Preparing a BMW 330ci for its first track day
Discussion
daveco said:
DS1.11s have been ordered for the front pads. Are DS2500s warranted for the rear or would Brembos do? Brembos are about twice as expensive compared to standard OEM but half as expensive as the DS2500s.
I would probably go OE and buy 2 sets for the price of x1 Brembo. I assume they are the basic Brembo (there are normally quite cheap on ECP).
nickfrog said:
daveco said:
DS1.11s have been ordered for the front pads. Are DS2500s warranted for the rear or would Brembos do? Brembos are about twice as expensive compared to standard OEM but half as expensive as the DS2500s.
I would probably go OE and buy 2 sets for the price of x1 Brembo. I assume they are the basic Brembo (there are normally quite cheap on ECP).daveco said:
Brembo part no. for rear pads is 646BM0194 and their thickness 17.3mm so the same as OEM so unless they're a different compound am I effectively paying for a name??
Difficult to say ! I would be surprised if you had issues with either if they are new, plenty of material to dissipate that heat !nickfrog said:
C70R said:
The beauty of trackdays are that they are for completely mixed ability and needs, and I had a great time on that day.
Always worth bearing that in mind, particularly when people are giving advice to newbies...
I would always suggest to newbies that they go over equipped rather than under equipped on the brakes front. One less thing to worry about.Always worth bearing that in mind, particularly when people are giving advice to newbies...
nickfrog said:
daveco said:
DS1.11s have been ordered for the front pads. Are DS2500s warranted for the rear or would Brembos do? Brembos are about twice as expensive compared to standard OEM but half as expensive as the DS2500s.
I would probably go OE and buy 2 sets for the price of x1 Brembo. I assume they are the basic Brembo (there are normally quite cheap on ECP).E-bmw said:
nickfrog said:
daveco said:
DS1.11s have been ordered for the front pads. Are DS2500s warranted for the rear or would Brembos do? Brembos are about twice as expensive compared to standard OEM but half as expensive as the DS2500s.
I would probably go OE and buy 2 sets for the price of x1 Brembo. I assume they are the basic Brembo (there are normally quite cheap on ECP).E-bmw said:
nickfrog said:
C70R said:
The beauty of trackdays are that they are for completely mixed ability and needs, and I had a great time on that day.
Always worth bearing that in mind, particularly when people are giving advice to newbies...
I would always suggest to newbies that they go over equipped rather than under equipped on the brakes front. One less thing to worry about.Always worth bearing that in mind, particularly when people are giving advice to newbies...
Given i run a 330i Touring (1700kg!) and done the Ring and a few track days, I'll echo a majority on the brakes.
Get DS2500 / Mintex / Pagrid, depending how flush you are. I've run DS2500 and theyr'e a good pad to find your feet on if it's a first time out. An upgrade from that would be as mentioned, Pagid RS pads etc.
Do NOT even bother with EBC, I've heard many stories of them constantly burning out within a morning or less. One of my old university lecturers was Steve Sopher's race engineer, and they tried some EBC brake pads during a test session back in the super-touring days. One morning, and 3 sets later, they tossed the lot in the bin and went back to Ferrodo DS3000's. His words describing EBC was basically 'f
king st!'
ATE TYP200 is decent fluid and stainless steel brake lines from Goodridge or HEL will be a good idea too.
Cooling system needs to be checked over, and a coolant flush would also be a good idea.
During the day, keep an eye on fluid levels and check for leaks. I'd do no more than 15 min stints and bring the car down on a cool down lap or 2, then give the car a chance to cool down for the morning till you're confident it's not about to dump it's guts.
Get DS2500 / Mintex / Pagrid, depending how flush you are. I've run DS2500 and theyr'e a good pad to find your feet on if it's a first time out. An upgrade from that would be as mentioned, Pagid RS pads etc.
Do NOT even bother with EBC, I've heard many stories of them constantly burning out within a morning or less. One of my old university lecturers was Steve Sopher's race engineer, and they tried some EBC brake pads during a test session back in the super-touring days. One morning, and 3 sets later, they tossed the lot in the bin and went back to Ferrodo DS3000's. His words describing EBC was basically 'f
king st!' ATE TYP200 is decent fluid and stainless steel brake lines from Goodridge or HEL will be a good idea too.
Cooling system needs to be checked over, and a coolant flush would also be a good idea.
During the day, keep an eye on fluid levels and check for leaks. I'd do no more than 15 min stints and bring the car down on a cool down lap or 2, then give the car a chance to cool down for the morning till you're confident it's not about to dump it's guts.
C70R said:
E-bmw said:
nickfrog said:
C70R said:
The beauty of trackdays are that they are for completely mixed ability and needs, and I had a great time on that day.
