Essex AP Racing Pro 5000R BBK Initial Review

[bluemonster]

Hello, long time lurker here finally decided to make an account.

I have a 2011 LMB M3 with ESS VT2-625 supercharger kit. I just started tracking my car last year and while the stock brakes and decent pads were fine with the stock power. When I went with the supercharger, I burned them out in under a lap.

I track my car mostly at the Mission Motor Raceway in BC, Canada which is known to destroy brakes. The last time I was there I got on it too hard and had almost no braking at the end of turn one and had to go off into the runoff. That ruined my day and I knew I had to step up the brakes. When I got back into the paddock, my rotors were over 600 degrees!

I decided on the Essex AP Racing CP9660 front brake kit. After a ton of research, there's really nothing better out there right now. Best of all, the kit DOES fit under the stock 219M wheels with a 15mm spacer in the front (I'm running Apex EC-7 wheels on the track so no spacer needed there).

I did the installation myself, which was a breeze but the bleeding was a PITA. I went through 1.5L of Castrol SRF with Motive Power Bleeder and I couldn't get the pedal 100% firm. I had to take it to my mechanic where he used the DIS electronic bleed which fixed the problem. The pedal feels great now!

First track day is still about a month away, so I'll report back on how that goes. I'm running DS2500 pads front and back (rear is still OEM setup) and will switch the fronts to DS1.11 for the track. I'm only running 275 square NT05 tires so it should be more than enough.

My only complaint about this kit is the pad rattle. The CP5060 kit has the option for the anti-rattle clips, but nothing for the CP9660 yet. Every decent bump in the road and there's a clicking noise from the front pads knocking around. Hopefully AP racing releases a clip for this caliper in the future.

Also, support at Essex is top notch. They are a great company to work with.

[dparm]

pics plz

[bluemonster]

With Pics

[roastbeef]

kit looks great! i have the other essex option for our cars up front. i was running the same ferodo ds2500 pads up front with oem rear brakes/pads. i'm not sure if i would run the ds1.11's with the oem rear's. you might be fine, but even with the ds2500's and oem rears i felt the rear end wanting to step out a bit if i was a little angled in the braking zone. run the 2500's and see how you like them. they are fine for me on the street/track.
i recently got ds2500 rear pads for my oem rear calipers/rotors, but i haven't had any track days on them yet, so nothing to report there. i'm hoping this is going to be a good setup.

[bluemonster]

Yeah, I'm running DS2500 in both the front and the rear for the street. Going to try and get away with the DS1.11 in the front and DS2500 in the back for the track.

Was going to get the rear kit, but the OCD in me can't handle their current non-matching caliper. I'll just wait until they release the Pro5000R rear. Also willing to try DS1.11 in the back as well, just not a huge fan of changing the pads in the back with the OEM calipers.

Had to switch to studs as well. Went for MH studs which are 100% needed with spacers as rotors on this kit don't have a set screw. Its a mega pain trying to line everything up with the rotors moving around so much.

[roastbeef]

ok cool, i misread what you were saying. sounds like a great setup.

[ashtaron14]

Mission is ultra hard on brakes, and not that fun in my books.

I have the Street Radi-CAL Front 6/Rear 4 on my Harrop supercharged car. I wonder if only having Fronts affect the braking balance.

What's the size of the front disks?

Cheers,
Sunny

[bluemonster]

Mission is fun when your brakes work, and is absolutely no fun if you are fighting that.

The rotors are 372x34mm and more than adequate. The calipers are much different than the Stillen Radi-cal ones though. All race part: SS vented pistons, no dust boots, no external lines.

The kit is made to match the torque as close as OEM as possible so it won't throw off the balance to the rear. But I'll give an update once I get out there (if this rain ever stops)

Hopefully all works as we have pretty limited track options here without heading south of the border.

[ashtaron14]

My car just sees the street so I think having the dust boot in a humid place is better.

[jritt@essex]

Thanks for the initial feedback BlueMonster! I'm excited to hear your impressions after unleashing that SC'd beast on the track with our kit. I have no doubt you are going to be impressed with what you see/feel. Also thanks for the info on the wheel fitment. I'll have to get that up on our website.

I have the Street Radi-CAL Front 6/Rear 4 on my Harrop supercharged car. I wonder if only having Fronts affect the braking balance.

From our BBK FAQ on our website:

Q: Is it okay to just buy your front-only brake kit?What about the rears?

A: Our front brake kits are designed to very closely mimic the OEM torque output on the front axle.That is accomplished by carefully sizing the discs and caliper pistons.For example, if we increase the disc diameter in our kit vs. stock, we decrease the overall piston area to produce the same overall torque output as the factory setup.As such, installing our front kit on your car will only have a negligible impact on brake bias.In most cases, the shift in brake bias is only in the 2-3% range.To put that in perspective, installing a more aggressive brake pad compound in your factory front calipers would typically have a greater impact on brake bias than installing our front kit while keeping the OEM front pad compound.

On most front-engine sports cars, the front brakes are taxed much more heavily than the rear brakes.That's why the front brakes are almost always larger, and why you go through 2-3 sets of front pads and discs for every set of rears you burn up at the track.The fronts do a disproportionate amount of work, and as such, they are the most critical component to upgrade.On many platforms, rear brake upgrades offer diminishing returns.The rear factory components tend to be smaller and lighter than the front components.As such, switching to AP Racing calipers and discs don't usually offer the dramatic unsprung weight savings that they do on the front.Since the rears tend to not run as hot, simply running good race pads and stainless steel lines on the rear will solve or prevent any rear brake issues.

