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      07-28-2020, 06:25 PM   #1
damianbmw12
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Tracking M240xi first time

I tracked my e46 M3 about 50 or so events so I mostly know what to expect. I do have a couple questions as an F22 newbie.

- will my nice pretty blue calipers be trashed from braking hard? I am hoping BMW does something special to handle the heat, but I doubt it.
- what is a good pad that will hold up to the weight? With MPSS tires.
- assume Bmw brake fluid would not hold up?
- my E46 was easy to turn the nanny controls 100% off. I don't see how to do that in this car. Do you run in sport plus or hold dsc off and run it in normal? I want to be able to slide as much as an Xi will allow anyhow.

Thanks all
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      07-28-2020, 06:55 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by damianbmw12 View Post
- will my nice pretty blue calipers be trashed from braking hard? I am hoping BMW does something special to handle the heat, but I doubt it.
Yup, no special sauce, they will discolorate when pushed properly, especially with more aggressive pads. They go from nice blue to darker blue to deepsea green to black.

Quote:
Originally Posted by damianbmw12 View Post
- what is a good pad that will hold up to the weight? With MPSS tires.
People have wildly different opinions on pads. I've steered towards endurance racing compounds to get a bit more life with all the weight. 6-7 events on Pagid RS29 was typical.

Quote:
Originally Posted by damianbmw12 View Post
- assume Bmw brake fluid would not hold up?
Yup.

Quote:
Originally Posted by damianbmw12 View Post
- my E46 was easy to turn the nanny controls 100% off. I don't see how to do that in this car. Do you run in sport plus or hold dsc off and run it in normal? I want to be able to slide as much as an Xi will allow anyhow.
Yup, no easy option to turn everything off. DSC off allows for more sliding than Sport+. Plus it still retains the linear throttle mapping from normal mode. On the RWD it still keeps some torque vectoring (BMW calls this eLSD or something), but that's way less intrusive than TC. Not sure on the xdrive.
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      07-28-2020, 07:25 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by damianbmw12 View Post
I tracked my e46 M3 about 50 or so events so I mostly know what to expect. I do have a couple questions as an F22 newbie.

- will my nice pretty blue calipers be trashed from braking hard? I am hoping BMW does something special to handle the heat, but I doubt it.
- what is a good pad that will hold up to the weight? With MPSS tires.
- assume Bmw brake fluid would not hold up?
- my E46 was easy to turn the nanny controls 100% off. I don't see how to do that in this car. Do you run in sport plus or hold dsc off and run it in normal? I want to be able to slide as much as an Xi will allow anyhow.

Thanks all
1) Only if you beat on them, or, possibly, are running on a heavy-braking track. I've run my car for 8 events at Mid-Ohio, which has one very heavy-braking zone and a handful of much lighter braking zones, and there's been no discoloration. Nevertheless, brake temperature paint on my rotors and temp strips on my calipers indicate that temps have gotten much higher than I would like. As a result, my pistons' dust boots are cracked and now require replacement. FWIW, I'm pretty easy on my brakes, having been coached by a pro driver on how to use them. My calipers still look like new, and my DTC-70s are less than half-worn after those 8 events.

2) With your tire compound, I would choose the Hawk DTC-60. There are comparable pads from other manufacturers. If you choose Hawks, be prepared for copious quantities of brake dust; other mfgr.'s pads will likely produce more or less as much. It's just part of the game.

3) I would look for a fluid with a higher dry boiling point. I ran Castrol SRF, and there are others out there that will give you more headroom than the BMW fluid: e.g., Motul 660. These are quite powerful and heavy cars, so anything you can do to increase your braking system's capacity to withstand heat will serve you in good stead. BTW, the BMW fluid is pretty good; it's just that running hard on a demanding track may well overcome it's capacity to reject heat – and that's the last thing you want to experience at the wrong time.

4) I don't know what's specific to an xDrive model that might affect this. I went to TC Kline Racing for my build and for advice on how to run the car. Two things stood out: a) put the car in Sport+, and then hold down the DSC OFF button to turn DSC off (I didn't know much about the car at the time, and I didn't understand why it was necessary to go into Sport+ mode first – I skipped that step after the first couple of times)); and, b) going into DSC OFF will turn off rev-matching. As an old heel-and-toe guy, I was good with that – until I came to the first braking zone and discovered that, at least on my car, the gas pedal is so far below the brake pedal that my decades-long technique of using the BALL of my foot to do heel-and-toe was useless. I had a choice then: learn a completely unnatural technique for heel-and-toe at 138 MPH, or leave DSC ON and live with the car's propensity for using DSC to "help" me while at the same time slowing me down considerably.

