Gen1 & 2 Big Brakes, Wilwood or Chevy Brembos
 

7/9/18 NOTE: This thread started out with a possible Wilwood brake modification but as I continued to do research I came upon a Brembo caliper that a 2008-2010 Chevy SS Cobalt used. The Cobalt route is what I chose to pursue and the later postings deal with the matter Neither of these options are "Plug & Play" as the Wilwood option required brackets to be fabricated and the Cobalt Brembo option requires that about 1/16" of the knuckle/spindle/carrier be filed out as the existing MINI caliper has a 4 3/4" bolt spacing but the Cobalt Brembo has a 4 7/8" center.

8/8/18 NOTE: I am not the owner of this forum and like the other Moderators here, merely a volunteer that does not get paid. So do not be concerned on hurting my feelings if you think I am crazy, stupid, or both with what I have done here,

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Now there may be an old post on the matter but I have never found anything. To start, the Gen1 JCW uses a 294mm front rotor and the R56 front caliper that has a 54mm piston (about 3 1/2" of area). Next, Wilwood has several different kits for the Gen1 with the least expensive being a rotor just a little bit larger than the 294's but whereas the JCW has a thickness of .86", the Wilwood is .81". A big cost of any Wilwood kit are the brackets that adapt their caliper to the MINI hub assembly.

I am retired so lots of time to research things. I was reading some Miata postings and noted where a guy had bought a Wilwood caliper and made his own bracket to mount them. The selection of Wilwoods that fit the .86" JCW rotor are not that great and it appears that many of the kits utilize a 1" rotor spec. When you go with a 1" rotor selection the options become pretty good.

I got thinking about making my own bracket, something that is not that difficult if you use a "lug" mount configuration similar to what I saw on the Miata Forum. With this in mind and looking for something with a bigger brake pad either the 120-13551 or the 120-15254 appear to work. Both are Dynalite types with the 15254 being the least expensive. The 13845 has lug centers of 5 1/4" and the 15254 has 3 1/2". Both have total piston areas of about 4.8 square inches, a 36% increase from the JCW/R56 caliper.

There are a large selection of pads with the BP-20s being in the $70 range, the calipers are around $130 and the lines approximately $65.

Anybody ever gone this type of route?

Just waiting for someone (you....!) to take the plunge so we can all benefit......lol

I need to determine what works easier, the 3 1/2" lug centers or the 5 1/4. I am replacing a wheel speed sensor so will have things apart. It should be noted that even though this increases the pad values by 36% I have no way of knowing whether using a different compound on a R56 pad will provide more stopping power with the smaller pad size.

Just as women like shoes, we guys like bigger brakes even though the r56s with a 294 rotor provides enough force for just about anything a racer "wannabe" can get into. In NC we have some great roads with good elevation changes and nothing will test a brake like a 700 vertical drop descent with a bunch of twisties. Not the wear of a track but can build up some good heat will speeds all below the double nickel.

Going to ask the Motoring Alliance crowd this same question.

Is it like North Korea asking US what nuke to get? :lol:

You should ask MotoringUnderground too while you are at it. :grin:

MA has a allot more current posts than MU. MA uses a different forum platform and the search function is much better than here. You need to find something here it is easier to use a Google Web search that the majority of the time brings you back here.

I took a bunch of measurements and it does appear it would work with no issues on my 17" wheels and depending on your type of rims perhaps with a 16". The caliper is about the same length as the JCW/r56 (just over 7") and is just a little bit wider based upon the approximate 1.75 inches from the outside edge of the rotor to the outside edge of the caliper. The Wilwoods are not as tall as the JCW/r56s and therefore the JCW/r56s have a bigger pad at approximately 8 square inches vs the Wilwood of 6.36 square inches.

We might get lucky and have a brake/auto engineer that could explain some of the finer details here as it appears we have over 36% more clamping power but the pad is about 25% smaller.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.nor...470febe247.jpg

:roll:Unless I am a seasoned machinist with a shop or ME, I would not want to try fabricating my own bracket. There is a lot more than what meets the eyes. A wrong choice of fastener can make for a very bad day on the track. I will just pay $950 for the Wilwood kit and done with it. The width of the caliper is designed to barely accommodate the intended rotor width of the kit and you cannot even add one thin shim to it with a set a new pads.

In full disclosure, I struggled for 30 minutes and cannot get the oil filter cup back onto the filter housing for the fear of cross-threading it. Fokking Mini :roll: - sometimes I seat back and think to myself ... :roll::mad:

Just click the arrow to the left of the search box and select Google.

I typically find with most forums or vendors, I can find it faster if I just search with google from outside by adding the site entity. Amazon typically is quite good to search intra-site. NAM's search ain't bad but even advance search is not that advanced.

The Google search you can do from NAM is not the same as if you do a search from Chrome. I don't know why but it is not. We have had discussions on this with IB.

On the brake brackets, if I am not mistaken the Wilwood brackets are aluminum so if one used steel with high strength bolts I just do not see an issue.

save the headache............so much better
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-for-mini.html

Some cook with gas, some with wood while others just eat it raw. This thread is for those somewhere between the last two . . . . . .

Going to relocate this thread to the Tires, Wheels and Brake area as getting into areas where other generation members may have some good input.

Would think there are formulas where all this could be calculated. I recognize that a bigger diameter rotor has more "stopping" force than a smaller rotor as the relationship is similar to a lever or a small gear turning a larger one.. Then the coefficient of friction for the brake pad comes into play. I have to do more research on the calipers as would think that leading and trailing may impact orientation/placement.

It appears that many of the Wilwood MINI kits are based on their .81 rotor whereas the R56/JCW caliper works off a .86 rotor. Yes this is a small increase but I do wonder if even that small amount is able to address the heat build up better.

Got some good questions over on Motoring Alliance so going to link these two threads up. Got a good comment on the Gen2 JCW Brembo brakes and after doing some calcs was really surprised.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...e-options.html

Looks like you're fitting this to the 294mm R56 rotor. Why not fit it to one of the 2-piece wilwood rotors?

Costs, hence the topic of the thread

Wildwood’s are cute, cheap fashion brakes. I would choose Brembo’s or Powerbrake.

The thing with the Kits that include the rotors, you cannot determine easily what the pistons sizes are as they are usually three different size options. Just running quick numbers this Rube Goldberg option is about $700 less than the Brake Kit.

If cost is the main factor then Wilwoods fit the bill.

The old saying goes, no one has the money to do it right the first time, but always have the money to do it twice.

Look what I spy with my eye....

https://www.allmagautoparts.com/coll...4106856652-108

Yep, aware of ALLMAGs posting.

On the old saying, for me in this instance it is like somebody with a Z06 Corvette or any of the GT Porsches, where does the normal person drive the top speeds that these cars go?

Also the JCW Brembo rotors are Drilled JCW Rotor - 12.44" (316x22)

Everywhere except Viginia ....:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Not everyone needs race brakes.