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BMW Z4 E89 Big Brake Upgrades

Name: BMW Z4 E89 Big Brake Upgrades
Address: 4, The Steadings, Swinside Townhead Farm, Jedburgh, TD86ND, GB
Telephone: +447775883122

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BMW Z4 E89 Big Brake Upgrades

These pages are dedicated to all things related to upgrading the brakes on BMW Z4 E89s (2009-2016)

05/03/2026

And…a 340mm PB rear BBK kit..just the adapter brackets and bolts…off to Australia…

04/03/2026

Another rear PB rear BBK kit ..this one is for 370mm rear F01 discs..

Owner wanted the caliper cradles machined and then this lot is off to Finland..

13/02/2026

So I’ve done a photo sequence showing a neat way of determining, then doing, then checking the caliper carrier cradle machining required to use the F10 carrier cradles with the 370mm rear BBK adaptors…first trial fit bracket to cradle, second attempt to insert bolt in middle hole..it will just foul the carrier, third mark said position of fouling, fourth disassemble and machine small amount of metal away at said point, fifth reassemble insert bolt and ideally 24mm washer…this will give the required cut area, sixth disassemble and machine away required metal periodically checking to not go far..finally reassemble and check clearance by using a 24mm socket ….simples

11/02/2026

A bumper pack of front and rear brake parts going out today..

Shelby Mustang 350R front calipers and 370mm rear discs, F10 calipers and cradles along with the 370mm E89 rear BBK adapters..

04/01/2026

Meanwhile back on the car I decided to repurpose my p***s enlarger as a pressurised brake bleeder unit.

Modern brake systems are very complex with their ABS/stability control modules.

BMW calls for a two stage brake bleed once the system has been drained as in the removal of calipers and left to drain out.

First stage is a normal bleed on all four wheels..with the rears needing potentially being taken off their mounts and inverted whilst attached to get the air out of the electronic parking brake area.

I was amazed at how long and how much air was in the system with over alitre required to get the first stage done.

Second stage requires ISTA activation of each brake channel on each corner with brake pedal pressed 5 times per chanel to purge air caught inside the DSC unit!

Using 5.1 brake fluid as its now preferred for more complex DSC/ESP units.

01/01/2026

New Year’s Eve saw the fitment of the production version of my design for a rear BBK for E89s.

I’d fitted a prototype version early in 2025 and there were a couple of issues with it…one was that the initial design required a couple of spacer washers on certain parts of the adapter bracket to get the caliper cradle (BMW M5/F10) to be fully centralised on the disc..345mm BMW E60, 370mm BMW F01.

Each version different combination of washers. I’d plagiarised the caliper cradle bracket design from other similar BBKs for other cars.

However all these designs used 1mm wider hole spacing than bolt size ..the combination causes a fair degree of ‘slop’ in the total structure prior to torque-ing up the bolts.

This version 7 production bracket uses 0.1mm tolerances instead and has fully rebated machining so no spacers are required.

Interesting the left hand version that used TRW caliper cradle (BMW OE) mated perfectly with the M5 caliper and the bracket…the right hand cradle is a NTY copy and just wasn’t as good at mating up with the OE caliper..did it in the end but more faff.

So the production version now installed in a fetching Phoenix Gold with Ferodo DS2500 pads to match the front…just need to apply the brakes a couple of times from a cold start ..otherwise you don’t stop!

23/12/2025

Fresh Phoenix Gold on the F10 caliper cradles for the PB rear BBK..plus 2 pack lacquer on all parts..covering up some damage when one of the calipers fell over whilst wet..first world problems

Prototype used M5 caliper cradles..but now with the machined adapter brackets doesn’t work without spacing washers..which was the whole idea to remove that weakness..

13/11/2025

Another couple of hours spent fettling rear brakes….cleaned the rear calipers and put some etch primer on the caliper cradles…bolted up the satin black painted BBK adapter brackets..with blue loctite and funky Swedish lock washers ..

Makes a massive difference not to have to use washers to space out the brackets….

120nm should hold it..

12/11/2025

So today I took off the rear prototype BBK parts and carefully inspected them for any signs of failure / distress…

All’s well..smothered everything in blue loctite when assembled after an initial loosening of a bolt ..boy it makes it hard work to undo..even after you’ve cracked the nut..

You can see how the Nordlock hardened steel lock washers bite even to the steel bracket..

Very pleased to see that the pad sweep is perfect and the combo of Ferodo DS2500 pads and F01 7 series 370mm disc are all good.

So about 5,000 miles and all well…

Just finishing off painting the production version of the brackets prior to fitting those.

Pics show my modified dust shields which are holding up well.

09/11/2025

A tidy up after a year’s worth of development…a pile of early versions ..now all scrapped…

Address

4, The Steadings, Swinside Townhead Farm
Jedburgh
TD86ND

Telephone

+447775883122

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