Hello everyone,

Many of you know me as RLMini and I am the proud owner of an all Black '04 MCS. I have been involved in racing for many years and have also built many hot cars from the ground up for the street and track. I decided to put some of this experience to work by developing a big brake upgrade that I could afford. Many in my local Mini club encouraged me to make it available to others. So today is the day!

I have been working on this project since the begining of the year. A few months back we had our first test which went without a hitch. A month latter was the first track sessions, which also went very well. I have also delveloped a kit for cars with 16" wheels. The kits are available in the North American Motoring Store. There are links there to reviews by an independent racer who was not selected by me, but rather the forum members of my home club. I have tried my best to use my head instead of your wallet in coming up with this kit. Please check out B3 Brakes in the vendor directory or the NAM store and let me know what you think!

We have just completed our first kits for the 16" wheels and Randy Webb will be the tester of this kit, which he will receive this weekend. So stay tuned for the results this month.

 

I was a passenger in a Cooper S w/ the new B3 brake kit during a very fast 6 lap run at the 1.7 mile Texas Motorsports Ranch last sunday and the brakes are outstanding!
The car was subjected to repeated & aggressive threshold braking and the brake kit was simply exceptional w/ narry a hint of fade or fatigue. In fact our Mini prevailed over (beat the snot out of) 7 E46 M3's, 2 911's and managed to emerge at 4th place in a field of 24 cars. This was the result of an excellent driver and a great set of front brakes!
Congrats on the B3's (very sexy looking to boot!)
PS. Personally I went w/ a set of Brembo's GT brakes on my newest Cooper S Works car simply because I got the GT Kit at cost. Given what I know know about the excellent B3's (the terrific & very light aluminum Wilwood calipers!) I would have done them.

Please note that I have edited & corrected: we beat 7 E46 M3's on the track!

 

Thanks Mark for your input! I wish someone would have told me about the races at Motorsport ranch. I would have loved to have been there. I ran that course a few years ago in my 289 Cobra. That track is very challenging on brakes! Just to clarify my calipers do look a lot like Wilwood, but are actually made by Outlaw in Georgia. Outlaw sells primarily to stock car racing teams. Watching them glow the rotors all the way around places like Bristol convinced me that these calipers could handle the heat!

 

Very nice to see another option for us guys with 16's! Thanks.

With the mentioning of weight above, what is the weight of this kit, or as compared to stock? As I understand it, some folks have been able to shed some pounds by going big. It would be added benefit for sure...

I hope you have such figures. I can't wait to hear what Randy has to say about them. Do you know how soon before he bolts them on, and takes them for a spin?

 

RLmini,

Does having all of the holes in the Rotor Hat effect structural rigidity? Saw this on the posted pictures and it raised concern for me. Please explain.

Also, could you please identify which of the nine various Outlaw calipers is utilized in your kit?

Jason

 

I haven't weighed them yet, I think it will be close to stock. The rotors weigh a bit more than stock but the calipers weigh less. I have also moved the rotors inboard as much as possible, which helps with wheels fitment. The people who have the system so far are only road racers. They reported that they can't tell any difference with respect to weight. One guy told me a cloud drifting over the track makes a much bigger difference. These kits where the very large system for 17" wheels. Everyone who has the kits are also running much lighter wheels than stock. These guys where looking for absolute consistancy and the ability to out brake the competition without causing a wreck.

There are such things as light weight cast iron rotors, but they have less cooling surface area and are usually not used on tracks that require a lot of hard brakeing. If I was setting up a Mini to run at Taladega I would go for the lightest rotors I could find, since they would only be used to come into the pits. If you are working the brakes hard, you need rotors that can manage the heat and disperse it, or you will transfer too much heat to the calipers and boil the fluid among other problems.

The rotors I use are factory OEM from a late model very high performance car. How many cars do you know of that come with 13" rotors? Replacement rotors are available at the dealer or any parts store as well as everyone selling performance slotted and drilled rotors. The center holes come smaller than the Mini. I have the center holes opened up exactly to the Mini size, so that they remain perfectly hub centric. We then drilled the 4 X 100mm Mini bolt pattern into them. There is no ill effect to redrilling them. This has been done by many people for years. The forces on the rotor are circular around the four bolt holes. You will see in the picture there is plenty of meat on each side of the holes in a circular pattern. We have also tested these and really tried to beat them to death. The rotors will not fail. but of course I would recomend having your wheels torqued to spec, regarless of what kind of brakes you have. For those of you who haven't taken a wheel off, there is a small camfered torx head screw that posistions the rotor and the wheel is the main thing that keeps the rotor on the car.

Randy will have his kit within just a few days, and I am looking forward to his feedback. I hope I answered all your questions.

 

I think we should also mention that this car is almost a stock MCS. Brett (MiniaK) only has wheels, tires, rear sway and a BMP intake. I took a ride with him during a pretty long session at Texas World Speedway and had to grin when the Ferrari got tired of us drafting him and moved out of our way. We passed a lot of cars but seeing a 12 cylinder Ferrari get out of the way of a Mini was really cool!

almost forgot, the calipers are the Ourlaw 2000's. They are hard anodized including the piston bores and the pistons are stainless. Pad changes can be made faster than the time it takes to remove a wheel.

 

The C5? I don't know, just a guess... What about the 16's, are they also factory OEM as well? They are a little under 12"...

I really appreciate the thorough reply. The more I hear, the more I like. Your explanations, reasoning and approach just makes sense...
I guess like many, I've come to really value Randy's input. As much as I would love to pull the trigger now, I'll wait to hear his impressions. I think you might have something very special here. Congratulations!

