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No, I haven't given up on this. Way back in post #113 I said that I had installed Fusion 360 and had to learn how to use it. That was not making much progress, until the coronavirus happened and we all got told to work from home. After zero snow in February, there was a big snowstorm forecast for the weekend so we decided to get out of town and head to Tahoe. Saturday at Squaw Valley skiing with my daughter was epic, unlimited powder refills and another 3 feet in the forecast, we were totally psyched for Sunday and Monday. Then every ski area in Tahoe shut down due to Covid-19. Expletives!
The combination of heavy snow and incompetent drivers had closed I-80, so nothing to do but pull out the laptop and finally learn Fusion 360. If you go way back to posts #69 and #70, there are pictures of my original duct for getting between the transmission and the subframe. The problem with the original design was the hose ended up too close to the sway bar and it got pinched. So here it is completely re-designed in Fusion 360, with some added height to get it out of the way of the swaybar.
Now I just have to figure out how to slice it into sections so I can print it.
Not much to brag about for snow here in the NE. I did miss 2 epic days when the mountains of northern VT got something like 40”, total. It was an elevation storm that wasn’t well predicted. The snow rain line was just a bit south of Stowe and I was staying just south of there when it hit. I opted to head home, while a friend opted to head for the hills and see what was up. He was “kind” enough to tell me all about it afterwards... Other than that, we have had a lot of days where it would snow, then rain, then freeze... Now, like there, everything is shut down. It may be for the best as the ski areas get to cut their losses now.
I like your model. For consideration.... Just back from the rectangular opening there is a sharp angle into the upward slope. Could that be made into a modestly generous radius? I know it will only have a little effect on air flow, but there should be a slight improvement with a radius there.
I like your model. For consideration.... Just back from the rectangular opening there is a sharp angle into the upward slope. Could that be made into a modestly generous radius? I know it will only have a little effect on air flow, but there should be a slight improvement with a radius there.
Yep I agree. How's this? Now that I am developing some competency with the tool, this took about 2 minutes to change.
I was trying to follow this topic but because there are some big "stops" and it wasnt that active...Can you give me some final hints for the best i can get?
So what do you think guys as the best brake cooling solution?
I dont want to put of my drl/foglights..What mounts should i put on my discs/calipers and what about tubing?
Right - all of these are designed for the Gen2 car. The rotor plates and the fancy ducting to get past the transmission should work on any R56/55/57/58. The front duct adapters will only work for the "LCI" version (about 2011 and later). R53s have it easy, you can use the Sneed kit.
I do need to get back to work on this but right now the garage is filled with another project (new head gaskets on the old MDX).
I know that this thread is for R56 and i have an R56 JCW N18(LCI)...
The only kit thatlooks good is from S4S but im wondering if there is even something better(besides that S4S is unreachable from EU :( @squawSkiBum if im not mistaken you just made a disc plate that none of the other kits doesnt have?Should i buy SOMEHOW the s4s cooling kit and adapt your "plates" as well? what other improvements you have to do? xD
Thank you both guys for your reply!!
For the R56 JCW -
first, go look at realoem.com to understand the parts for the front brake ducts for your car. Working from the front to the back:
The inlets on the front bumper are a different shape on the JCW with the Aerokit bumper vs. the R56S/LCI, but the Air brake channel left and right (part numbers 51747283343 and 51747283344) appear to be the same so the 3D printed adapters I did that go from the duct to the round hose should fit. You don't need the Sneed kit that goes in the foglight opening, that was for the pre-LCI model. Of course you need a 3D printer.
Then there's getting any sort of round hose past the engine on the right side and the transmission on the left. That just isn't going to happen with any sort of round hose more than an inch in diameter, see all the pictures and posts I did about that. I'm still working on trying to figure that out, that's why I'm doing all the fancy carbon fiber covered 3D printed ducts to try to get through the narrow spots. I love the guys at Sneed but I don't think their brake cooler kit for the R56 works because you can't route the hose through the tight spots.