On a rear-engine car, the rear brakes do a proportionately higher amount of work than on a front-engine car.As such, brake wear tends to be more balanced on the front and rear, and rear upgrades can be more relatively more important to the overall system performance.

Q: Will your brake kit mess with my ABS, stability control, torque vectoring, or disrupt my front to rear brake bias/balance?

A: No!Since our systems closely mimic the factory brake torque output on a given axle as described above, they have no noticeable impact on ABS, stability control, torque vectoring, etc.The brake pedal will feel much better due to lower compliance, and the brakes will take a far greater beating for considerably longer.You won't have any wonky ABS issues however.

As mentioned earlier in the thread by the OP, we have a matching rear Pro5000R caliper kit that will release later this year. If people don't want to wait, we have our current rear kit that uses a CP5040 caliper.

[bluemonster]

Thanks Jeff!

Quick questions

1. Any reason why you guys omitted the set screws on the rotor hats? Doesn't make a huge difference for car with factory studs, but its a mega pain in the butt for BMWs. Would be nice if you put those back in.

2. Any idea if/when AP would make a anti rattle clips for the CP9660? Most people on this board DD their cars and the rattling isn't something you really want. The Ferodo pads seem to make this worst as I've heard they tend to fit small.

[OC ///M]

2. Any idea if/when AP would make a anti rattle clips for the CP9660? Most people on this board DD their cars and the rattling isn't something you really want. The Ferodo pads seem to make this worst as I've heard they tend to fit small.

Thanks for your post, OP.
I'm having the same problem with the Essex-suggested Ferodo pads on my CP5060/5040 Competition Kit. While they did send out anti-rattle spring clips for the front calipers that quelled the noise up front, the rears still rattle badly.

Essex's response was simply that they have no solution available for the rears.

I find it interesting that Essex advertises a focus on customer service and are requesting feedback from us, but don't seem interested in solving this issue...

...I'd hate for others to unknowingly order this product without this noisy side-effect being disclosed before purchase.

Good luck and keep us posted!

[bluemonster]

I'm with you on that. I wish there was a little more transparency about the NVH issues with this kit.

The e9x M3 is still a pretty expensive car for most people to be entirely a track only car and most of us daily drive our toys.

Seems like engineering a $5 piece of spring steel to keep some pads from rattling around shouldn't be that hard of problem to solve.

Either way I still think its the best bet out there now as far as performance is concerned, so some sacrifices have to be made.

[OC ///M]

^ I'm in 100% agreement on all points.

[jritt@essex]

Bluemonster, please see page 12 of the other thread in which NVH is being discussed.

I find it interesting that Essex advertises a focus on customer service and are requesting feedback from us, but don't seem interested in solving this issue...

Why would you say that? Just yesterday I posted in the thread above that we hear your concerns and that we would try to help you.

Either way I still think its the best bet out there now as far as performance is concerned, so some sacrifices have to be made.

We believe this is certainly the case. Have you guys ever tried messing with the removable bridge on a StopTech ST-60? They can be an absolute nightmare to contend with, and certainly don't make swapping pads fun or easy. Once they go through several heat cycles they rarely fit back into the caliper without some serious wrestling. As for Brembo's Mono6, it requires the removal of the entire caliper to change pads! That is far worse than removing two little bolts on top of the caliper.

As noted in this thread, also keep in mind that all pads from all manufacturers are different sizes, varying by a couple mm in some cases. It is impossible for AP Racing to produce a caliper in which all pads from all sources will fit like a glove and not move around at all.

As I said in the other thread, if enough people are bothered by the issue, we can further investigate some options. It's not as simple as a $5 part however. When you make a $5 part you have to order 10,000 of them, which turns into $50,000 to chase a topic that we almost never get complaints about. We do appreciate the feedback and will continue to try and improve though. There is no perfect solution for all scenarios, but I think we are as close as anyone has gotten yet in the grand scheme of aftermarket BBK's. Thanks gents.

[OC ///M]

Originally Posted by jritt@essex

Why would you say that? Just yesterday I posted in the thread above that we hear your concerns and that we would try to help you.

^ check the time stamps, this was early in the morning yesterday. Remember, it wasn't until last night that you decided to take this issue up again at the next product planning meeting. (Appreciated)

Up until that point all we knew was:

We do not have any solutions for the pad rattle on the CP5040 rear caliper at this time. Sorry!

On behalf of the 0.2%, we thank you for working towards a resolution for this issue and continuing to provide excellent customer service.

[jritt@essex]

Originally Posted by OC ///M

^ check the time stamps, this was early in the morning yesterday. Remember, it wasn't until last night that you decided to take this issue up again at the next product planning meeting. (Appreciated)

Up until that point all we knew was:

On behalf of the 0.2%, we thank you for working towards a resolution for this issue and continuing to provide excellent customer service.

Understood. I was playing around on my Jump to Conclusions Mat again...my bad.

[OC ///M]

^ Hahaha...one of the all-time great movies!

[Move Over]

Can you post a review of the supercharger on the track? I'm looking into a 625 kit, but don't want the reliability of the car to suffer at all.

[bluemonster]

Originally Posted by Move Over

Can you post a review of the supercharger on the track? I'm looking into a 625 kit, but don't want the reliability of the car to suffer at all.

The ESS kit has been rock solid. It's by far my favourite mod and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Its the way the car should had come by the factory.

On the track, I'll have to give you a update in a week. As I mentioned in the first post, my brakes gave up on me and I couldn't really push the car. The passing power is insane, especially if your shifting is good and you can keep the revs over 5k.

I'll let you know how the system holds up once I can hit the track with the new BBK. I'll be at the track next weekend (3/26)