Introducing- Essex Designed AP Racing Competition Big Brake Kits for the E92 M3

[jritt@essex]

Originally Posted by FogCityM3

Thx and really appreciate this as well as the other thoughtful responses. Once the rears come out, I'll contact you.

My pleasure. We'll be here! I'll update as soon as the rears are ready to ship. We have a number of people waiting on them.

Brakes are likely the next substantive upgrade to my e90m3 and these currently seem like the best way to go. But, as of right now the car is a DD and based on some of the comparisons to the other kits with painted calipers, it sounds like the AP set may not be best if the car will see some winter (potentially salty) roads? I'm not putting a lot of winter miles on the car, but the car must be drivable during the winter without ruining the new brakes. Will freequent cleaning save the brakes in those conditions?

I addressed the salt issue earlier in the thread, but I know there is a lot to absorb in this thread! See below:

As with just about every aftermarket BBK on the market, we are selling our kit for off-road use only. I'm not sure which specific AP Racing kit to which you are referring, but as mentioned above, just about any aftermarket BBK will share the same issues with regards to winter corrosion resistance...primarily road salt. The disc hats are susceptible to having salt wedged between them and the hat. That's the biggest area of concern. Salt can also cause problems with the brackets. Painted calipers would have a bit more resistance to foul weather than anodized ones. Dust boots would be a nice thing to have if you never tracked your car and there was no chance of burning them up or damaging them. Once they are fried and torn, they're useless however.

Again, IMO the salt wedged in between the hats and the iron portion of the disc are the greatest area for concern, and that is the same for all BBK's with 2-piece discs that use aluminum hats. If it were my kit and I ran it in the winter, I'd disassemble it and give it a good cleaning in the spring (regardless of who the manufacturer was).

AP Racing has an entire range of calipers dedicated to rally use. Some of these calipers are very similar to those in our M3 kit, and they see some horrid conditions...mud, dirt, rocks, sand, sun, ice, snow, etc. They don't spontaneously combust or catastrophically fail in those instances. As with just about everything, the usage conditions dictate the maintenance requirements.

[DB]

Originally Posted by jritt@essex

They don't spontaneously combust or catastrophically fail in those instances. As with just about everything, the usage conditions dictate the maintenance requirements.

Thank you. My car sees quite a bit of track time (If not, I probably wouldn't even be considering brakes). I read the entire thread and the only reason I asked about winter road use is because you've mentioned it in comparisons like this:

Originally Posted by jritt@essex

Or, a better way to put it might be that the Mono 6 had additional design requirements that a racing caliper would not have (painted finish, to be used on a wider range of applications including trucks, winter road use, etc.).

Knowing that all it takes is some maintenance (which I guessed was probably the case) makes your kit seem perfect for my needs. Thanks again.

[jritt@essex]

We're looking good on the rear kits. We may start accepting pre-orders next week, and the product page is up on our site. I'm still missing a few pics, etc., but it's mostly complete. This bad boy shaves over 16 lbs. of unsprung weight from the rear of the car.

Essex Designed AP Racing REAR Competition Big Brake Kit

I was just talking to one of our Corvette customers who installed the rear kit and is preparing for 8 races over the next three weekends in various classes.

Here's a pic we snapped today.


And here's the installed pic:

[GewoW]

Hi

I have this kit

http://www.stillen.com/apracing/bmwm3ap.asp" rel="" target="_blank">http://<a href="http://www.stillen.c...mwm3ap.asp</a>

CP5555 and CP5306 calipers
Slotted rotors 368 x 36mm and 368 x 26 mm. Strap-drive

Can your rotors fit my kit?

Shoot me a PM. Looking to replace soon.

[GewoW]

Im lying, rear is 358 x 26

[jritt@essex]

Originally Posted by GewoW

Hi

I have this kit

http://www.stillen.com/apracing/bmwm3ap.asp" rel="ugc" target="_blank">http://<a href="http://www.stillen.c...mwm3ap.asp</a>

CP5555 and CP5306 calipers
Slotted rotors 368 x 36mm and 368 x 26 mm. Strap-drive

Can your rotors fit my kit?

Shoot me a PM. Looking to replace soon.

Hi,
The two-piece discs in our front and rear kits fit only the kits discussed in this thread, and to my knowledge, only our kits. Sorry!

[KillrM3]

Kit looks good. One question though. Why not use a Monobloc caliper?

[jritt@essex]

Originally Posted by KillrM3

Kit looks good. One question though. Why not use a Monobloc caliper?

As long as it is a properly designed part, there is no inherent downside to a two-piece caliper. Two-piece calipers can be made plenty stiff, they are less costly to manufacture, they offer more flexibility in manufacturing for different applications, and they don't have to be taken off the car to access the pads. So what does that mean for the customer?

