As most of you know I worked hard on bringing you all an alternative to my and others big brake kits of 13" diameters which could only be fit in 17" wheels and most still requiring wheel spacers. The solution to this was the TCE 12.2 DynaPro caliper kit which tested to fit 16" wheels and offer you most of the looks and performance of the larger kits. On the down side the cost of the fully booted DP caliper and the custom radial mount brackets used to anchor it has driven the cost of this kit up to $1269. That compared to the standard 13" kits starting at about $1100. Despite being smaller the hard parts cost of production dictated this pricing structure.

Well, the good news is that the price will drop. Down to about $900. The bad news (if there really is any) is that it will no longer be a TCE kit. While TCE has beat them to the market, Wilwood has opted to release their own factory produced kit for the MINI. Wiliwood has copied my kit! lol No, not really we just were working on it at the same time and came up with similard results. The Wilwood kit will be available in both 12.2 and a race package of 11.75 also, all the details of what is offered can be found here: www.wilwood.com

Their kit is nearly identical to what I produced and shipped to Steve. The difference being rotor diameter and type being used which I feel I had the upper hand on. Never the less given that they (and I as a dealer) chose to market the kit in this form I will not be producing the TCE kit as planned. Steve has a custom one off. No, there is nothing special about the TCE kit which could ever hinder him from optaining parts or support.

Since wheel fit was an issue on the TCE kit I'll now defer those questions to Wilwood. They claim to fit both 16 and 17s as I did however I do not have the engineering data to spec any differences between theirs and my own.

I regret having put the time and money into the development of the TCE kit only to pull the plug on it so fast, but financially it simply does not make sense for me to market a nearly identical kit for $300 more. Most of that difference was based on low production parts and of course my cost of filxed parts from them. If I were the manufacture of the calipers etc. I could likely have brought the price down further myself.

So, now what? The product line from TCE shall be revamped to reflect the TCE kits and the option of ordering the Wilwood kit. I will concentrate on the beefier racing options and be happy to help the street crowd in choosing either the Wilwood kit or my narrow street kit.

Option A: Wilwood kit $900+/- (price not confirmed yet)
Option B: TCE Street Sport kit $1059 base price
Option C: TCE Road Race kit $1099 base price

I hope to have the details of the Wilwood kit and pricing up on the web page within the week.


*As of 1pm today, the 6th, I'm not sure they even know what they are going to produce for the car. Their web page says one thing (which I corrected to above) but the sales staff says another. Sales claims it's all 11.75 while the page says 12.19. True, the same bracket can be used with spacers but they need to sell it one way only in my opinion. You guys should have jumped on my plans a couple weeks ago, at least I knew what I was offering....lol. Even if it was $300 more.

 

I went to the Wilwood site and could not find the kit you mentioned.

 

Try this one. <http://www.wilwood.com/products/kits/dpbbfhk/index.asp>

 

Thanks. And there are pics now of 'yours' down in the South West section of the forum.

Comparing the two DP kits you'll note the use of my preferred 'front mount' hats to the Wilwood 'reverse mount' hats. And yes, yours have all the bolts in them which we didn't use for test fit....And your hats are not dinged up either.