After months of preparation, the time had come to embark on the installation of the next round of mods I’d accumulated. The first order of business was to get the car in the air. With the lowered stance, even with a low-profile jack, getting the car up in the air is a time consuming affair. I can only imagine that when the new aero parts are bolted into place that this will only become more challenging.
Wheels off to expose the before picture of the stock brake system.
Now, time to unpack all these parts I’ve accumulated.
As recommended by a fellow forum member, I decided to give the non-friction part of the rear rotors a blast of high-temp black paint to match the 2-piece look of the fronts. Prepared them with a little tape, three coats of paint and voila! I also gave the dust shields and caliper brackets a fresh coat of high temp black.
The old hardware came off without too much fuss, thanks to a few YouTube videos for clarification. Old sensors, pads, and rotors were tossed – calipers were packed up and shipped out for powder coasting and rebuilding. Then I went ahead and connected the new sensors, mounted the rotors and positioned the ECS stainless lines. Visually, I’m very impressed. The new calipers should really make everything pop.
Next on the agenda was to begin the process of the water pump replacement. This was taken after removing the air ducting. The red circle encompasses a hard plastic hose that gave out on my 535i at 150,000 miles. This line became brittle and eventually cracked, spewing coolant all over the engine bay. To avoid future problems and a mess to clean up, I’ll be locating a more robust solution while the coolant has been drained.
Radiator fan out. Surprisingly easy, although I’d already done it when installing the front MMP inlet.
And some glory shots of said MMP inlets (I’ve also added this to my original post). As you can see, my tangerine tinted BMS filters haven’t held up to the test of time. Oh well—they sure looked good when they were new! Perhaps a black filter would look better.
The water pump replacement job got messy quickly, so pictures were minimal during removal. The Bavarian Autosport video on YouTube was very helpful for reference. Some of the clearances were very tight, but with some patience and the right tools, I was able to remove the old hardware and drain the majority of the coolant.
I’ll be saving installation of the new water pump components, as well as the rest of the mods, over the next few weeks so stay tuned.