BMW 502 Race Preperation

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Find Safety In Braking, My Son.

Brake upgrades, even conversion to disc brakes, are legal and encouraged for all Carrera cars for safety reasons. As already mentioned, we had purchased an extra 502 specifically because it had disc brakes in the front, and our '58 car did not. Switching front suspensions between the cars was a simple matter of unbolting the complete suspensions from each car and bolting them back on to the opposite vehicle. As quick as that, we had a disc brake racecar. Oh, and what discs they were----tiny solid rotors with antiquated calipers and tiny pads. Definitely not race car material.

    So…to the drawing board. Careful examination of the front hubs showed that we had no choice with regard to their retention, so the bearings and seals were replaced and they were set aside. The stock discs were next examined and measured. The critical dimensions of interest were the diameter of the rotor's hub mounting surface, the distance from the hub mounting surface to the centerline of the rotor, and the clearance between the hub mounting surface and other spindle area parts. These measurements were then compared to those of all modern BMW rotors, and voila, the vented rotors for the 92-on E36 325i fit all the necessary criteria. Calipers were the next research item and they were pretty straightforward. E36 rotors are the same thickness as the rotors used on several other BMWs, including the 89-95 E34 535, which has significantly larger pads than the E36. A simple machine shop operation allowed the E36 discs to be bolted onto the inside of the 502 hubs and then be bolted onto the spindles for the first of many trial fits. And here's why: rotor and caliper selection was the easy part. Much harder was fabricating caliper-mounting brackets. We were very fortunate in as much as we were able to make the brackets from flat plate machined for hub clearance, spindle mounting, and shape so as to allow the E34 calipers to properly and fully straddle the rotors. A set of stainless steel braided lines made for an E34 completed the front brakes.

     Rear brakes were retained in stock configuration. They are finned 10 inch drums with new shoes, rebuilt wheel cylinders, and another set of stainless steel braided flex-hoses. Completely new steel brake lines were run throughout the car and a manually adjustable brake pressure regulator was installed just behind the driver seat. The hydraulics of the brake system were finished off with a master cylinder from an E34 535i and the system was filled and flushed with ATE Blue Racing Brake Fluid.

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