Last there's the plate at the rotor, the idea is to direct the air into the center of the rotor so it comes out between the two rotor surfaces. Those were laid up in carbon on top of 3D printed forms, I have seen similar things for Porsches but to my knowledge no one else has ever done this for a MINI. You could do something similar in metal or see what Eddie07S did.
What started me on this project was cooking the brakes on a track day. There were 4 run groups, my son would do 20 min in A, then 20 minute cool down, I'd do 20 min in B, 20 min cool down, back and forth all day. By the end of the day the EBC Yellow pads were pretty much useless, which surprised me because before I upgraded to the JCI Brembos the EBC Yellows had worked well for me. The last track day I did there were only 3 run groups, 20 min for me, hot swap to my son who would do 20 min, then 20 min cool down. A set of Carbotech 1521s did just fine. So maybe it was the brake pads and not so much a cooling issue. But I can't give up now.
Last edited by squawSkiBum; 09-02-2020 at 09:45 PM.
Reason: typos
I would add that you don’t want cold air blowing on the rotors brake pad surface, especially just one side. This will crack rotors. This of from experience. What was said above, you want to have the cold air coming in at the base of the rotor vanes, so it goes up through the vanes of the rotor.
At my last track event I saw several BMW with the scoop arrangement, where the scoop fits under the front lower control arm and a short tube comes up to a fixture on the back of the brake rotor to channel the air to the rotor. The ones I saw were removable and they were put in at the track. I know squawSkiBum has put a lot of effort into this project, but IMHO, this seems to be a great compromise solution for the R56.
Brake pads are also a big part of the solution. I am not surprised that the Yellow Stuff pads were less than ideal on the track, given their 900-1000 deg max temp. And I am really surprised the Carbotech 1521s worked for you. I really disliked those pads when I tried them on the street. On the track I run full race pads. In my R56 I run Hawk DTC60 for Watkins Glen and Wilwood Poly H for Lime Rock Park. I have also run Carbotech XP10s, and a few others. At my last event, with the F56 JCW at WGI, I ran iSweep i4000 in the front and Hawk DTC30 in the rear. The DTC 30s were clearly well beyond their useful temperature in just a few laps.
Last edited by Eddie07S; 09-03-2020 at 07:53 AM.
Reason: Edit
Brake pads are also a big part of the solution. I am not surprised that the Yellow Stuff pads were less than ideal on the track, given their 900-1000 deg max temp. And I am really surprised the Carbotech 1521s worked for you. I really disliked those pads when I tried them on the street. On the track I run full race pads. In my R56 I run Hawk DTC60 for Watkins Glen and Wilwood Poly H for Lime Rock Park. I have also run Carbotech XP10s, and a few others. At my last event, with the F56 JCW at WGI, I ran iSweep i4000 in the front and Hawk DTC30 in the rear. The DTC 30s were clearly well beyond their useful temperature in just a few laps.
Slightly off topic, but we've also had good luck with DTC60 in the front. We got basically 2 full lemons races out of them. Rears we have found don't seem to matter much what we run.
Slightly off topic, but we've also had good luck with DTC60 in the front. We got basically 2 full lemons races out of them. Rears we have found don't seem to matter much what we run.
The only issue I found with the DTC60 pads is that, if they don’t get enough heat into them, they will grind away a set of rotors in a day. This happened to my R56 at a track with very little braking and what there was for braking only necessitated light braking. Other than that, they are a great pad, well liked by the E30 race car crowd I know.
As long as we are on this topic, an update to my F56 JCW notes... I have dropped the iSweep pads in favor of Carbotech XP12s. Expensive but they have resolved the issues I was have with the iSweep pads at Watkins Glen where the iSweeps were leaving lumpy deposits on the rotors when things got really hot.
03-16-2020, 10:31 PM
Other than that, we have had a lot of days where it would snow, then rain, then freeze... Now, like there, everything is shut down. It may be for the best as the ski areas get to cut their losses now. 
