mohaughn
06-26-2006, 06:33 PM
So I know most of the folks on here have a hard-on for doing the 32x brake upgrade but I went a different route and went with the UUC performance brake kit that they just started selling.
The kit came with:
2x E46 M3 BMW motorsport floating rotors(I choose this upgrade to the base kit)
2x Wilwood 4 piston Forged Superlite calipers
2x caliper mounts to fit the new calipers on the stock mounts
2x Wilwood performance street pads
1x 6 piece UUC stainless steel brake line kit
As well as all of the necessary hardware to mount the kit, as well as 4 tubes of loctite.
I also had UUC add in a set of Hawk performance street pads for the rear brakes, a set of wilwood polymatrix track pads for track use, and Motul 600 brake fluid.
Installation-
I started the installation on a Friday night starting with the rears first. I did the new pads and all 4 of the brake lines Friday night, and put off the fronts until Saturday. Installing the brake lines was a breeze, although it was a little messy. The HPS pads fit perfectly as did the lines.
On Saturday I started installing the new rotors and calipers. The UUC kit came with full instructions and the installation was pretty straight forward. It should be noted that even though this kit is a bolt on kit, you do have to cut the stock heatside behind the caliper to fit the larger caliper, and you have to grind off a nub on the top of the stock caliper mount.
It took me less than 30 minutes to cut both heatshields and grind off the nub with a good metal grinder and cutting wheel. I painted both with black high temp paint to avoid any rusting issues.
After getting the heatshield and stock carrier ready for the install all you have to do is mount the new caliper mounts onto the stock mounts. Two bolts on each side using the included loctite.
Once the mounts were on I mounted the new rotors(after scouring the hub to make it perfectly flat and remove the rust). Once the rotors were on I test fit the calipers and made sure they were perfectly centered over the rotor. UUC actually includes shims in the kit to adjust for any differences in the hub. On my car I had to use the shims. After I made sure the calipers fit properly I torqued them down using the included bolts, and the other two tubes of loctite.
Changed out the front brakelines, which did requre me to bend the stock brake line mount on the suspesion as the new rubber mounting plug is wider. I then proceeded to manually bleeding out the system. I really should have spent the 40$ on a pressure bleeder as I had a lot of air in the system from removing the front calipers and changing out all of the brake lines.
Unfortunately due to the design of my rims(two piece with a fairly steep angle on the center piece) the calipers would hit the inside of my rims. I called up UUC and they recommended 5mm spacers. So after four days of waiting I got my H&R trak spacers and could fit the wheels.
This past Friday I followed the bedding in procedure in the UUC instructions. The brakes were very noisey at first, but these rotors had a black protective layer on them that had to be removed during the bedding in process. When I got back to my house they had a minor squeel but nothing to bad. After letting the car sit overnight I drove the car pretty hard again on Saturday night, letting the brakes cool again overnight. I rebled the system yesterday to make sure it was all good. Driving the car this morning I have no brake noise, and the pedal feel is great. I've noticed that standing on the brakes full force I have not been able to get the pads/rotors to seize up. The stopping force is really incredible compared to the stock brakes, or even the braking force on my 328i.
It did take longer than two weeks to get the kit from UUC, but I just spoke with them to ask some questions about bleeding these new calipers and they said they are trying to stock up on the parts because wilwood has been slow in getting stuff to them.
I need to edit the pictures I took to get them a little smaller then I will post them up.
The kit came with:
2x E46 M3 BMW motorsport floating rotors(I choose this upgrade to the base kit)
2x Wilwood 4 piston Forged Superlite calipers
2x caliper mounts to fit the new calipers on the stock mounts
2x Wilwood performance street pads
1x 6 piece UUC stainless steel brake line kit
As well as all of the necessary hardware to mount the kit, as well as 4 tubes of loctite.
I also had UUC add in a set of Hawk performance street pads for the rear brakes, a set of wilwood polymatrix track pads for track use, and Motul 600 brake fluid.
Installation-
I started the installation on a Friday night starting with the rears first. I did the new pads and all 4 of the brake lines Friday night, and put off the fronts until Saturday. Installing the brake lines was a breeze, although it was a little messy. The HPS pads fit perfectly as did the lines.
On Saturday I started installing the new rotors and calipers. The UUC kit came with full instructions and the installation was pretty straight forward. It should be noted that even though this kit is a bolt on kit, you do have to cut the stock heatside behind the caliper to fit the larger caliper, and you have to grind off a nub on the top of the stock caliper mount.
It took me less than 30 minutes to cut both heatshields and grind off the nub with a good metal grinder and cutting wheel. I painted both with black high temp paint to avoid any rusting issues.
After getting the heatshield and stock carrier ready for the install all you have to do is mount the new caliper mounts onto the stock mounts. Two bolts on each side using the included loctite.
Once the mounts were on I mounted the new rotors(after scouring the hub to make it perfectly flat and remove the rust). Once the rotors were on I test fit the calipers and made sure they were perfectly centered over the rotor. UUC actually includes shims in the kit to adjust for any differences in the hub. On my car I had to use the shims. After I made sure the calipers fit properly I torqued them down using the included bolts, and the other two tubes of loctite.
Changed out the front brakelines, which did requre me to bend the stock brake line mount on the suspesion as the new rubber mounting plug is wider. I then proceeded to manually bleeding out the system. I really should have spent the 40$ on a pressure bleeder as I had a lot of air in the system from removing the front calipers and changing out all of the brake lines.
Unfortunately due to the design of my rims(two piece with a fairly steep angle on the center piece) the calipers would hit the inside of my rims. I called up UUC and they recommended 5mm spacers. So after four days of waiting I got my H&R trak spacers and could fit the wheels.
This past Friday I followed the bedding in procedure in the UUC instructions. The brakes were very noisey at first, but these rotors had a black protective layer on them that had to be removed during the bedding in process. When I got back to my house they had a minor squeel but nothing to bad. After letting the car sit overnight I drove the car pretty hard again on Saturday night, letting the brakes cool again overnight. I rebled the system yesterday to make sure it was all good. Driving the car this morning I have no brake noise, and the pedal feel is great. I've noticed that standing on the brakes full force I have not been able to get the pads/rotors to seize up. The stopping force is really incredible compared to the stock brakes, or even the braking force on my 328i.
It did take longer than two weeks to get the kit from UUC, but I just spoke with them to ask some questions about bleeding these new calipers and they said they are trying to stock up on the parts because wilwood has been slow in getting stuff to them.
I need to edit the pictures I took to get them a little smaller then I will post them up.