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Anonymous
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Tres sexy and replied on other post u made
VagBremTechnic Big Brake Kit for E85/E86 Z4 'M' models
- Thread starter nfbr
- Start date
Nice work! You've done a fantastic job of re-finishing them 
Glad you're happy with the kit, Myself and Mike from Vagbremtechnic spent many evenings doing the calculations, measurements and 3d Drawings for these. Was a good fun project to be involved with.
Also interested to know what pad choice you went for!
Glad you're happy with the kit, Myself and Mike from Vagbremtechnic spent many evenings doing the calculations, measurements and 3d Drawings for these. Was a good fun project to be involved with.
Also interested to know what pad choice you went for!
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Anonymous
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Think said pagid
nfbr said:Yep, Just re-read it
The pedal feel will get progressively better as the pads bed in.
We used pagid OEM pads on the M3 that we developed the kit on and they were actually relatively impressive for a stock compound.
It was just to try and get the same µ as the rears so as to not upset the balance for now, but yeah, they seem pretty good for the money.
It is really hard to tell how much difference the pads have made when the calipers themselves have also changed. I wanted to eliminate some of the over-servoed feel of the stock setup and they definitely do that. I'm hoping that some of the initial bite at the top of the pedal doesn't come back too much as the pads bed in, because I like how they feel at the moment!
Long-term plan is to switch to rear multi-pots as well, potentially hot-swapping the pads for track use. At the moment this feels like a good setup for "enthusiastic" road usage.
One thing I forgot to do was weigh the calipers. They are much lighter than stock - do you have any idea of the weight saving? It's all unsprung mass so should be a nice side benefit of the upgrade.
hopz121 said:
I asked the same thing and got a similar response from VBT. Thing is, it's already a sub-£800 upgrade if you don't need new discs and are competent with a rattle can, which is less than half the price of a "proper" front BBK and 1/4 the price of Brembo's own 6-pot upgrade. The calipers aren't that common on eBay but Astonmartinbits.com (for example) usually have a few in stock in various conditions.
The other affordable alternative is the Performance BMW 6-pot, but you're at looking a big reduction in piston area (14%) and they aren't as cheap as they used to be. The popular Porsche Boxster S / 996 option doesn't work so well for us because the Z4M has the CSL's 46mm rear piston. If you fit front and rear Porsche Brembos it's a significant loss of clamping force (20% less piston area per corner), and if you fit just the rear with the PBMW front caliper (as some M3 users have done), it's going to send the brake bias rearwards and you're then into the world of different front/rear pads and bias valves. On the E46 M3 the Porsche upgrade works fine because the rear piston is 42mm, which means you can upgrade from standard to CSL front rotors to even things out.
Now I'm probably getting into a whole bunch of theoretical crap that I'll never have the balls or skills to explore on track, but I like the idea that this VBT kit is performance-oriented and a bit of thought has gone into the caliper selection.
Vanne said:Lol, this is probably the best response I've read in regards to BBK's for our cars. Everything in less than 300 words. Great info just right here.
Hah, cheers. Close, but no cigar though - PBMW front caliper with 996 rears will send the brake bias forwards on the Z4M/CSL. Not by a huge amount (plus the stock setup is quite aggressive), so this configuration will probably leave you in an ok place, balance-wise.
What has really surprised me, having trawled through all this brake info, is just how substantial the stock brakes are. Additional cooling (like [ref]exdos[/ref] has rigged up) and uprated pads are clearly a great way to go, albeit one that doesn't tick the box aesthetically or reduce unsprung mass.
When are we going to see pics of your new brakes, btw?
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Anonymous
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Sounds good
But as I don't track nor intend to track mine
It's happy to rip my face off at mo haha
Oe brakes are great as are
Just look crap
But as I don't track nor intend to track mine
It's happy to rip my face off at mo haha
Oe brakes are great as are
Just look crap
D4dawg said:
You'll be fine. Your brakes are cleaner than most people's windscreens.
I think a lot of people (myself included) like to be able to really stand on the brakes when out for a drive, and it's probably only in those kinds of situations (maybe on a frosty winter's morning!) that you'd find out that your rear brakes are a little keen and suddenly you're balls deep in the wrong kind of bush.