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Just received confirmation from my contact in Germany that the custom PCCB front caliper adapters are also completed. I expect to receive them by Thanksgiving and will be taking them to the powder coater to have them done to match the yellow PCCB calipers.
I'll be installing them with these gorgeous Titanium fasteners that I had custom done by Ti64 (http://www.ti64.com/default.asp). I also had them drill the tops so I could safety wire the mounting bolts together to prevent any chance of them loosening.
And at the same time, will be installing these braided stainless brake lines from ECS Tuning.
and doing a complete bleed with Motul RBF600, which I run in all my cars.
The PCCB Caliper adatpers from Epytec in Germany arrived today.
First thing I did upon opening them was compare them to the 3D printed sample I was sent for a test fit a few weeks ago. Comparing the metal versions to the plastic one, it looks like we're in good shape.
Next, I took the Titanium mounting bolts I sourced from Ti-64 and hand threaded one into the caliper adapter. Thread diameter and pitch are correct - we're off to a good start.
Next, I continued threading in the Ti bolts until they lightly bottomed out, then measured the exposed shank length from under the bolt head to the caliper adapter. The purpose of this was to compare this length to the dimension through the caliper. What I want is for the exposed shank length to be shorter than the distance through the caliper so I could properly torque the bolts without the mounting bolts bottoming out in the adapter before reaching the proper torque. More good news - exposed shank length was 87.73 mm and the distance through the caliper is 93.05 mm, which means after torquing the bolts which will make them stretch 1-1.5 mm, I'll end up with about 4mm of space at the end of the bolt (93.05 - 87.73 - 1 = 4.32 mm). The thickness of the adapter where the bolt threads in is 21.76 mm so I'll end up with 17.46 mm of thread engagement into the adapter (21.76 - 4.3 = 17.46) which should be plenty. OK, progressing nicely.
Next, I measured the thickness of the adapter at the curve. For those of you following along, you'll remember that the 3D printed sample at 27mm was too thick in this area and contacted a flange on the wheel carrier. One nice thing about receiving the 3D printed sample before production of the metal ones is that it allowed me to easily rework the plastic model and send adjusted dimensions back to Epytec to be used for the final adapters. Reworking the plastic adapter on the bench sander I had determined that in this area, I needed a width of 24mm to clear the flange. I sent them a new spec of 23mm to have 1mm of margin and asked that they modify the curve using this dimension at the center point, which they did, so should be all set there. So far so good.
Now for the real moment of truth. There is zero wiggle room when the Ti mounting bolts are passed through the caliper mounting holes as you don't want the caliper shifting around on the bolts when braking forces are applied. This means my center-to-center dimension measurements of the calipers have to be perfect for the bolts to thread into the adapter. Holding my breath, I inserted 2 of the mounting bolts and by hand started the thread engagement into the adapter. Working each bolt a few turns at a time by hand, I drew the two pieces together, and to my jubilation, they came together perfectly with the mounting post surfaces of the caliper mating to the adapter surfaces perfectly square. Huge sigh of relief.
So, after verifying that everything appears to be good to go for the install, I took the adapters off to the powdercoater wtih one of the pieces I had cut from the original mounting post when shortening them, so they could match the color to the PCCB yellow. I should get them back either late next week or the week after, which is fine, as I likely won't get to the actual 4-corner installation until I'm off on vacation for the Christmas Holiday.
Opened the garage today and the sun was coming in just right to really highlight the pearl effect of the paint, so I snapped a couple pics The lines you can see is the clearbra to protect it from road rash.
Caliper Adapters are back from powdercoat. I need to chase the threads the caliper bolts will thread into to remove some residue, but should now have everything to do the conversion / installation on-hand. It's on the mental calendar for December 27th (after Christmas, but before the New Year's company arrives).
"I met up with Bobby Buggs in Naples, FL today and drove his Panamera 4S. He has added the Armytrix exhaust which brings the exhaust sound to another level, it can be driven mild, barely louder than stock.....OR wild, nice and loud but throaty as you rev it. Now on to the Sprint Booster, in Sport it is plenty responsive and wakes up the throttle as others have mentioned, it does remove the lag making the driving experience way more sports-like. In Track setting (or the highest setting) the throttle is tons of fun, for sure this thing works! Half throttle feels like full pedal to the metal. For less than $300 seems like the way to go, the combination of the exhaust and the Sprint Booster make the Panny a different animal."
"I met up with Bobby Buggs in Naples, FL today and drove his Panamera 4S. He has added the Armytrix exhaust which brings the exhaust sound to another level, it can be driven mild, barely louder than stock.....OR wild, nice and loud but throaty as you rev it. Now on to the Sprint Booster, in Sport it is plenty responsive and wakes up the throttle as others have mentioned, it does remove the lag making the driving experience way more sports-like. In Track setting (or the highest setting) the throttle is tons of fun, for sure this thing works! Half throttle feels like full pedal to the metal. For less than $300 seems like the way to go, the combination of the exhaust and the Sprint Booster make the Panny a different animal."
With my setup I'm not experiencing any throttle lag - I get a pinned boost needle even under partial throttle and pretty quickly - transmission lag is the bigger issue, but only in auto mode. In manual shift mode in the sport profile, it's not as bad so my next mod is to ads paddle shifters to the back of the wheel for better shifting feel than the thumb buttons.
Cleared off the lift (914 & 928), washed the Cayenne, so I don't have to work on dirty wheels and brakes, put her in position and locked the suspension so she's ready to get started.
