[rhop101]

Hi Everyone,

Starting R&D work for the winter maintenance and prepping for my 2nd season of track days.

Made it through my first season with EBC Yellows and BMW semi-floating stock blanks alright. Albeit with the smell of brakes and some pad transfer from time to time.

I was planning on getting a fresh set of "blank" semi-floating rotors front/rear and one of the recommended track brake pads from Ferrodo or PFC and I bought a set of bimmerworld brake coolers that mount to the tension arm.

Regarding Rotors

Recommendations from friends who have done this for a while, albeit with lighter cars. They recommended just sticking with blanks, if anything.

Still reading threads from several folks on the forum have talked about the stock brakes leaving something to be desired including the rotor cooling department mainly in the front. With several ending up going to the M Performance (370mm) or other BBK, but did anyone try using a full-on 2-piece 340mm Rotor on the front?

It turns out both ECSTuning and Paragon make them for the F2X/F3X platform.

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-ecs-part...0/014586ecskt/

https://paragonbrakes.com/2-piece-ro...mance-m-sport/

I noticed the ECS one is drilled and slotted which is not preferred in general for track work. Albeit they sell them slotted only the VW platforms for some reason. I'll have to call them and ask

Paragon specs a slotted rotor with theirs.

Both offer a replacement program or replacement rotors albeit neither beats to cost of stock rotors with an FCP warranty behind them.

Seems to me for a lightly modified track car and as an intermediate driver this seems like a decent alternative to going full BBK, but having better heat dissipation in theory than a semi-floating OE style Rotor would.

Were these not around back in the late 2010s when many folks started their track journeys with these cars or is it just such a marginal difference people ignored them?

There are very few reviews on these and I don't mind spending a bit of money to be proactive for extra braking capacity and I'd only buy a set for the front. The back rotors with the stock semi-floating blanks I imagine are adequate.

[msendit]

The hat isn't a significant factor in cooling or thermal capacity -- you won't get any substantial difference in how long your brakes last between 1-piece and 2-piece rotors of the same size.

The weight difference is pretty good though -- and why you see 2-piece rotors on most racecars. 3-4 lbs of unsprung weight per corner savings is quite good. Think of it the same as buying lighter wheels.

[n55david]

2 piece rotors are lighter. You dont want to add weight there..

Oem.are 2pc on the 240 etc

[rhop101]

Thanks for the insights guys.

Very true they are lighter which is a nice perk for sure. I started out with a Honda fit that lost 0.1s in a 2nd gear pull for every 15lbs of dead weight you added and the AC was good for 0.9s lol. So potentially saving 16lbs of rotating mass is stuff of wet dreams haha. Saving 8lbs of rotating mass on the front end ain't bad at all.

Definitely don't expect more life out of the rotors.

I may still put Paragon Rotors on for the fun of it, but we'll see how I feel on Black Friday.

Perhaps a little better thermal separation from the hub and a marginal heat dissipation improvement from directional fin optimization is all you get. Can't hurt I guess. Albeit I don't see much reported with track use causing wheel bearing issues on our cars.

I'll also do titanium shims too regardless to help keep heat out of the calipers.

So I'll be doing at least the brake deflectors and titanium shims even if I stick with OE semi-floating rotors

If anyone else has thoughts feel free to add more the merrier!

[jb-slow]

I recently went with Ferodo ds3.12 pads and could not be happier, they're amazing. I also removed the dust shield behind the rotor and installed 911 gt3 air scoop things on the front arms so the air actually gets to the rotors from the vents in the bumper. I ran titanium shims the last few years but they didn't do anything noticeable and they ended up denting around the pistons so they're now on a shelf somewhere. You should be fine without them on 600 or 660 fluid. I'm sure you already put good brake lines on too right? I have also swapped over to M2 rotors via caliper brackets but you should still get pretty good results with stock size rotors.

