for connecting the ducting to them. At the moment the ducting on mine simply ends in the wheel arch near the brakes without being quite well directed onto the disc.

 

[bradz]

Amazing! Can I ask how much?

I wonder if I could make these fit my M3... as the only option is the hard Motorsport kit at £250!

 

[TomK]

Brilliant. Only a matter of time before someone printed some ducts like this. Well done that man.

Yes exactly, great that someone has made the effort. I believe he's not even going to run this kit on his as it is a garage queen low mile stocker, but has much previous experience of producing kits for other bmws, his race Z3Mcoupe for instance.

I actually scanned my OEM ducts with the intent of doing the same thing, but I couldn’t get a high enough res model to directly modify, so am permanently stalled at the remodelling (re-topo’ing) stage.

The scanning for him was not the difficulty it was the size of the vents that caused issues in printing if I understand it correctly.

Good to know that ducting can be routed inboard of the wheel arch - I was wondering about that. Means you can reinstall the lower blanking plates in the arch (do you want some, btw? I’m sure I have a pair somewhere).

Oh that's super interesting! I've just looked and the 3.0si has blanking plates for the part you're talking about. The M has those those blanking plates attached to the vents. Andre in fact has cut some steel plates to replicate the oem part that I suspect neither he or I knew about (as it turned out these were the wrong size, but regardless I'd prefer to use a plastic oem part).
I'd be happy to take yours off your hands though I suspect if you wanted to do this mod you'd need them. Let me know, no big deal I'm sure from BMW new. Cheers
part 5 I presume?

 

[TomK]

That looks brilliant. I wonder if he’d be able to sell me just the heat shields and the couples for connecting the ducting to them. At the moment the ducting on mine simply ends in the wheel arch near the brakes without being quite well directed onto the disc.

Indeed he does just sell the funnel and backing plates on their own if you like I've pointed him in the direction of this thread so he can give some more detail.

Bare in mind the funnel and bumper vent use 3" diameter hose....

 

[TomK]

Amazing! Can I ask how much?

I wonder if I could make these fit my M3... as the only option is the hard Motorsport kit at £250!

Roughly $350for the full kit & shipping but andre can confirm.
No way will those backing plates fit an e46m3 though, very different strut/hub mounting. I don't think he does a 46 kit but I'm not sure...
There are a bunch of other 46 backing plates that are cheaper than the hard ones though I thought, made in the uk also which makes things easier?

 

[BMWZ4MC]

That looks brilliant. I wonder if he’d be able to sell me just the heat shields and the couples for connecting the ducting to them. At the moment the ducting on mine simply ends in the wheel arch near the brakes without being quite well directed onto the disc.

Indeed he does just sell the funnel and backing plates on their own if you like I've pointed him in the direction of this thread so he can give some more detail.

Bare in mind the funnel and bumper vent use 3" diameter hose....

I can’t remember the diameter of the hose I’ve used but I’m fairly sure it’s less than 3”. I’m sure I can modify it to work, it’s the disc heat shields that I’m most interested.

 

[Westersund]

Brilliant. Only a matter of time before someone printed some ducts like this. Well done that man.

I actually scanned my OEM ducts with the intent of doing the same thing, but I couldn’t get a high enough res model to directly modify, so am permanently stalled at the remodelling (re-topo’ing) stage.

Good to know that ducting can be routed inboard of the wheel arch - I was wondering about that. Means you can reinstall the lower blanking plates in the arch (do you want some, btw? I’m sure I have a pair somewhere).

Thanks! I've acctually removed the OE duct and made a prototype using that. Thanks for the info about the OE plastic covers in the wheel arches, had no idea they had these.

 

[Westersund]

Awesome work. Was looking up Exdos method from some time back about this and considering how to get it done but this would is a massive help. Hopefully he’ll have some more kits up soon, cheers for heads up Tom!

We're soon up to speed on Zpost (2 kits in queue still), I will for sure post a classifieds add here in a couple of days.

 

[Westersund]

That looks brilliant. I wonder if he’d be able to sell me just the heat shields and the couples for connecting the ducting to them. At the moment the ducting on mine simply ends in the wheel arch near the brakes without being quite well directed onto the disc.

I can for sure sell you only the backing plates and funnels. I have funnels in 2, 2.5 and 3" but can make them in any diameter you choose.

 

[Westersund]

Amazing! Can I ask how much?

I wonder if I could make these fit my M3... as the only option is the hard Motorsport kit at £250!

I usually deal in SEK as I'm from Sweden, so it's different depending which country you're from and what the exchange rate is. But roughly a full Z4 M kit is 325$, add 20$ for meshes for the ducts (protect from small rocks and debris getting into the hose) and add shipping. I can also sell the backing plate/funnels for 110$ or the front bumper ducts/fittings/block off plate for 215$.

I don't have a ready to sell backing plate for the E46 M3 but have been looking for one, I have a mock up design I believe isn't far off. I have a PDF I can send you if you'd like to see how it fits, as a thanks you'll get the backing plates for free but you'll have to pay for the funnels.

I can make ducts for the front bumper using pictures and a couple of measurements as well, I've done it in the past with an E36 M3. You'll get a kit for half the price as a thanks for the time put in. PM me your e-mail if you're interested.

 

[Westersund]

Also a big thanks to Tom for bringing this to my attention!