The main thing you're going to want to get comfortable with is the significant weight of the car you're running. In my opinion, our cars' weights dominate everything else. If you've got xDrive, a sunroof, and an automatic, you may well be over two tons out on the track. That is an impressive amount of weight to haul around and to slow. These aren't track cars the way your E46 M3 was - they're altogether different animals.

If your track(s) have hard right-handers, try to keep your fuel level above 1/2; otherwise, you might find the car goes into limp-home mode.
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Last edited by dradernh; 07-28-2020 at 07:32 PM..
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      07-29-2020, 10:05 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dradernh View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by damianbmw12 View Post
I tracked my e46 M3 about 50 or so events so I mostly know what to expect. I do have a couple questions as an F22 newbie.

- will my nice pretty blue calipers be trashed from braking hard? I am hoping BMW does something special to handle the heat, but I doubt it.
- what is a good pad that will hold up to the weight? With MPSS tires.
- assume Bmw brake fluid would not hold up?
- my E46 was easy to turn the nanny controls 100% off. I don't see how to do that in this car. Do you run in sport plus or hold dsc off and run it in normal? I want to be able to slide as much as an Xi will allow anyhow.

Thanks all
1) Only if you beat on them, or, possibly, are running on a heavy-braking track. I've run my car for 8 events at Mid-Ohio, which has one very heavy-braking zone and a handful of much lighter braking zones, and there's been no discoloration. Nevertheless, brake temperature paint on my rotors and temp strips on my calipers indicate that temps have gotten much higher than I would like. As a result, my pistons' dust boots are cracked and now require replacement. FWIW, I'm pretty easy on my brakes, having been coached by a pro driver on how to use them. My calipers still look like new, and my DTC-70s are less than half-worn after those 8 events.

2) With your tire compound, I would choose the Hawk DTC-60. There are comparable pads from other manufacturers. If you choose Hawks, be prepared for copious quantities of brake dust; other mfgr.'s pads will likely produce more or less as much. It's just part of the game.

3) I would look for a fluid with a higher dry boiling point. I ran Castrol SRF, and there are others out there that will give you more headroom than the BMW fluid: e.g., Motul 660. These are quite powerful and heavy cars, so anything you can do to increase your braking system's capacity to withstand heat will serve you in good stead. BTW, the BMW fluid is pretty good; it's just that running hard on a demanding track may well overcome it's capacity to reject heat – and that's the last thing you want to experience at the wrong time.

4) I don't know what's specific to an xDrive model that might affect this. I went to TC Kline Racing for my build and for advice on how to run the car. Two things stood out: a) put the car in Sport+, and then hold down the DSC OFF button to turn DSC off (I didn't know much about the car at the time, and I didn't understand why it was necessary to go into Sport+ mode first – I skipped that step after the first couple of times)); and, b) going into DSC OFF will turn off rev-matching. As an old heel-and-toe guy, I was good with that – until I came to the first braking zone and discovered that, at least on my car, the gas pedal is so far below the brake pedal that my decades-long technique of using the BALL of my foot to do heel-and-toe was useless. I had a choice then: learn a completely unnatural technique for heel-and-toe at 138 MPH, or leave DSC ON and live with the car's propensity for using DSC to "help" me while at the same time slowing me down considerably.

The main thing you're going to want to get comfortable with is the significant weight of the car you're running. In my opinion, our cars' weights dominate everything else. If you've got xDrive, a sunroof, and an automatic, you may well be over two tons out on the track. That is an impressive amount of weight to haul around and to slow. These aren't track cars the way your E46 M3 was - they're altogether different animals.

If your track(s) have hard right-handers, try to keep your fuel level above 1/2; otherwise, you might find the car goes into limp-home mode.
I really can't figure out how to reply and quote certain things is there a user guide for the mobile app? In the mean time many thanks for the replies
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      07-29-2020, 10:11 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by damianbmw12 View Post
I really can't figure out how to reply and quote certain things is there a user guide for the mobile app? In the mean time many thanks for the replies

It's kinda tricky, but you basically just need to end up with the quotes looking like I have them.

Quote with username to start and then slash quote to end.

I came here to contribute to the actual topic of the thread, but Doug beat me to it, so I figured I could help with this.


Oh and also, to start the post you just press the little "+" , and then when it turns red you can press the pencil icon. Not sure if you already knew that part.

