10-04-2018, 08:30 AM | #1 |
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F31-Best brake upgrade for the money?
So I have the standard bone-stock brakes on my F31 330i. My last car was a Focus ST which had enough pedal feel and brake bite to put your passenger's teeth into the dashboard. This is my first BMW, and I'm rather underwhelmed by the brake performance, particularly because I had always heard that BMWs had pretty legendary braking feel. I like a stiff brake pedal, but these just don't seem to have a lot of power.
If I were to ever upgrade, other than just putting on performance pads (which I'm fairly certain could be the best performance/$ solution) what are the gains/feel like when going > M-sport brakes (340mm gray ones on the 340i) or all the way to the 370mm M-performance brakes? Car won't forseeably be tracked, so I'm mostly interested in street performance. More initial bite over long-term heat dissipation.
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10-04-2018, 02:27 PM | #2 |
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I am in the same boat as you. Got the standard brakes and I know they are not meant for performance but looking for brake pads that might give best of both worlds to hold me over till next year and than upgrade to M-Performance 370MM Front 345mm rear brakes.
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10-04-2018, 02:28 PM | #3 |
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Can't tell you which pads give the best bite but I would get stainless steel lines and flush the entire system with new brake fluid with a power bleeder.
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10-04-2018, 05:11 PM | #5 |
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Do you know if there is an appreciable braking effect from upgrading to the 340i brakes? I mean they don't look terribly hot so it can't be just for looks. 😂
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10-04-2018, 06:26 PM | #6 |
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Maybe initial grab would be better. Other than that nope.
Bigger brakes good for when you do multiple hard braking. More surface area to absorb /heat so they won't fade. Last edited by tpliquid; 10-04-2018 at 07:05 PM.. |
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10-04-2018, 06:43 PM | #7 |
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The pedal feel with the larger brakes is worse IMO. With the stock brakes the pedal goes firm pretty quickly, and is easy to modulate from there. With the Brembos the pedal is mushier and overall has less feedback. It doesn't firm up like the standard brakes do till much later in the travel (when you're stopping HARD). Yes, I coded the larger brakes appropriately when I did the swap on my car.
Unless you're tracking, you probably won't notice any difference between the 340 and 370mm brakes. |
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10-04-2018, 08:33 PM | #8 | |
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Best price upgrade and should be a big improvement over your equipment. They will work with 18" wheels. Best price I found on the M Performance was over $2k |
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10-04-2018, 08:40 PM | #9 | ||
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10-05-2018, 03:18 AM | #10 |
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I just finished installing the M-sport brembos (340 front, 345 rear) along with EBC Blue pads and braided lines on my 420i and the improvement is MASSIVE, even before coding. So good in fact that I'm really thinking about skipping the coding altogether.
Initial bite is much superior, pedal feel is good (although as mentioned above, paradoxically big-ass brakes almost always mean softer pedal feel and longer travel compared to the small, stock single piston calipers) and the stopping distance has been reduced significantly. I too was shocked at the lack of power of the stock brakes. They were much, much better on a CLA250 Merc I rented for a few days recently. |
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10-05-2018, 05:25 AM | #11 | |
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