Re: <E36> Porsche/Turner Big Brakes

["Steve D'Gerolamo" <steved3@xxxxxxx>]

Greg...nice write-up.  A couple of points. First, the rotors & calipers.
Brembo does not make the rotors, Porsche has these made in Germany by a
local supplier, perhaps the same company that makes the floating rotors for
BMW.  Brembo cuts weight out of the circumference to balance their
rotors...Porsche and BMW (at least on the M3 cars) use different weight
clip on springs on the inner veins. Brembo does make the calipers but they
do to Porsche specs...ie, the through bolts are increased from 8mm to 12mm
and the pistons are all properly sealed to ensure long road life.  Movit
does have input in the way the calipers come...they receive them from
Porsche undrilled so they can be properly set up by Movit's CNC equipment
as trailing calipers instead of leading ones that you would buy out of the
box through your Porsche dealer.  This is very important!

		Second...you now have fixed front calipers vs the original floating
(single piston) calipers that came on your car.  These will be sensitive to
wheel balance issues....I've only had a person have rotor balance problems
and these were a set that must have been put back on the shelf after some
dealer mechanic pulled the balance springs out of both rotors (person was
Chris Turrisi here in NY)...I always check rotors for balance springs
before they go out and I know yours had them.  Try rebalancing the front
wheels and check the tires for irregular wear that could cause balance issues.

		Third...you probably had some thickness washers left over as you chose to
cut the caliper bolts rather than shim them.  The washers are to be used at
the head of the bolt to keep the bolt from bottoming out against the
knuckle (kingpin).

		Fourth....regarding your camber adjustment.  We've had good luck with
1-1.5 degrees negative camber...too much negative camber reduces your
contact patch and the effectiveness of the braking.  You need to put all
that clamping force to the road via your tires.

		Finally....check the installation in about 500 miles. I'm sure you had to
do some grinding on the knuckle to get the caliper bracket to fit securely.
 If the bracket does not fit properly, this will have a tendency to cock
the caliper in or out and resulting in uneven contact of the pad against
the rotor.  You should pull the pads in about 500 miles (sooner if there
are obvious problems) and check them for even wear (ie, look for high spots
where the pad is not touching the rotor)...if there is a problem, go back
with an angle die grinder and a nice carbide bit and take a little more off
the knuckle to fine tune the fit.


Enjoy the brakes............Steve

(PS- to folks on the digest....my comments above to Greg K. are applicable
to other (fixed caliper) big brake setups, whether they be Stillen,
Wilwood, Redline, etc.) 
=========================================
Steve D'Gerolamo - The Ultimate Garage
201-262-0412 / steved3@domain.elided / http://www.ultimategarage.com

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