 

Good guess!, but the center hole of the C5 is larger than the Mini. I measured rotors for three straight months and even longer for the 16 kit, so I hope you understand that I am not real interested in giving the answer. I do however tell each buyer so that they can easily replace them if I got hit by a bus. Even Power Slots makes them! This kit was really designed with racers in mind. Most racers I know are on very tight budgets and need something that is not only competitive but also cheap to maintain.

 

TonyB, I forgot to say thank you for the kind response! Now when can I buy a TonyB Straight through exhaust kit?

 

Hey, you have something for which there is a demand! Not to many bozos willing to rip-out their battery box . Kudos to you, and I do understand your reasoning for not divulging the source. I was simply replying to a question you posed...

Did I read somehwere that you were also working on a rear kit as well?

 

The first thing evey customer says when they see their new front brakes is "OMG! Where are the rear brakes?" "They look like toys now!" The rear kit won't cost much and will just be a larger rotor with brackets to reposision the stock caliper. The rotors will match the front in appearance. I am not expecting any great improvement but it will give the car a much better look.

 

Good to hear, I thought so. There is much I don't know about braking. I was reading in one thread about the importance of proper bias. I do hope that is a consideration here also.

 

I was one of the posters that you are reffering to. The key to not messing up the bias is to properly size the pistons. To do this you find the suface area of the stock Mini piston and then compare it to the total surface area of just one side of a four piston caliper (total area of two pistons). There where other factors we also considered, but I want to assure you that the owner of Outlaw and I did our home work in this area. When braking hard into a corner, we did not want the brakes to induce additional oversteer or understeer. The protype kit was tested by a very talented racer that knew what to look for on the track. You can read his review on my home page and in the NAM Store in the brakes section.

 

I'll test mine on Randy's car Aug 20th for interference.

Masher

 

That would be great! I do need to verify as many wheels as possible. The 16" kit is very new. On the 17" kit we have verified that they fit the R90's beautifully and do not fit the S lights. We have had no problems to date with aftermarket 17" wheels. I am very hopeful of having better fit than many other kits. For example, even though I am using one of the largest rotors available at 324mm in diameter, I was able to bolt a 16" wheel on it. There was just slight scraping. As I mentioned earlier I have made maximum use of the available inboard space that was available to work with. The same is true for the 16" kit. Rotor offsets are same for both kits. The calipers are also very light and compact.

 

Sounds like you got the bias situation addressed then! As you might know, I have 16" Volk CE28N's with an offset of 42+. Should I be good to go?

 

RLmini,

Is there any way you could make a clearance guide and supply it in pdf format like AP Racing does for their Big Brake Kit? It will help take some of the guessing out of the fitment process for buyers like me. You just print out the image, check the measurements to the provided scale to make sure they are nuts on, cut out the profile, and fit it into your rim once you have removed it from your car to check for clearance. I have attached the AP Racing pdf document for you to look at.

Jason

 

TonyB,

I looked at some pictures of the Volk Wheel and I don't believe you will have any problem at all. I wish I could afford the GT7's! And I am very interested in cutting out my battery box. I think more would do it if there was a nice clean kit that included the Cat back as an option.

JBing,

That is a great idea! I will look into doing this. I am pretty busy right now trying to get six kits out to customers.

 

Tnaks again for the great idea Jbing! I printed it out and compared it to my 16" kit. Would the differnces be helpful? My kit has 1/2 inch more clearance between the outside face of the caliper and the wheel spokes. My kit also has 1/4 inch more clearance in oveall diameter. Let me know it this helps.

 

That's customer service! Hey, knowing Randy's crazy schedule, he might not get to your kit as soon as some of us would like. I understand of course. For those getting this, esp the 16 one, I'd love to hear your impressions. And if anyone is in the Bay Area...

Robert, do you have a photo posted of the 16's? I want to see the bolt-hole pattern on those. I think the one I saw was for the 17's... Thanks.

 

--->RLmini - can you tell us what the delta in measurements is for the 17" kit versus that AP racing kit PDF above? (just like what you measured for the 16" kit)

 

If you print the PDF from the link above and then cut it out while chopping .5" off the side profile and .25" off of the end of it you will pretty much have a template for B3 Brake's 16" wheel kit. How was that for cheap but effective? AP's lawyers are in Englnad right? These should be pretty good clearances considering this kit is using a 1.25 inch thick rotor that can manage tons of heat. Most other kits are probably in the .80" - 1.00" range for kits that fit 16's

 

My real job is in the travel industry, so to me Delta is an airline. Without really understanding what you just asked I am going to take a shot at it anyway. The .5" additional clearance between the spokes holds true for the 17" kit as the caliper mounts on exactly the same bracket except the hole spacing on the bracket (OEM Spindle holes vs new caliper bolt holes) is reduced for a smaller diameter rotor.

 

RLmini,


Got this image off of the Outlaw website, it is a picture of the 2000 series caliper. Thought I would post it so everyone could get a good look at it. I also have a drawing from their website with a few dimensions on it. I will post it too.





And the Drawing:





I'm a visual person so these helped me get a better idea of the caliper. Now I just have to save up a little mad money to get the kit.

I cut the pdf document to your measurements and the outward face of the caliper is very close to the inside of my wheels (17" Kazera KZ-S's). Will I have to go to lugs and nuts if I need to use a 5mm spacer or will I be able to just use longer bolts? Your comments would be greatly appreciated.

If you could come up with a pdf doc with your exact disc and caliper specs on it to cut out and try that would be great. I really think it would be useful for potential buyers to take away any questions they may have about clearance.

Jason