[rhop101]

Thanks for the extra feedback on the shims @jb-slow! I won’t worry about them then.

Guess I’ll go through the effort of removing the dust shields for the season when I do fresh rotors in the spring.

The DS3.12 was what my instructor who ran an E92 M3 recommended. Glad to hear more positive recommendations.

For brake lines I put a set of fresh Bimmerworld stainless lines on before last season.

[Coupsoup]

I am also running DS3.12 with 034 motorsports 2pc 380/370mm m3 rotors. Great pads without too much noise when on the street.

I'm thinking of maybe grabbing the M motorsports brake cooling system from the m235IR. Weirdly it's listed under vehicle trim in RealOEM.

https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sho...diagId=51_9748

[rhop101]

Interesting to see that as an option.

Keep us posted how it goes if you decide to install. Not sure there is clearance for the hose or not on the inside with wider tires. On the it cars I imagine there maybe a little more space. Or were you thinking the port on the plate for hose itself maybe useful for better airflow

[Mojo_jojo77777]

As someone who used to track S2000s years back, and now tracking my A90 supra and E90 335i (with retrofitted M235i 340mm front and 345mm rear rotors/calipers setup), just get oem blanks.

I am using the oem style 2 piece 340mm front rotors from rockauto (were like $50 a piece at the time), with solid 1 piece rotors in rears (like $20 each at time). I run Pagid RSL29 on the 335i.

On my Supra, I run oem sized 348mm front and 345mm rears, but "downgraded" to 1 piece rotors from Rockauto ($50 rotors) and run EBC RPX brake pads.

On both cars, I have no issues with the 1 piece rotors since both cars have "some" sort of brake cooling, unlike the s2000 chassis, which as you know, even have solid rear discs instead of vented discs.

Since you mentioned you are running EBC yellows and intermediate group, Id strongly recommend getting better pads (not sure what fluid youre running, I do Motul RBF600, and flush it every 2-3 track days or once a month depending how many events I attend).

EBC yellows are not known to be a track pad at all. EBC Blues are barely track capable, and I'll burn a set of rears in 3 days. EBC RP1 or RPX is honestly where you'd want to be.

[rhop101]

Thanks for the testimonial and recommendations Mojo_jojo.

I switched over mid year to RBF600. I have EBC RPX as something to try at some point, but planning on running DS3.12 for next year as my track pad and keeping the EBC Yellows as my street/AX pads.

For now my rotors are covered by the FCP warranty so as long as I can figure out how to ship them back without spending an arm and a leg shouldn’t be too expensive to keep going with the OE 2-piece rotors.

[jb-slow]

Originally Posted by Mojo_jojo77777

As someone who used to track S2000s years back, and now tracking my A90 supra and E90 335i (with retrofitted M235i 340mm front and 345mm rear rotors/calipers setup), just get oem blanks.

I am using the oem style 2 piece 340mm front rotors from rockauto (were like $50 a piece at the time), with solid 1 piece rotors in rears (like $20 each at time). I run Pagid RSL29 on the 335i.

On my Supra, I run oem sized 348mm front and 345mm rears, but "downgraded" to 1 piece rotors from Rockauto ($50 rotors) and run EBC RPX brake pads.

On both cars, I have no issues with the 1 piece rotors since both cars have "some" sort of brake cooling, unlike the s2000 chassis, which as you know, even have solid rear discs instead of vented discs.

Since you mentioned you are running EBC yellows and intermediate group, Id strongly recommend getting better pads (not sure what fluid youre running, I do Motul RBF600, and flush it every 2-3 track days or once a month depending how many events I attend).

EBC yellows are not known to be a track pad at all. EBC Blues are barely track capable, and I'll burn a set of rears in 3 days. EBC RP1 or RPX is honestly where you'd want to be.

I would advise against the rpx pads, mine overheated and cracked like crazy, they made deafening noise all the time, I even got black flagged because they thought something was coming apart.