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03-17-2012, 04:50 PM | #1 |
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F30 Retrofit Brake Cooling Backing plates / OEM style !!
Hi all,
There have been lots of debate and issues and failures etc as far as the lack of Front Brake caliper / Pad cooling espically if the car is a weekend warrior at the track. theses are some related threads: http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=658932 http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=577979 http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=527501 basically the factory backing plates are so backset into the wheels that they allow no direct air flow in to the center of the rotor and out the edges ( that is how rotors are cooled by the way, from the center out ) To add insult to injury the 135 / BMW Perf. BBK Calipers that we all love the looks of have a week spot that many have found, the ceramic pistons and seals. Add to this , Track / racing pads and 50 laps one weekeend at your local track and you end up with a very expensive fix, not to mention brake part failures. 1 simple fix that some have tried to varying success is simply bending the backing plate over to help direct air to the center of the rotor, this works to some degree, but i feel there is no true focus of the incoming air to be directed towards the rotor center. It does seem to work as i have done this myself with no bad outcome. Another Member, Pixelblue, even went so far as cutting the backing plate to even get a larger volume of airr toward the center, and It seems to work for him. You do have to live with the cut plates, and may be an issue with Leased cars, but no worries as the plates cost all of 25-30 bucks to replace. I even went so far as design and actually make backing plates with "scoops" in them to basically do what the 2 above ideas do, but direct the air better hence better cooling as airflow is the only thing we have. see pic below, and in links that i copied above ) Then 1 Member saw a pic of the new F30, and guess what..... They have backing plates with BIG SCOOPS stamped right into them !!!! Wooo Hoooo. So, I order a set to try out.. I realize theses plates are for an F30 3er but i suspected that our spindels were somewhat similar. I guessed correctly !! they are near exact, sans a few modificats that require a tin snip and a drill bit. theses are the 2 part numbers i ordered: PROTECTION PLATE LEFT 34116792237 PROTECTION PLATE RIGHT 34116792238 These new plates have about a 2.5 / 3 inch scoop in them that stick past the edge of the wheel so it draws in cooler air and jams it toward the center of the rotor. This is our stock plate that are trapped in our wheels ( mind you theses are my OEM 17's Big difference with the F30 plates installed OEM plate installed F30 OEM plate installed Both plates side by side F30 on the left fittment no problem on OEM 17's The installed shield My original "Cool Brake Plate" from may of last year The F30 Plate installed on an F30 The little bit i trimmed from the upper right corner Minor modification ( drill new 5/16th mounting hole ) The installation was relatively easy: Remove Rotor Remove e82 backing plate ( 4 10mm bolts ) Temp install F30 plate Mark new hole using crayon to transfer marking to back of plate) Use tin snip to cut of about 1 inch of upper right hand corner of plate to clear bracket ( discard one of the 4 bolts that backing plate attached with, as it can no longer be used, and actually makes thing easier) reinstall all componets and turn wheel lock to lock to make final tweek to plate to make sure it clears control arms. I only have a left side, as the right side has not come in yet.. im sure BMW was suprised when i orderd a part for a car that barely hit the road. i suspect ity will be here in a few days. Now i know it may not seem that the scoop is large, but im tellyou the that fact that it directs the incoming air to that area, has got to be beneficial... AND BMW did it for the f30's so i guess they saw my old post LOL ... I know some guys have recently toasted some brand new rotors and pads ( sorry to see that guys, really) and they may go to "ducting" and brake hoses and the such, But Personally i cant see driving around all the time in my DD and have to deal with those hoses / ducts / etc etc .. They are fine for a dedicated track car, but most of us dont have that luxury. I have my first event on 4/14 at lime rock, so ill update with temps and such after that. I have high hopes for this Mod and it cost all of 50-60 bucks retail, and your car looks stock, no need to take off at lease return etc etc etc etc feel free to ask any questions as i will respond quickly. rEGARDS !!
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Last edited by DriveHard; 03-19-2012 at 06:04 PM.. |
03-17-2012, 05:10 PM | #2 |
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Sent an parts order request to my dealer to order for me. Let's see what they say. Nice work! I've got a few track events coming up soon and I don't feel like destroying my brakes. I may mod them temporarily until these come in.
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03-17-2012, 05:22 PM | #3 |
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Alex,
that looks great! thanks for trying this. I may give this a try before going the duct way. there won't be as much air as a directed hose but like you said very oem look and I am sure they help keep those rotors a bit cooler
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03-17-2012, 05:57 PM | #4 |
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Great job DriveHard. Are you sure BMW didnt steal your idea?
