My Greene coil-overs should arrive on Wednesday, along with the new fuel pump. I did a little shopping yesterday evening: Rear swaybar Inner and outer ball joints for both sides Adjustable end-links (front and back) Megan racing roll center spacer New bracket and screws that were rusted/stripped from the thermostat work of this weekend New plug wires (I found some ugly rubbing wear points on the old ones when doing the work last weekend) New rear wiper motor. The old arm plastic cracked and left a bushing siezed onto the old arm. I've been soaking it in breakfree and beating on it for the past few weeks with no luck. It's clearly 2 different metals, so they are probably rusted/grown together. Sigh... I'm about to call Todd Cook at TCE Performance and order up my BBK, then (barring any further unexpected wear item discoveries, which will almost assuredly happen) I'm done shopping!
Save you money on the Wildwood BBK you don’t need them unless you track the car. Even if you track the car the JCW Brembos are much better then Wilwoods. Just find a set of standard R56 S brakes and buy new larger rotors. They are the same brakes that came on the first gen GP.
If I were concerned purely about cost, I'd just put some better pads on my current brake setup, flush the fluid and call it good. I find the stock pads to be dusty as hell and lacking in some cold grip, but aftermarket pads will fix that right up. I'd like the best performance, of course, but the stock options are butt-ugly. I find the JCW calipers to be only slightly less ugly than the stock R56 calipers, which are slightly more ugly than the stock R53 calipers. When it comes to mods, it's a balancing act and you gotta find what works for you. I got these thin spoke wheels with the intention of going big with the BBK and putting some bling in there. It's not going to be a regular track car, so I even went with drilled rotors this time. If I really get back into tracking the car, I can always order some solid / slotted rotors. I can't speak to R56 brake performance, but I have had the 4-pot Wilwoods on my first R53 and found them to be rock solid... even the units I had which had been beaten silly on a track car, rebuilt by me, painted with BBQ Grill paint and then remounted. I can't wait to see what a new set of 6-pot units can do. They were seriously confidence inspiring on the street and the track. I've also had stellar customer service from Todd Cook for Wilwood (he helped me assemble a rebuild kit). I only ever out-drove the Wilwood 4-pot setup once, and I think that was more due to the fluid I had used not being up to the track, the 105 degree Texas summer heat, stickier tires than I had ever run before and my attempt to push the limits of my driving and brake deeper into corners that session. Really... the new 6-pot calipers are dead sexy!
I like my Wilwoods. came with the car but one of the changes the first owner made I still have on it. I like he smaller 4-pot 11.75" because they fit under lightweight 16" rims, even some 15" race rims. Enough braking performance for autocross and street, while reducing unsprung weight. Not sure about the 6 piston units. Big Brake kit companies conveniently don't advertise the weight of these kits. I've been contemplating to put 11.75" Wilwood brakes on the daily driver, but that's overkill - heck, for street driving, the car brakes just fine with the R53 stock brakes. I may actually do the R56 conversion on that car just to see the difference. Meanwhile, my son isn't so concerned about unsprung weight wants to put Porsche Cayenne calipers on the Chili Red once he gets new wheels to make enough room...
I was going to do the 4 pot calipers again, but I got talking to Todd. The 6-pot requires larger wheels, but is more forgiving in terms of spoke clearance (the 6-pot caliper is thinner than the 4-pot) and the OZ wheels I chose are a bit odd inside. A weight comparison would be interesting... I might have to drag the scale out during the install.
Just heard from Collin Greene on Facebook. He says that the 6-pot calipers can flex under hard use (serious track time). I'm not going there, but it's good to know for folks who might.
Our Chili Red and the rears of Dark Silver are Akebono pads that don't generate a lot of dust. I'd use them again as long as they are available for the application. Front on the Wilwoods are Wilwood street pads, forgot the version, but also very little dust. The Autocross pads I have in a bin that came with the car were extreme dirt generators and look like a 60 grit sharpening stone - kiss your rotors goodbye after a short distance, but I bet they claw the car to a stop a lot faster than the low dust pads
I had the BP-10 Wilwood pads on Jango for the street. I never noticed a lot of dust or it being particularly sticky. I just washed the wheels w/ wash water (regular car detergent) after finishing the body panels and any dust came off easily. This is the normal Wilwood street pad (what's going on when I mount the BBK). I had the stock pads on stock calipers for 5k miles and switched 'em because of the nasty dust. I added SS lines and upgraded aftermarket pads (not EBC greens, but they were similar... can't remember) along with the brass collar upgrade (requires regular maintenance, but I was in there regularly anyway) and it was a great, cost-effective approach to improved braking performance. I got Jango's BBK second-hand and I think I had a set of 'E' compound pads from the previous owner that were fairly well spent. I used 'em on one track weekend and they were done. It was early in my track experiences and they were grippier than stock once you got some heat into 'em. I switched to the Polymatrix B as I was doing a few Auto-X events as well and the PolyB pads have a better cold-grip and nearly the same hot grip. You are right... they are hard on rotors and the dust is heavy and nasty, though that could be a function of use and temperature. I could even find brake dust plumes stuck to the front fender, behind the wheel. I did like the PolyB pads and, should I decide to do some track time, I'll probably order a set.
Looks familiar, but as Fishmonger said, the swift springs used to be blue. Make sure you check that the top nuts on the rears are tight before installing.
They are a cool copper color. I told Colin how I drove, how I intended to use the car and what I was going for in terms of other mods and trusted him to choose the right springs for the application.
Ugh... I hate doing the fuel filter swap and, even worse is the fuel pump. If you are going with a stock pump, you should just buy the entire assembly and save yourself the pain. I went with Colin's uprated fuel pump, which fit nicely into the stock unit, but required a complete disassembly. It's got so many wires and floppy bits (the fuel level float) that it's one of those fussy jobs that I hate. I decided to try and 'save time' by not removing the passenger seat, but I really should have... it would have made this work so much more pleasant! With my height and size it would have been nice for that much work. Everything is back together again, but I can't fire up the car to test it until my thermostat housing bracket arrives. Oh well... time to get some yard work done!
glad you got a chance to inhale some high octane Fuel pump in my daily driver is on the to-do list for next summer. The other two cars, when I turn the key, have a very clearly audible pump putting pressure on the line. The Electric Blue car does not. Hear nothing. It works, but no sound. Wonder what I will find in there, given the non-Mini harmonic balancer the "mechanic husband" of the original owner put in, I may just have some non-Mini fuel pump in there as well.
I got a couple more boxes the other day. There is 1 more box coming from Todd at TCE... a couple of his special bits for the parking brake connection and a set of lines for the rear wheels. I quickly assembled a hat and rotor at lunch, put pads on one of the front calipers and fit it inside one of the wheels. There was a TON of clearance. It's not a 100% test, but there was so much room that I'm not worried at all about things bolting up correctly. I did a quick fit as it's going to be a few weeks before I'm ready to mount the brakes and I didn't want to be calling Todd a month after he shipped saying "It doesn't fit!" The rotors are the black powder-coated ones (I assume whatever coating is on there will wear off almost immediately upon pad to rotor contact). It's kinda scary for me as my first set of Wilwoods were track abused and the hats had gone purple from heat... these are PURDY, not pre-abused for my convenience. I also went with drilled and slotted rotors. If I decide to go hard-core track use with the car (not in my immediate plans), I may get some plain or slotted-only rotors, but I decided for a bit of bling this time. I can't wait to see these peeking out from under the wheels, but I've got a bunch of engine work to do before I get to brakes and suspension... oh well.