Always worth bearing that in mind, particularly when people are giving advice to newbies...
I would always suggest to newbies that they go over equipped rather than under equipped on the brakes front. One less thing to worry about.Always worth bearing that in mind, particularly when people are giving advice to newbies...
£200 is small beans compared to a written off car and hitting someone else's P&J and writing that off and ending up in A & E.
E-bmw said:
C70R said:
E-bmw said:
nickfrog said:
C70R said:
The beauty of trackdays are that they are for completely mixed ability and needs, and I had a great time on that day.
Always worth bearing that in mind, particularly when people are giving advice to newbies...
I would always suggest to newbies that they go over equipped rather than under equipped on the brakes front. One less thing to worry about.Always worth bearing that in mind, particularly when people are giving advice to newbies...
£200 is small beans compared to a written off car and hitting someone else's P&J and writing that off and ending up in A & E.
This expensive fuss around decent set up will allow to do more laps. Do a warm up lap, then a couple of fast laps following with a couple of cool down laps. Get back in the pits, wait for 20-30 minutes. This will let you to better understand what's what. No lap recors will be beaten on your first day. Want more time on track? Invest in your heavy daily car or buy a cheap and light mx5 that will be good on consumables.
I've not tracked mine (330ci used as daily) but have done trackdays and the ring in the kitcar.
You can easily overthink it, but a set of reasonable pads and brake fluid change are a good shout on a heavy car. If your changing the pads and driving home, keep the old ones, worse case you can swap them back. Check for pad wear during your breaks, don't loose sleep over it.
These cars have an open diff and use the rear brakes to control traction loss, so when pushing on I have got the rears quite warm, but I think the effect of that will be negligible on track compared to twisty lanes with loose bits.
The BMWs are prone to coolent issues, failing top hoses, radiators, thermostat also went on mine, etc. However unless the rad is visably swelling, just check the level before you go out and keep your eye on the temp gauge from time to time. It won't cool enough between runs in the morning to re-check but there is a low level warning sensor on these cars.
Tyres are easy to check for wear, but do check them. You might want to swap them round if the shoulders are going on the fronts, but generally I can't see a morning being a huge issue.
Engine oil should be fine as long as your up to date, as with most other things. If the car is brand new to you, a good 'shakedown' somewhere you can put both feet down fairly hard in reasonable succession while remaining with the law would be my plan, if you have had it a while I'm sure you have done that already.
Keep your windscreen and mirrors clean and make use of them, drive within your limits, enjoy the day. You will learn far more in the morning of the day than a year on here asking about what trackdays are like! Listen to the drivers breifing, go slowly first, learn the lines a bit, built the speed a bit.
I also echo about looking after yourself. I always day 2ltres of weak squash and my own sandwiches, unless it's what you normally eat, this is not the day to be dehydrated and on a caffeine hit from a diet of fizzy pop and greasy burger.
Have fun. Relax. Enjoy it.
Daniel
You can easily overthink it, but a set of reasonable pads and brake fluid change are a good shout on a heavy car. If your changing the pads and driving home, keep the old ones, worse case you can swap them back. Check for pad wear during your breaks, don't loose sleep over it.
These cars have an open diff and use the rear brakes to control traction loss, so when pushing on I have got the rears quite warm, but I think the effect of that will be negligible on track compared to twisty lanes with loose bits.
The BMWs are prone to coolent issues, failing top hoses, radiators, thermostat also went on mine, etc. However unless the rad is visably swelling, just check the level before you go out and keep your eye on the temp gauge from time to time. It won't cool enough between runs in the morning to re-check but there is a low level warning sensor on these cars.
Tyres are easy to check for wear, but do check them. You might want to swap them round if the shoulders are going on the fronts, but generally I can't see a morning being a huge issue.
Engine oil should be fine as long as your up to date, as with most other things. If the car is brand new to you, a good 'shakedown' somewhere you can put both feet down fairly hard in reasonable succession while remaining with the law would be my plan, if you have had it a while I'm sure you have done that already.
Keep your windscreen and mirrors clean and make use of them, drive within your limits, enjoy the day. You will learn far more in the morning of the day than a year on here asking about what trackdays are like! Listen to the drivers breifing, go slowly first, learn the lines a bit, built the speed a bit.
I also echo about looking after yourself. I always day 2ltres of weak squash and my own sandwiches, unless it's what you normally eat, this is not the day to be dehydrated and on a caffeine hit from a diet of fizzy pop and greasy burger.
Have fun. Relax. Enjoy it.
Daniel
Justinas said:
E-bmw said:
C70R said:
E-bmw said:
nickfrog said:
C70R said:
The beauty of trackdays are that they are for completely mixed ability and needs, and I had a great time on that day.