Where did you order it from? I was trying to order from getBMWparts and got no part found. |
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03-17-2012, 06:09 PM | #5 | |
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Quote:
They are a brand new part, when i ordered them there were none in the states..154 lefts and no rights were on there way.. i got one of the lefts and am waiting for the right.. I would suspect that the new part hasn't been added to there web site.. I sent you a PM... P.S.. on my spirited drive home, but obviously no heavy heavy braking , the rotor hub temp on the left side with the plate was about 15 degrees less...ill have better data when i get my new front pads for the season and bed them in on my favorite empty parkway
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03-17-2012, 09:35 PM | #6 |
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Prototype Dealer-Friendly Duct System
Great job looking into this! I am working on a ducking system right now that will be fully removable to keep the guys at the dealer off my back. I am planning on making a brake rotor backing plate out of 16 gauge steel that will only cover the top section of the rotor (will use only the top two bolt holes) as I do not think it is necessary to cover the entire rotor(I tape all exposed rubber parts near rotor in heat tape just to be safe). I am going to run ducting from the backing plate down to one of the lower arms attached to an intake duct(I think that is what you call it). I found an intake duct that is very low profile, about 2" tall, but is about 6" wide and forces air to a single 2.5" hole in the top. I have already run the ducting itself and it clears everything just fine as long as you don't turn the steering wheel more than 1.25 rotations which you should never have to do at a track anyway and can easily prevent when driving to and from the track. The ducts are not cheap, about 75$ each, but I think they might be just what I was looking for. I will start a new thread once I complete the system but it might be a month or two though (sorry, the tracking hobby is expensive and someone has to pay for it, hence I work lot!). If anyone has tried this or has any input please let me know!
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03-18-2012, 07:06 AM | #7 |
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This is one of the best threads I've run into. At the last HPDE, the instructor noted that I need to get some brake ducts. Well, thanks to you, I think I've found myself a set and a lot cheaper than the carbon fiber ones that bimmerworld sells!
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03-18-2012, 01:03 PM | #8 |
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Great thing I bumped into this thread. I am going to go to the dealers over here and see if they have them. This is a awesome upgrade.
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03-18-2012, 04:17 PM | #9 |
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Yep, I'm going to do the same, after subtracting VAT they are probably about the same price as stateside. So for around $50 bucks and some time this should be a great little upgrade. I'm looking forward to seeing how the results turn out. It would be sweet to see some side by side comparison numbers.
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03-19-2012, 06:08 PM | #10 |
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I re-edited the original pics as they were annoyingly large ( sorry about that)
and i added 2 more. Ive gotten a few PMs about theses, and thats great.. Am happy to help the community. Im ordering new pads for the season, and once i get them i will bed them in and see what temps i get .
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03-19-2012, 08:00 PM | #11 |
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This is really interesting. Good job! They look like they will be effective at cooling the brakes down a bit. Now you just need to test out their effectiveness with a temperature reading with one side running the OEM setup and the other side running your setup using the F30 backing plates. They look as if they may not be as effective on cars running wider than factory wheel setups because the fin won't poke out enough to grab the incoming air, but I still think it would be better than stock. I look forward to hearing back on how much of a difference they make. Either way, great job innovating. This is the reason forums thrive.
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03-20-2012, 07:45 AM | #12 |
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I don't see how this would be much more effective over the bending/cutting of the stock shields....
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03-20-2012, 07:49 AM | #13 |
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Chris, I don't think this necessarily is better but just more oe look about it. my main concern is if the scoop will clear the wider wheels and tires in front otherwise a great idea
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03-20-2012, 09:27 AM | #14 |
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03-20-2012, 12:57 PM | #15 | |
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Quote:
Rotors are cooled by air entering at the center, and escaping thru the outside edge. There is ofcourse cooling from just passing thru the air, but that may be considered aux cooling. Bending / cutting the plate to expose the back of the rotor more may increase air flow over the rotor and have some gains, but there is no direction to that new air, its not forced into the center hub of the rotor. The new plate creates an actual duct that directs air that it catches directly to the center of the rotor. Dont get me wrong, i had success with bent plates, or should i say that i never overheated my brake pads / rotors... but any amount of added brake cooling has got to be a good thing. just my .02
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04-05-2012, 12:39 AM | #16 |
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I thought we already had oem ducts going from the front bumper to the inner front wheel arch? just trying to clarify the piece around "no direction in air flow into the center of rotor"
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04-05-2012, 06:30 AM | #17 |
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There are duct that help put more air into the wheel well, however, the factory splash shields block all that airflow from reaching the inner part of the rotor to really cool things off. This further becomes more difficult when you add wider wheels/tires which block more of that airflow in.
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04-05-2012, 09:15 AM | #18 | |
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The duct you speak of, basically channels air from the front bumper into the wheel well directly into the face of the spinning tire. The key to any type of Brake duct / scoop / flap / is to channel incoming air into the center of the rotor to maximize cooling thru the rotor ( and also cool the bearing as a added benefit) hope that helps... BTW i still havent gotten the right side backing plate. its still on back order hopefully i get it by next friday as i have an event on saturday !!
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04-05-2012, 03:22 PM | #19 | |
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I got both of them finally and will be installing them this weekend. If you don't mind I can upload the pics as I go through the install and finalization. One side took 2 weeks to come in.
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04-05-2012, 05:16 PM | #21 |
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armyav8tor, have you tried this on your M3 yet? The 1M backing plates are shared with the M3 but they are different from the non-M 1ers. Has anyone confirmed if a 1M or M3 will accept the F30 plates as easily as the non-M 1ers will?
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04-05-2012, 05:43 PM | #22 |
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No, have not tried it out yet.
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