It gets extremely tricky if you're trying to quote multiple posts and trim details out of each on. I give up and grab my computer at that point.
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      08-01-2020, 12:56 PM   #6
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[QUOTE=dradernh;26496590]
Quote:
Originally Posted by damianbmw12 View Post
I tracked my e46 M3 about 50 or so events so I mostly know what to expect. I do have a couple questions as an F22

4) I don't know what's specific to an xDrive model that might affect this. I went to TC Kline Racing for my build and for advice on how to run the car. Two things stood out: a) put the car in Sport+, and then hold down the DSC OFF button to turn DSC off (I didn't know much about the car at the time, and I didn't understand why it was necessary to go into Sport+ mode first – I skipped that step after the first couple of times)); and, b) e.
I think I got this right. Thanks.
Anyhow I believe when in sport+ if I push and hold DSC it goes back to normal mode. And the downside of normal mode with the auto trans is I won't get the modified shift points.

Thanks for a the input
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      08-01-2020, 02:46 PM   #7
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that is pretty much my only complaint about the car.
DSC off cannot be combined with other drive modes. DSC off is its own stand alone drive mode.
In DSC off, suspension and steering get sports setting while the throttle response and gear shift in normal setting.
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      08-03-2020, 01:40 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by damianbmw12 View Post
Anyhow I believe when in sport+ if I push and hold DSC it goes back to normal mode. And the downside of normal mode with the auto trans is I won't get the modified shift points.
I also track an auto trans. You get the modified shift points when you pull the lever to the left (then it upshifts near redline). I think the only thing sport+ does is throttle blips on downshifts, but downshifts are pretty crisp anyways.

Regardless, just use the paddles -- the auto shifting is pretty hopeless on track. Biggest issue is it hesitates to downshift under braking. So you often end a gear or two taller than what you need. Even worse, you start rolling on the throttle near the apex, the transmission lags a bit, finally realizes what you had in mind a second or so later, and kickdown downshifts these 1-2 gears. This (i) upsets the car; (ii) ruins your hopes for being smooth on the exit.
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      08-04-2020, 10:38 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by msendit View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by damianbmw12 View Post
Anyhow I believe when in sport+ if I push and hold DSC it goes back to normal mode. And the downside of normal mode with the auto trans is I won't get the modified shift points.
I also track an auto trans. You get the modified shift points when you pull the lever to the left (then it upshifts near redline). I think the only thing sport+ does is throttle blips on downshifts, but downshifts are pretty crisp anyways.

Regardless, just use the paddles -- the auto shifting is pretty hopeless on track. Biggest issue is it hesitates to downshift under braking. So you often end a gear or two taller than what you need. Even worse, you start rolling on the throttle near the apex, the transmission lags a bit, finally realizes what you had in mind a second or so later, and kickdown downshifts these 1-2 gears. This (i) upsets the car; (ii) ruins your hopes for being smooth on the exit.
Makes sense and thanks again
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      09-08-2020, 11:19 AM   #10
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Highly recommend PFC08 pads front and rear. Serious braking ability, and wear very well - my fronts show approx 1/3 wear after 2 track days. (Mine is same car as yours)
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      12-19-2020, 09:16 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by midwestbmw View Post
Highly recommend PFC08 pads front and rear. Serious braking ability, and wear very well - my fronts show approx 1/3 wear after 2 track days. (Mine is same car as yours)
I run those on my PFC BBK on my E46M3. They hold up well and don't kill the **** out of the rotors. Curious how they'll handle the 3900lbs pig our cars have become.
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      12-20-2020, 11:08 AM   #12
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Don't be mean, it isn't hardly 3750 - and they are big boned
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      12-20-2020, 02:45 PM   #13
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Don't be mean, it isn't hardly 3750 - and they are big boned
LOL. Yeah. Too much hate. I cant wait to get my big boned 240xi on the track.
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      05-30-2021, 12:46 PM   #14
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I've had very good experience with Castrol SRF DOT4 brake fluid. Works on the street as well
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      06-01-2021, 12:33 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Christian76 View Post
I've had very good experience with Castrol SRF DOT4 brake fluid. Works on the street as well
That's expensive. I'm fine with Motul RBF600.

I run PF-08 pads. They do not overheat even when slamming on the brakes at 125mph at the 200' marker for a nasty left/right downhill, off camber set of turns at Virginia International Raceway.
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      06-01-2021, 03:28 PM   #16
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Motul would be my first choice, over Castrol (but probably the 660). Castrol is great if you are racing (i.e. swapping fluid every week or two), and on paper it can't be beat for it's relative indifference to water contamination (super high wet boil point). But in street cars it has some downsides - mainly that by not being water soluble, any excess water in the system is separated out, where it can be corroding things more aggressively (like in the old pre-ethanol gas days, when the water would sit at the bottom of the gas tank waiting to cause trouble). It is also not a good mixer with other stock fluids, so I'm told you need a double-flush to really get it swapped out. Nowhere near as big a PITA as the silicone racing fluids, but still more trouble (and price) than you need.
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