Hey everyone, I just thought I'd share with my fellow NAM members the details on my newest purchase. I had my 2003 MCS in the dealers hands to replace the front control arm bushings recently, and they noticed my brakes were very low. Only 2mm of pad left on the fronts, 3mm's on the rears. I thought they felt kind of weak lately!

Anyhow, I decided that a BBK, while attractive, was just a little too much money, and probably unneccesary for my application. I commute only a few miles per day, and autocross about once per month in my Mini, so I wanted a set-up that was a little more aggressive than stock, but affordable at the same time.

Soooo.... I ordered a set of the new TSW Rotors, Porterfield R4-S pads, Ireland Engineering SS brake lines, and a Tyrolsport brass bushing caliper stiffening kit. I'm still deciding on which fluid to use and I'd welcome any advice (with a reason if possible! ) for which way to go there. This will be my first time tackling a brake project, so it should prove interesting to say the least.

I'm also considering painting the calipers while I'm going through this process. If you can share some pictures of some caliper painting results, I'd love to see them. I only want to do it as long as it doesn't end up looking cheap and stupid... so I welcome some thoughts there from the crowd.

Everything should arrive by March 23rd, so I'll be sure to see what I can do about making this a full write-up with pictures kind of thing. I have 2 autocross events in April, so that should seal the deal on my final reviews.

 

Make sure you completely flush the brake system after installing the SS lines - Randy Webb did a great write-up of the process. I like to do it once, wait 10-15 minutes, and do it again.

Then, make sure you bed in the new pads and rotors... I like Stop-Tech's process, personally:

http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp_bedinstock.shtml

 

I just painted my calipers last weekend. The complete writeup is on my blog.
It's relatively easy, and (at least IMHO) the results look GREAT. Quenched my thirst for an expensive but cool-looking BBK for a while...

 

Thanks for the info guys! The calipers look GREAT Blimey! I think I will take the time to do them. Now the real question...what color??

 

For an EB MINI? Blue or Red I think...

 

Well, I finally have some good autocross' under my belt on the new brakes. I am VERY impressed with the TSW Rotors and Porterfield R4-S pads. I also installed the Ireland SS brake lines and painted the calipers red with the G2 caliper paint. The G2 is sticky to use, so wear rubber gloves. Prep was all important...we ended up using a wire wheel to scrub off all the brake dust. (Brake fluid just wasn't cutting it) Just remember brake fluid will eat the paint right off the calipers, so be careful!

The rotors warm up with about 2 stops just fine, they don't grab as hard cold... but they bite harder than stock when warm, and they dust FAR less than normal.

On course for autocross, they've worked very well... zero fade even at autocross school where we'd have 6-7 runs back to back.

My only complaint? There's a lot of salt air in Norfolk, and the rotors have a high carbon content, resulting in surface rust quickly. I'm going to treat the outside of the hub section with an anti rust coating soon.

 

I've got the TSW / Porterfield R4-S combo also. I've found that they do not have as much initial bite, and fade earlier than my previous Frozen Rotors cryo-treated non-slotted rotors and Hawk HPS combo I was using previously. I haven't faded the new combo to the point where it won't stop, but on one of the local tracks I used to be able to run a whole session with no real loss of brake performance, and now I geta lessening of brake performance before the end of the session. It's not terminal - I can stay out there and keep driving hard, but I need to adjust my brake points towards the end of the session when I didn't need to before.

 

Snid...are you running HPDE's? I was told by Jeff at TSW that for track use like that you'd definitely want the Porterfield R4 pads, not the R4-S's, which are more for street/autocross use. That said, I bet the R4 pads suck on the street.

 

Yup, I take my car to HPDE events. And the Hawk HPS aren't supposed to be used there, either. :D

I told TSW that I was using Hawk HPS, and asked if the R4-S would be as good / better. I was told they would. They're close, but I'm pretty sure the Hawk HPS were better for resisting fade.

I'm headed to a different track soon... the one I was at puts a ton of heat in the brakes really fast. The one I'm headed to is still hard on brakes, but nowhere near as hard as the one I was at previously. Perhaps the Porterfields will work better there. If not, I'm going back to the cheaper Hawks.

This all assumes that the brake rotor change doesn't play a major factor in things, of course. Silly me, changing two things at once - no way to tell which change is responsible for what.

 

Yeah, good point. You never can tell with these things. The cryo treated rotors really love the heat... I'm guessing that's definitely part of the equation. It's like cold rotors with cold pads...great on the track... street rotors with street/track pads... not so much. Good luck out there..be safe!

 

I have the Hawks also and noticed that they don't fade as quickly as some others did during my last track day.

 

I decided to also paint the middle of the rotor (the hat part I guess). As soft as the stock rotors are, I figure I'll be replacing them soon anyway, so if I don't like the red, I don't have to do it next time.

But it is growing on me.

YD