Well, I don't know what everyone else thinks but I LOVE my new ORANGE calipers!

We upgraded the brake system to a BBK and decided to go with one of the Wilwood kits offered by Todd at TCE. I had a really tough time deciding what color calipers to go with. We considered black, red, blue, and orange among other colors. After a lot of thought and discussion, I decided to take the plunge and go with ORANGE!

I wanted something that would stand out a lot but wasn't really crazy about red. I'm really glad I went with orange!

Not only do I love the way these brakes look but they also stop on a dime! They stop MUCH better than the factory brakes.

Now for the BLUE part - Lyle has done it AGAIN! Today, my custom emblems arrived from Vinyl Styles. I can NOT say enough good things about this guy and the quality of his products! Lyle showed me some custom Mini emblems he had made for another customer and I wanted the same thing. He sent me some various vinyl samples of different shades of blue so that I could match it exactly to the Laser Blue color. There were a couple of very close options and after some consideration, we picked the one that we thought matched Laser Blue the closest and mailed the samples back to Lyle

Let me just say, this Laser Blue vinyl matches the body color pretty much RIGHT ON! The emblems that Lyle did for me are just SICK looking and I absolutely LOVE them!

THANKS AGAIN LYLE!

P.S. As you can see in the photos, I'm waiting for the lower piece of my grill surround to come in from Lyle. The Hypersport body kit has a different bottom grill surround than the regular Minis and the JCW Aero kit so I had to mail mine in to Lyle to be wrapped. However, we've since then figured out the part number for that bottom piece so for any of you out there with the Hypersport body kit that want black or body colored grill surrounds, Lyle can do it for you!

Here are some photos of the brakes:














And some photos of the emblems:










Thanks,
Celia

 

Looks great! I really like the calipers with your blue (besides I am a Broncos fan: Go Broncos!).

 

wow!! that is hot!! orange and blue do look good together, specially like this!! Im no expert on brakes but it looks like you could have used a bigger caliper to fully utilize the rotor... or i guess that may upset the brake torque bias. Anyway, how much did it cost for those suckers? your ride looks sooo sweet! I just realized it matches that corner marker! haha, maybe you dont have to black that piece out.

Side note, you could get the real CF side marker emblem thingy which is up for group buy made by AC. AC also has cf headlight rings, door handles, and gas cap... REAL CF!!

 

I have to say that I like the look of your Orange BBK calipers better than any I have seen so far... on your blue car, they are perfect. Nice choice.

 

Hello Celia of the Seals,

Looks great. I recall the agony of the decision. Glad it worked out so well. I still think the orange stripe would look good.

 

I love your car.

I wont if you do the orange stripe. :p

 

Did you remove and send the Mini emblems to his to cover with the vinyl or did he send the vinyl and you removed/applied the blue to them. The car looks awesome, I love the wheels especially. The calipers look excellent as well.

 

Wow! Very Nice.

 

Thanks for the compliments and kind words everyone!


I don't know about bigger calipers but I did opt for the TCE Wilwood kit which came with TCE 13" rotors instead of the standard 12" Wilwood rotors. I would have gone with the 14" rotors but that would have put me way over budget on how much I wanted to spend on this project. I got the Plus 3 front kit and the Plus 1 rear kit which added up to a little over $2,000 with the colored calipers and drilled rotors.

As for the CF side markers, I actually already have those on order. I like the side markers I have right now but the CF pattern doesn't match my real JCW CF exactly so it does look a little off. I have the side markers, the door handles and the gas cap on order with AC. I'm going to keep my blakc headlight and tail light rings because I like the way they look a lot. I don't want to have too much CF overload anyways


I'm probably going to remain stripe-less for a while. While my car was being built, I was thinking I really wanted the sport stripes. However, once it arrived at the dealership and I got to look at it, the more I looked, the more I liked the stripe-less factor. One day I may get tired of no stripes and add some but right now I'm really happy with it


I actually didn't have to remove my emblems until the custom ones came in. I paid Lyle a core fee so I'm going to send him my regular chrome emblems now and so long as they are returned within the set period of time, Lyle will refund you the core fee. It's a GREAT system that he's got going on! This way, you don't need to go without your pieces while they are being wrapped! Lyle did all the wrapping on the emblems and when they arrived, all I had to do was peel and stick them!

Thanks,
Celia

 

looks fantastic! congrats on the car...

 

Looks great!

 

you're making the hypersport kit look GOOD
nice job

how about the part number for the hypersport front grill pieces so we can use it for future reference plz

 

Holy crap, that is hawt, but 2 grand on brakes??? YIKES!!!

 

Hottness to the extreme!!! Would love to know how those brakes stop, especially since I find the factory ones to be quite strong.

Highly considering the CF hood scoop and boot handle now. Wanna see them on a PW first though to make sure they look as good as they do on your blue.

 

Looks really good!

 

Thanks guys!


I'll check on the part number when I get my grill surround back next week and post it for you then!


