BBK & 224Ms - Heads-up on Fitment

Ed Doe

Ed Doe

Veteran
 Ashbourne or Frimley
Evening all,

I thought I's just pop up my recent experiences in the hope it may prevent anyone in the future from making an easy mistake...

I purchased the Brembo performance Caliper kit second hand from an E46 M3.

The bits I needed from the Kit I purchased included;

Both Calipers & OE spec Pads
Goodridge Braided brake lines
345mm CSL Brake Discs.

For those who are not aware, the E46 M3 Hub has different mounting bolts for the calipers to the 3.0si hubs. As a result I purchased Adapter kits from EPYTEC in Germany through Ebay (Link Here:http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222578959545 for those who are interested:

I then thought (foolishly as it turned out) that I had the components to make this a bolt-on modification.

I got a phonecall about 2 hours after I dropped the car off with the garage - the 224Ms don't clear the front face of the calipers, so spacers would be required.

A word of caution which will avoid a lot of delay - don't bother with 5mm spacers - 10mm Hubcentrics are needed - they do clear the brakes, and don't (as far as I can see at the minute) foul the wheel arches.


Anyway, enough witterings - TL:DR - Buy Hubcentric spacers and extended wheel bolts if you want to run 224M with the MPerformance Brembos and CSL discs! :lol: I did wonder why I couldn't find any photos of the same conversion on the internet - now I know :lol:

Photos (dunno why but the car is sitting higher than normal at the front in the second photo(!):
IMG_20170924_160850.jpg
IMG_20170924_160907.jpg
 
I’ve got similar problems to fix in my M, but trying to get some GT competition-spec Alcons to fit.

They’re not made for a Z4, and were never meant for a CSL disc, so there’s some fettling to be done.

With a bracket to clear the wheel by about 5mm, the calliper fouls the suspension when the wheel is turned. Adjust it so that it doesn’t will require about a 7mm wheel spacer. So it looks like a 10mm would be best as the 5mm ones tend not to be hubcentric.

Rough 'offering up' image, on old discs (not that old, just sat for a year)...
hKhCd9U.jpg
 
Looking good. :thumbsup:

Great upgrade for a non-M. Smaller piston area cancelled out by the bigger disc.

I have a 10mm spacer on my fronts, but that was to clear the springs. Luckily it’s enough to clear the calipers too... just!
 
Cheers Adam - thanks for your patience with all my questions haha!

And yes before RickRob chimes in - it does need a bloody good clean :rofl:
 
Mmm-five - I had that precise issue with non-hubcentric 5mm spacers - suffice to say it felt like I'd bought a sodding massage chair! :/

Mr Pt - I was more after the additional pad surface area which is significant, and the additional thermal capacity of the larger discs to try to mitigate some of the overheating on track
IMG-20170917-WA0006.jpeg
 
Hopefully some useful information there Ed. :thumbsup:

But now I've got caliper envy. :lol:
 
Ed Doe said:
A word of caution which will avoid a lot of delay - don't bother with 5mm spacers - 10mm Hubcentrics are needed - they do clear the brakes, and don't (as far as I can see at the minute) foul the wheel arches.
Click to expand...

Nice setup :wink: The pads are indeed huge, roughly twice the area of the stock pads.

About the spacers, if you have 'stock' z4 wheels (I have 107, but similar 108 etc) you dont need 10mm spacers up front but 15mm spacers.
That works out with the offset: 224's have 42mm offset, the 107/108/103 have 47mm offset, so 5mm more (and thus need 5mm extra).
So the thickness of spacers needed is very much dependant on what offset the wheels have, and a little bit on the shape of the wheelspokes, but most bmw wheels are in the same ballpark on that feature.

Running these spacers with lowering springs (eibach pro) can cause some rubbing on a tiny diamondshape protrusion in the inner wheel arch plastic liners (near the lights). Probably when steering and bottoming out (I discovered that after a vacation of alpine mountain pass driving).
it'll shave off a tiny part of that diamond shaped protrusion in the plastic liner creating a tiny hole in it.
 
They look great Ed, was worth it in the end.

I'd be interested to see how you find them on track too :thumbsup:
 
They look the balls! Great colour!

Out of interest what sort of money was this in total? Would certainly make the M look much more potent :thumbsup:
 
tomscott said:
They look the balls! Great colour!

Out of interest what sort of money was this in total? Would certainly make the M look much more potent :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

I was looking into costs recently and apart from the difficulty in finding the calipers and brackets it is quite pricey.
last set sold on ebay, links below, was around £1200. Last pair of calipers sold was £460, obvisouly to add to calipers you need brackets, discs and pads but they use the standard M discs so you might not need to buy more depending on the age of your current discs.

