Well, if you don't need to replace the rear calipers, then I would say this strikes me as a pretty good deal (if a bit overkill for your current needs.) So long as the quality is there, you should be good to go. Being that it is cheaply available wilwood rotors and a nice looking American made caliper that at first glance appears to be well designed, you should end up pretty happy. What I don't like is how Rob and Lee tend to trash each other on their forums. Not very professional.
I take it Rob and Lee aren't exactly friendly? I haven't seen any of the "trashing" that you mention, but I don't really want to. Either way, I personally don't care who haz bigger bawls, all I care about is that I have a good brake kit that does the job, fits my wheels, and STOPS me if I have to from the 120-130 I'll inevitably will be doing down the straight at Lime Rock!
I don't know if they are friendly, but his post tries to call out z31 as one of Lee's people (and he isn't AFAIK) and that z31 is biased and has been fed bad info. I haven't read anything about Lee "trashing" UUC, but he aggressively markets his product as well, sometimes to the point of putting others down in a not very professional manner.
I'm not but I've used his products, have friends who race who use his products, and top of great stuff he sells he does a great job of providing customer service. So I'm a big fan of his, no secret. But I definitely have no affiliation with him other than being a paying customer. My attitude toward vendors sometimes gets a bit out of check. When I was mod on R6 forum back in the day, vendors were constantly posting up claims with no evidence to back it up (Not saying that's what Rob is doing), so perhaps I'm a bit too cynical from the get go.
Bah, this doesn't matter. I'm satisfied with Rob's answer as it seems that I haven't caught him off guard by posting your questions/observations. I would have been more skeptical if he didn't come up with any answers. I'll let y'all know how awesome it is (it had better be awesome - I'm running out of time and money) when I get it installed, hopefully on Saturday. I hear it's so easy, a Botond could do it.
lol! -------------- Yes - here's how it's supposed to go: Get the car safely on jack stands, easy-peasy. Wheels off, brake fluid reservoir emptied, brake lines, front calipers, rotors popped off, the new stuff tossed on, a brake fluid flush later and yeeeehaw. And then there's the other possibility - You've misplaced one of your already too-short jack stands so you'll have to go a corner at a time. You get one corner jacked up and set on the jack stand and realize you forgot to loosen the lug bolts. After screwing around for 1/2 an hour trying to lock the front wheel from spinning so you can break free the lug bolts you realize you have to pull the jack stand to get the wheel on the ground and loosen the lugs. So, an hour later, you're back up in the air with a wheel off. Onto the brake lines - with luck, they're not frozen to the hard lines with corrosion and rust (don't forget the flare nut wrenches you'll need in the appropriate sizes). With the old brake line now free from the connection, off to removing the caliper assembly. 1/2" 19mm and a breaker bar later and hopefully no busted knuckles and you have some caliper bracket bolts in hand. Now you have to pry the caliper assembly off the rotor unless you removed the caliper itself before pulling the bracket bolts. Onto the rotor set screw - sure, no problem. You've firmly seated your correctly sized hex socket and are applying pressure to keep it fully seated. You carefully begin to turn it to loosen it and you find that what initially feels like turning is actually the set screw stripping. A few more attempts but it's too late and now the set screw is totally stripped. So, now you have to resort to brute force in some fashion or another. Drill the head out virtually completely and knock the rotor off with a hammer or maybe you have a air cutter to try to cut a slot to use a flatblade screwdriver. 10 minutes of drilling later after searching for the 100' extension cord (because, of course, the cordless drill isn't charged) for 25 minutes, and hopefully you have the rotor off. Without getting a metal filing flung into your eye with any luck. Ahhh... progress. THIS time you decide that never-seize on the set screw is worth the time and that you're not going to overtighten the set screw - except now you have to find the never-seize.... and after that, not be over-liberal with it, as never-seize all over your new pads and rotors somehow sounds like it might disastrously compromise your stopping capabilities. So now, rotor on. New brake line fitted to the hard line and then tightened (but not over-tightened!) to the new caliper so the line won't be twisted when installed in position. Pads and new caliper positioned, bolts carefully threaded-in by hand to avoid cross-threading, and torqued to spec and double-checked with your torque wrench. And then those rear brake lines... access is a bit limited, all the same caveats about the connectors, a need for flare-nut wrenches (maybe even some longer ones), and so on. You find yourself wishing for an extra foot of room under the back end of the car as you struggle with getting light on the rear flexible lines so you can see what you're doing. Busted knuckle potential - yes, it's there. And as you cuss your way through the project you have to remember... this is gonna be awesome.. when it's done!
Creepy...it's like you were hanging around my garage a couple of weeks ago, except I was only adjusting the parking brake. When I serviced the rear brakes last fall, I apparently missed one small spot of corrosion on the rear parking-brake shoe return spring on the driver's side. Since Murphy (of legal fame) is a car guy, that spot lined up with the adjuster wheel, causing the spring to bind on the adjuster teeth. I had to disassemble & re-clean & re-lube the whole darn thing just to finish my "this should only take about an hour, I've got time" oil service. Bah!
So, Yesterday, I got out of work early to start a project to be ready in time for my HPDE at Lime Rock today. Finished at about 10PM, and here is the result: Fills up that wheel very nicely, I must admit! I wish I could report on the effectiveness on the brakes based on my experience at the track today, but unfortunately the system needed to be bleeded very badly and nobody was around to help me with it last night. Unfortunately, I didn't do it correctly, so I didn't have half the stopping power I expected. I essentially had a little less than stock brake effectiveness. But, after a correct bleeding, I'm sure this thing will stop me fast enough to cause my eyeballs to come out of their sockets!
Awesome. I love this gizmo: http://www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin...scription=European Power Bleeder Kit, BMW All
Nothing beats a good ol' fashioned manual bleeding, and some time to BS with a friend while he holds the brakes for you. Bleeding done, and I can say it stops even better than it looks. Next up: relocating the wheel weights on my Ronal LS' so I could re-mount those. lol
The risk with doing a manual bleed is that its very hard not to push the brake pedal more than its usual range of motion. If there is corrosion on the unused part on the shaft, the seals may get damaged as they scrape over it.
It's a relatively new master cylinder, so I have the luxury of doing it the full-pedal way. That, and my indy always has me push the pedal as far as it will go whenever he bleeds my brakes with me present.
I'd love to repost the pics, but I changed the location of the pictures on my Photobucket and then all of a sudden I'm locked out of my account. So, anything on that account is now toast; I can't get to it. And, Where the hell have YOU been?