That means you pay less for the brake kit, you don't have to remove the caliper when changing pads, and you still get the required stiffness (good pedal feel). Most of the time people instantly say, "but monobloc's are lighter!" If you look at the caliper we're using vs. the most popular current monobloc in the M3 market (the Brembo Mono 6), our caliper is also almost a pound and a half lighter. Take a look at this recent comparison of our AP Racing CP5060 to the Brembo Mono 6 here on our blog. It should cast a little more light on the subject.

We see no real advantage to using a monobloc on this application. Our caliper does everything it needs to do, is the lightest available option, has far easier pad changes, and is less expensive.

[W///]

Originally Posted by jritt@essex

We're looking good on the rear kits. We may start accepting pre-orders next week, and the product page is up on our site. I'm still missing a few pics, etc., but it's mostly complete. This bad boy shaves over 16 lbs. of unsprung weight from the rear of the car.

Essex Designed AP Racing REAR Competition Big Brake Kit

I was just talking to one of our Corvette customers who installed the rear kit and is preparing for 8 races over the next three weekends in various classes.

Here's a pic we snapped today.


And here's the installed pic:

That's work of art right there!

[jritt@essex]

Happy Friday Gents!

I just put up four new customer reviews of our Essex Competition BBK's up on our blog...E36 M3, Lancer Evo, and two Scion FR-S/Subaru BRZ. Three of these are from very experienced drivers.

I can wax poetic all day about how great our brake kits are, but I think these reviews provide excellent insight into how our customers perceive our products and services. Have a great weekend.

[jritt@essex]

That's work of art right there!

Thank you sir!

[Hujan]

Just to confirm, both front and rear kits are now shipping, correct?

[jritt@essex]

Originally Posted by Hujan

Just to confirm, both front and rear kits are now shipping, correct?

Fronts are shipping now. I'm awaiting an update from my product mgr. on a ship date for the rears. I'm hoping to have that later today. We've had a few minor delays due to the volume of work going on right now in our machine shop, but I'm hoping to ship them before the end of this month. If I can confirm that today we will immediately open up pre-orders for the rears.

Please note that the fronts can be installed as either a stand-alone, or until the rears are ready.

Thanks for your patience!

[jritt@essex]

I just got word from our product manager that we should be able to start shipping the rear kits next Friday 4/25.

We are now officially accepting orders for both the front and rear kits. Please call 704-824-6030, 8am-5pm ET and ask for Daniel. Thanks.

[jritt@essex]

The wheel fitment template for our rear kit is now available here. They fit behind the stock wheels no problem...plenty of room to spare. I definitely don't expect to see too many wheel interference issues on this one!

[jritt@essex]

Here's a great review from a C6 Z06 Corvette customer running our four wheel BBK. The kit he's using is essentially identical to the kit we're selling for the e92 M3. The only difference is piston sizing...the calipers and iron discs are the same as what our M3 customers would be getting.

[C2VNY]

Hi,

I pm'd regarding the brakes lines but not heard back.

Also reading abit more on the front kit, because you can run the fronts with oem rear with up-rated pads, it's got me really interested. Can these be posted to the uk?

Thanks
Viney

[KillrM3]

A kit with CP5095 caliper's up front would be cool. Basically a GT4 kit.

[jritt@essex]

To our knowledge the brake lines on the e90 and e92 are identical (I got your PM late Thursday night my time, and was traveling on business Friday).

Due to contractual agreements with AP Racing, we are only able to ship brake kits to a North American address. Thanks.

Originally Posted by C2VNY

Hi,

I pm'd regarding the brakes lines but not heard back.

Also reading abit more on the front kit, because you can run the fronts with oem rear with up-rated pads, it's got me really interested. Can these be posted to the uk?

Thanks
Viney

[jritt@essex]

Originally Posted by KillrM3

A kit with CP5095 caliper's up front would be cool. Basically a GT4 kit.

That would be cool, but expensive. I'm not in the office today to check pricing, but I believe those calipers are somewhere in the ballpark of $3,000 each...and that is just for the calipers. So you'd be looking at a $8-9,000 front brake kit most likely, which is a bit steep. I'm sure there are plenty of folks who could afford that, but it would be a much tougher sell. Frankly, most of our customers wouldn't even require it for what they're doing with their cars. The kit we're currently selling already has many similar features found in the CP5095, and you'd see diminishing returns in terms of performance for price. In other words, the improvement vs. stock with our $3,599 front kit would be dramatic, whereas the additional $4k+ for a CP5095 kit wouldn't bring the same type of leap forward in performance.

[jritt@essex]

Our rear kit is now shipping! The first wave went out yesterday, and more today.

I also put up a few more customer reviews of our brake kits on our blog from Corvette, Evo, and FT86 owners. There is some really nice commentary from track veterans about the longevity and quality of the parts included. They should give you a solid idea of what you can expect from our kit.

[Roadsterdoc]

Group buy please!