Always worth bearing that in mind, particularly when people are giving advice to newbies...
I would always suggest to newbies that they go over equipped rather than under equipped on the brakes front. One less thing to worry about.Always worth bearing that in mind, particularly when people are giving advice to newbies...
£200 is small beans compared to a written off car and hitting someone else's P&J and writing that off and ending up in A & E.
This expensive fuss around decent set up will allow to do more laps. Do a warm up lap, then a couple of fast laps following with a couple of cool down laps. Get back in the pits, wait for 20-30 minutes. This will let you to better understand what's what. No lap recors will be beaten on your first day. Want more time on track? Invest in your heavy daily car or buy a cheap and light mx5 that will be good on consumables.
I had it with green, yellow, red & when they were new blue, they are shi!t others have said it with DS2500, and I too had it with them.
All were shot by lunch, had I not had OE pads for the afternoon there would be half of the cost of the day thrown away at best.
On one of these occasions (yellow) I was at the end of the main straight at Elvington doing over 100 when I braked & my foot went to the floor, luckily there is about 27 miles run off at Elvington & I managed to shed speed by weaving & returned off track.
When I got the car up there was fluid dribbling from a front caliper. The pad had worn down crumbled & allowed the backing plate to go out far enough for the piston to slip out of the caliper & drop its fluid.
I was lucky, I was checking my pads every time in the pits, I was doing everything I could to help and I just stayed out another 2 laps as I was having fun.
If that was at Coppice at Cadwell it would have cost me my car at the VERY least.
Where does that put the extra £100 for DS1.11/Pagid RS29 etc? Because that is all they are above the cost of EBC plasticine.
C70R said:
I think where places like PH stray slightly from "go over-equipped" is an inherent failure to understand that not everyone is the same as them. OP didn't need to spend £200+ on brake pads to know whether he'd enjoy his first taster of a track day.
No failure to understand anything. I don't know the OP. You don't know the OP. You have no idea if he is the same as me or the same as you. Perhaps he is somewhere in the middle ? You don't know how quickly he will be on the pace. I have seen people getting there very quickly. And anyway track novices tend to brake too early and not release quickly enough and may well overheat where a regular billy wouldn't. He might want to do more than your 1 or 2 hot laps by the end of the day. It will probably be a very hot day. £200 might be insignificant for him. I have actually ran a E46 330i Ci on track and I know exactly its limitations. Decent pads will not be a luxury IME.
I'm no track day expert, and I know my car is a lot lighter than a BMW, but have done a few TDs and would echo what some of the posters have said.
As far as pads, I've now settled on Pagid RS29 - they are expensive, but last really well, and they are also very kind to the disks, so are good overall value for money IMHO. They also work well from cold on the road - only downside is they can squeak a bit sometimes (not something that bothers me).
Although probably not relevant for a first track day, when it comes to disks, I'd always go with grooved ones and never drilled. The standard disks on my car were drilled and started to show signs of hairline cracks emanating from the holes. You don't have that issue with grooved.
As has been said, take it easy and build up slowly, but when it comes to braking (something several instructors have mentioned), less experienced drivers tend to brake too early, not hard enough, and for too long, which counter-intuitively actually puts more heat stress on the brakes than shorter and harder braking.
Finally (and maybe most important), if the track day finishes at 4:30pm, finish yours by 4pm. This not only avoids you trying to go that little bit faster/trying too hard at the end of the day when (whether you realise it or not), you are most tired and most likely to over cook it, but it also avoids being out on track when everyone else is doing the same thing. This was illustrated very clearly at Spa a few years back. As the day was coming to a close, you could almost feel the increase in tension in the air as many people were trying that little bit harder. I called it a day with over 30 minutes to go, and watched as a couple of Porsche GT3s span, and then a GT3RS over did it accelerating out of the bus stop and properly stacked it into the concrete wall on the start-finish straight.
Apart from that, take it easy, and most importantly, enjoy yourself.
As far as pads, I've now settled on Pagid RS29 - they are expensive, but last really well, and they are also very kind to the disks, so are good overall value for money IMHO. They also work well from cold on the road - only downside is they can squeak a bit sometimes (not something that bothers me).
Although probably not relevant for a first track day, when it comes to disks, I'd always go with grooved ones and never drilled. The standard disks on my car were drilled and started to show signs of hairline cracks emanating from the holes. You don't have that issue with grooved.
As has been said, take it easy and build up slowly, but when it comes to braking (something several instructors have mentioned), less experienced drivers tend to brake too early, not hard enough, and for too long, which counter-intuitively actually puts more heat stress on the brakes than shorter and harder braking.