It is a lot of money but I think it's definitely well worth it! I actually got off light because if I had gotten the kits that I REALLY wanted - the Plus 5 front kit with the 14" rotors and the Plus 2 rear kit with the Wilwood parking brake calipers in orange to match the fonts, then we would have been looking at a total of over $3,000!

I can always add the Wilwood parking brake calipers in matching orange to the rears later on...hmm...maybe a birthday present or something...


These brakes not only look good but stop GREAT! I totally agree with you - the factory ones are very good and pretty strong. That was my husband's main argument for not upgrading the brakes since the factory brakes were already very good! However, I really wanted that BBK look and finally convinced him to let me get them.

Well the stopping power is AMAZING now! With the factory brakes if I came to a hard stop from around 60 mph to 0 mph, they did a good job of stopping the car. However, after the one hard brake they would be really hot. With the Wilwood kit, we went from 50 or 60 mph to 0 mph about 10 times in a row (when we first bed the new pads/rotors in) and they not only stopped great every time but there was no excessive heat. The rotors/pads weren't hot like the factory brakes were after a single hard brake.

As for the CF hood scoop and boot handle, I'm sure someone with a PW has them and I bet they look awesome! I think you should definitely get them!!

 

Gorgeous colour choice, and beautiful MINI!

 

Love it...really love the direction you're going with your MINI, very cool.

 

Definitely like the Orange!

 

haha, nice. theres no such thing as too much CF!! your car is so nice looking though. only thing i could really suggest is maybe some window tint to really get that blackout look. do you have a straight on side shot with the brakes? it looks soooo good i may have to eventually go for them, in the same color if you dont mind me copying you!

 

You have a good eye for customization. The car looks very clean. If there's one thing I can't stand is when someone drags their car through a JCWhitney catalog!

I dig the orange calipers. Nice work!

 

I don't think you realize how large the caliper is now. How about a larger hat to make the rotor to hat relationship looks smaller? The hat fits this caliper combo on 11.75, 12.2 and 13" diameters. We may move to some alternative parts in the future to target the more common 13 and 14" rotor market today.

 

I'm going to be a negative Nancy here and totally disagree. The rotors are obviously mis-matched to the caliper size.... way to big of a rotor. It doesn't look right. And, the more they wear, the more obvious the size difference will appear.

This may just be my mind set from my previous car, but if it doesn't add performance then it's just decoration. I'd like to see some numbers (stopping distance, Rotor Temp, Fluid Temp) on how much better these brakes stop as compared to the stock system. With the MINI being so light from the get go, I doubt that your upgrade has added any performance braking capability. With 11.6 inch disks up front, and 10.2 inch disks in the rear, the stock system has ample stopping power for a 2700lb car. With those huge rotors, you're only inviting the ABS system to activate sooner than normal. You may have even added weight with those large rotors... and increased your stopping distances.

IMO, if you wanted better stopping ability, a fluid chage to ATE SuperBlue or Motul 600 combined with a different pad and stickier tire would do the trick. Honestly I have no idea if there are pad choices for our MINI's... but that would be the way to go. Fade (if any) would be reduced while on track. For every day street driving... no rotor and caliper upgrade is needed.

So, I think you wasted 2k on decorations for your MINI.

*BUT* - All that matters is that you're happy with your choice! Enjoy your MINI! It is a head turner and attention getter for sure!

 

I'm not sure how you can get so much information from simply looking at a picture.

"I'm sorry" to all the rest of my customer base the past few years. You've obviously been totally mislead by my shady business practices of selling you decorations. I'm sure all the other retailers of similar product will fess up soon too.

 

toddtec - Some cars need more braking power. Others don't. Larger 4-pot calipers and rotors can be greatly beneficial on vehicles that are in need of better braking ability. As an outstanding business owner I'm sure you know that.

If a customer wants the look of a BBK, then cool, let 'em do it. To make the look 'look' better, I would have either sized the rotor down a bit, or paired it with a larger caliper. To me, it just looks odd with the mis-matched rotor and caliper.

As for the performance aspects, I'm skeptical. Sorry dude, I just want to see tested results before a claim of shorter stopping distances are made. And, IMO, if someome wants shorter stopping distances there are other less expensive routes to take. But if a customer wants looks, then by all means... give them what they want!

Wilwood makes great calipers and rotors. I had a Wilwod system on my Atom. Fantastic system. There is no doubt about it, they are high quality pieces. And, the BP-10 pad used on the system above is a nice street pad. Good even friction over a wide range of temps. There are more agressive pads that work better at a higher temp, but of course you'd sacrifice rotor wear and dust. I used the Wilwood BP-20 pad for road racing the Atom, and they really needed to heat up before maximum braking force was achieved.

What I'm getting at, is throwing on the largest set of rotors you can find is not good solution for achieving maximum stopping power. The type of driving, vehicle weight ratio (F/R), brake bias, pad compound and tires all play a key part in braking.

Really, all this doesn't matter... as wetceal said in the 'Mini Story' link that there will be no racing done in her MINI. She wanted aesthetics. And, to improve the aesthetics I would have matched the rotor and caliper differently.

*Edit* Todd, thanks for being a NASA sponsor. We appreicate your support.