I decided to just stick with stock since i dont track my car anyway but unless you can find a good deal on the BMW performance I would probably go with Ksport or similar for about the same money.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-3-SER...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/bmw-Bremb...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

https://www.dcperformance.co.uk/cheap/649551/BMW/k-sport-front-big-brake-kit/bm17-3-356x32.html
 
@ Guido, yep – I recall discussing with you whether to get these or lsd in Dec 2016 – I coulnd't resist so finally got them! :D
So with the 224Ms I was able (and did) run 5mm spacers for approx 250miles. They were not hubcentric though, so I had the most horrid 250miles of driving at 50mph or below to avoid the shake from the wheels being offcentre. It was embarrassing and something I'd be keen to never do again :lol:

You are right about the rubbing, I'm getting a tiny bit under hard braking or over bumps, but to be honest it'll slowly wear a small hole in the liners and then stop so I'm not really fussed!

@ Ash – in the few hundred miles I've done since putting them on right with the hubcentrics, I'm seriously impressed even with the stock pads. The braking performance is proper! :D I think the OE pads would give up on track after sustained hard use but I have hose brand new DS2500s which should be more than enough for the odd trackday and still be sensible for the road. You're more than welcome to drive mine at some point and see how they feel ;)

@ Tomscott – thanks – The gold was originally my solution to sorting out the dreadful rusty corroded oe calipers, and not wanting to go either too 'loud' or just silver as it'd look a bit bland on the car. I'm sure it's a bit marmite, but I think the gold looks spot on myself :D

Price wise – I got the CSL discs, pads, calipers, & goodridge hoses mounted to a set of E46 M3 hubs all in for £850 collected. I sold the hubs and adapters for £135, and then bought new adapters suitable for the Si hubs for £145.

I had them painted for £100 cash, and then bought spacers and bolts at ~£35ish.

So Ignoring my utter fail at taking it to a garage rather than to a knowledgeable mate (who managed to get them fitted right in about an hour with 10mm spacers), the whole thing SHOULD have cost £995. Which I guess isn't too bad, considering the performance I get from them

I have obviously bought the ds2500 pads now too which is another ~£190, and will eventually need to do the discs at £320ish but they don't count :lol:

I spose K-Sports do look pretty good value by comparison, but I do like that they're sortof OEM-ish. It's a bit tarty, but I like that :lol:

@ Adam1985 – I totally agree with your last sentence – I would not have bothered at all, but for the fact I indend to do quite a few more trackdays, and the brakes were letting me down last time out at Goodwood so it was time I looked into a solution, and these came up at what was initially an attractively low price, so I man-maths-ed my way into buying them and now I'm fully invested haha

@Beedub – Yeah, I was idly thinking of doing the 135i rears too, but need to do a bit more research first. I know it's been done by some of the German Zedders, and they have to get past TUV certification so it must be a fairly well engineered solution. One for the future; I want to see how the car behaves on track as it is now first! If I don't have to upgrade the rears, I'm happy to leave them alone!
 
mmm-five said:
I’ve got similar problems to fix in my M, but trying to get some GT competition-spec Alcons to fit.

They’re not made for a Z4, and were never meant for a CSL disc, so there’s some fettling to be done.

With a bracket to clear the wheel by about 5mm, the calliper fouls the suspension when the wheel is turned. Adjust it so that it doesn’t will require about a 7mm wheel spacer. So it looks like a 10mm would be best as the 5mm ones tend not to be hubcentric.

Rough 'offering up' image, on old discs (not that old, just sat for a year)...
hKhCd9U.jpg
Click to expand...

I found that the M3 CSL Alcon BBK doesn't fit the Z4M due to the disc fouling the track rod end. Shame Alcon didn't make a kit for the Zed.

OP - glad you made it fit :thumbsup:
 
BMWZ4MC said:
I found that the M3 CSL Alcon BBK doesn't fit the Z4M due to the disc fouling the track rod end. Shame Alcon didn't make a kit for the Zed.

OP - glad you made it fit :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
We’re still fettling, but they’re not from an M3 kit, they’re from a Ferrari GT3 car :thumbsup:

I think part of the fettling/spacer is probably to do with track rod or front Eibach ARB.

I’ll find out properly when I’m get to see the car on Saturday (at an open day at the South West Lotus Centre in Lifton, Devon).

I’m looking forward to finally getting a fully fixed car back after my accident and bodged repairs by the local bodyshop.

I've created a new thread (linked above) instead of messing up this one.
 
That's a fairly impressive donor car for a mere ///M :P
Whilst it would have been a shame for your car to have been written off, I can't help feeling that would have been an easier route.
I've had a couple of cars with bodged repairs from body shops recommended by insurance companies. One company crashed my car in their yard smashing the rear light and then claimed I had brought it in with that damage in addition to the damage being repaired in the claim. The same company also left the back box hanging off such that the exhausts were pointing 20 degrees downwards...
 
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