I have a list of things to do while the wheels and fender liners are off :
Replace windshield washer pump and gasket (the bottle is leaking at the pump)
Paint rear edge of the rocker panels with chip-guard paint as the clearbra won't stick there well because of the shape
Replace waterproof Velcro that secures the smaller custom front grills (I installed the mating side to the bumper and the body shop didn't mask them off when painting the car so they have paint in them and don't mate as securely as they should with the velcro on the grills
Might see how much oil has accumulated in the passenger side intercooler in 3,000 miles just to get a feel for how often it needs to be emptied until I can get the catch can installed. I was thinking every 3rd oil change (15,000 miles).
Had company in town this week and post-Christmas stuff to do with the kids, so had to do the project in pieces over a few days, but PCCBs are installed and the Cayenne is back sitting on the wheels.
Cayenne on the lift. Upgrade parts staged & ready.
Rotors, Calipers, SS coated brake lines, etc ready for installation
Up she goes on the bridge jacks & wheels off
Custom front caliper adapters installed
Alternate view of caliper adapters
Ti64 Titantium Bolts installed to fasten caliper to custom adapter. Torqued to 110 ft.lbs per Ti64's recommendation for proper fastener stretch. Note pads riding just inside outer circumference of rotor - perfect placement.
Alternate view of caliper installed onto rotor and adapter. There was zero play in this setup and my measurements proved to be spot-on with both the radial and axial fasteners lining up perfectly without any binding.
Pad swept area matches up exactly to previous marks (remember this was a used setup I purchased).
Photo of ECS Tuning Stainless Brake line prior to wrapping with the protective coil
Pad carrier post clearance. Interestingly, the rotor is riding right in the center of the caliper but the outboard carrier pins were lightly contacting the rotor surface.
Removed calipers again & trimmed the outer posts by 2mm making them match clearance of the inner posts. Painted the exposed metal with high-temp yellow ceramic engine paint. Had to do this on both front calipers. The gap from the pin to the rotor is less than the thickness of the pad carrier so no risk of a pad coming out.
Rear rotor with heat/dust shield. The PCCB rotor is larger and doesn't ride inside the curve like the iron rotors did. Rather than remove them, I just pulled them back a little to make sure the rotor wasn't contacting them as it rotated.
Since I had new hard lines, I setup each rear caliper with the hoses so I only had to remove the top brake line fitting for installation.
Rear Caliper Installed
Inside view of Rear Caliper with ECS SS brake line wrapped with protective coil
Bleeding setup. Motive power bleeder hooked up to the reservoir with Motul RBF600 (I run this in all my cars to prevent having to stock multiple brake fluids, fill the Motive with 6 liters and hit all of them one after the other every Spring - takes a couple hours). Pass through ratchet allows the silicone hose to be on the bleed screw the entire time and you can loosen, then tighten it without having to remove it from the screw.
Ready for wheels
Wheel reinstallation. Ceramic rotors require the use of 2 guide pins for alignment to prevent the possibility of a wheel rotating and contacting the ceramic rotor, which can chip or fracture it. World Motorsports Ti Lug Bolts reinstalled at 110 ft lbs with Marine grade anti-seize (and why I use a lower torque than the 118 ft. lb spec). 410mm front rotors don't leave a lot of clearance space even with the 22" wheels, but that's partly due to the design of wheel's stepped lip.
Back on the ground
Upon restarting the car, I was getting a squishy and sinking pedal, which I did not have before. Rebled all the wheels this time using my 11 year old assistant - press, hold, open bleed screw, close bleed screw, release, repeat. Got some air bubbles out of 3 of the calipers and pedal improved a little, but was still soft on the test drive. Found some loose dirt on the street in the neighborhood where they're building a house and did a couple hard stops across it to activate the ABS. Seemed to help a little. Brought it home and rebled again, a little more air. Pedal seems better, but not perfect, but then it started raining so haven't driven it again yet. I have a feeling there is still some air trapped in the lines and I may drive it for a bit and then rebleed again. I capped the open brake lines when installing the SS versions so didn't lose much fluid. I got a low brake fluid warning at one time, but don't believe the reservoir went completely dry so figure there is still some air trapped in the system since both the new SS lines and calipers were empty when I installed them.
I hooked up my Durametric Pro, but unlike on my 997, there doesn't appear to be an Activation menu for the ABS system where I could cycle the ABS pump for each wheel - which is why I went looking for the loose dirt on the first test drive. If anyone has further suggestions on what I should try to get the firm brake pedal back, please let me know. If it's just residual air, I'll have to drive and rebleed a few times to see if I can free it up. Is there a way to bleed the master cylinder directly. When using the pedal stroke bleed method, how far should they push the pedal - I thought about 75% but not all the way to the floor was correct so that's how we did it, but if it needs to go all the way down with each stroke, let me know. I have speed bleeder valves in the calipers so not worried about air being able to reverse flow back into the caliper if that's the danger with the full pedal stroke method.
For any of you classic car race fans, the Cayenne will be at the Mitty races at Road Atlanta in the Porsche corral parked atop the Turn 10 hill today. Come by and say hello.
Summer is here again so we're back into "family hauler" mode.
Logged another 1,200 trouble-free miles this week on a round trip to FL. Cruise set to around 90 mph and averaged 13.6 mpg with the Skybox aboard. The odometer is rapidly approaching the 40k mile mark.
11-08-2018, 01:35 PM
The lines you can see is the clearbra to protect it from road rash.