Finally (and maybe most important), if the track day finishes at 4:30pm, finish yours by 4pm. This not only avoids you trying to go that little bit faster/trying too hard at the end of the day when (whether you realise it or not), you are most tired and most likely to over cook it, but it also avoids being out on track when everyone else is doing the same thing. This was illustrated very clearly at Spa a few years back. As the day was coming to a close, you could almost feel the increase in tension in the air as many people were trying that little bit harder. I called it a day with over 30 minutes to go, and watched as a couple of Porsche GT3s span, and then a GT3RS over did it accelerating out of the bus stop and properly stacked it into the concrete wall on the start-finish straight.
Apart from that, take it easy, and most importantly, enjoy yourself.
Once you've got over all the brake stuff, loss some weight ,even if it's only the spare wheel and back seat to start with . Then lower gearing . The standard diff (2.9:1) is way to tall. My semi stripped 325ti compact with 330 engine is about 300kg less then a 330 coupe and has 3.23:1 diff and is still a little tall for track use. I'd get a 3.46:1 if only used on track.
This thread has been an eye-opener!
I have gone for DS1.11s on the front pads and MTEC grooved discs, the latter of which I've heard mixed things about (after they arrived...) but we'll see.
This is a weekend car so I have looked into changing the diff to a 3.64 ratio but they're expensive and I think the car idles at over 2k rpm? And someone online has gone to the trouble of weighing everything they've taken out of the car. The spare tyre, tools, boot floor all come to about 25kg which I doubt would be noticed on track but opinions on this would be good to hear as that is one aspect of the car that I would like to improve on (its weight).
On a separate note;-
I was reading some old EVO magazines and in issue 71 an E46 330ci with the SMG box ran a 1.34 at Bedford Autodrome with the mag saying it would be a 1.33 with the manual box...that means the relatively lardy 330ci is about seven seconds quicker around Bedford than a Mk V Golf GTI, and about a second slower than a 350Z. That doesn't make sense to me considering the 1500+kg weight, long gearing and moderate power advantage.
I have gone for DS1.11s on the front pads and MTEC grooved discs, the latter of which I've heard mixed things about (after they arrived...) but we'll see.
This is a weekend car so I have looked into changing the diff to a 3.64 ratio but they're expensive and I think the car idles at over 2k rpm? And someone online has gone to the trouble of weighing everything they've taken out of the car. The spare tyre, tools, boot floor all come to about 25kg which I doubt would be noticed on track but opinions on this would be good to hear as that is one aspect of the car that I would like to improve on (its weight).
On a separate note;-
I was reading some old EVO magazines and in issue 71 an E46 330ci with the SMG box ran a 1.34 at Bedford Autodrome with the mag saying it would be a 1.33 with the manual box...that means the relatively lardy 330ci is about seven seconds quicker around Bedford than a Mk V Golf GTI, and about a second slower than a 350Z. That doesn't make sense to me considering the 1500+kg weight, long gearing and moderate power advantage.
[quote=C&C]
As far as pads, I've now settled on Pagid RS29 - they are expensive, but last really well, and they are also very kind to the disks, so are good overall value for money IMHO. They also work well from cold on the road - only downside is they can squeak a bit sometimes (not something that bothers me).
.
[/quote]
Very interested in your experience. Is that on a mainly track dedicated car or a daily driver that also sees track action? I am very tempted to run RS29 on a trackable daily but does that make sense ?
As far as pads, I've now settled on Pagid RS29 - they are expensive, but last really well, and they are also very kind to the disks, so are good overall value for money IMHO. They also work well from cold on the road - only downside is they can squeak a bit sometimes (not something that bothers me).
.
[/quote]
Very interested in your experience. Is that on a mainly track dedicated car or a daily driver that also sees track action? I am very tempted to run RS29 on a trackable daily but does that make sense ?
Try PBS pads, sure i've seen a deal for BMW where you get a free rear set when buying fronts at 129.99. They are a great pad and have been compared to much more expensive pads in this forum. They are used on the Honda Civic Cup cars and have pretty much made any other pad redundant in the DC5 circles
nickfrog said:
[quote=C&C]
As far as pads, I've now settled on Pagid RS29 - they are expensive, but last really well, and they are also very kind to the disks, so are good overall value for money IMHO. They also work well from cold on the road - only downside is they can squeak a bit sometimes (not something that bothers me).
.
Very interested in your experience. Is that on a mainly track dedicated car or a daily driver that also sees track action? I am very tempted to run RS29 on a trackable daily but does that make sense ?As far as pads, I've now settled on Pagid RS29 - they are expensive, but last really well, and they are also very kind to the disks, so are good overall value for money IMHO. They also work well from cold on the road - only downside is they can squeak a bit sometimes (not something that bothers me).
.
Apart from that they were simply excellent all year round.
Gassing Station | Track Days | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff