BMW E36 | E46 [CB-DBBE-E346]

BMW E36 | Z3 (incl. 318ti)
BMW E46 (must use E36 Pedal  part # 35211158386)
BMW Z4

A properly set up Manual Brake Conversion Kit improves lap times and makes for a more controllable drift / rally / road race car. There is a lot of incorrect information out there about Manual Brakes, from forums to other videos. We have sold over 15,000 Manual Brake setups in the last 10 years…everything from winning Road Race chassis to winning Drift chassis.

So forget everything you've heard about manual brakes, forget everything you know about master cylinders and boosters all together. We've seen it all and know exactly how Manual Brakes give consistent and controllable brakes.

Every single day numerous times a day, we get asked “what are manual brakes like?” and sometimes followed up with “my buddy said they suck!” or "just unplug your vacuum hose!". The FACT is, the fastest road race cars in the world have manual brakes. From F1 to GT4. The difference in those setups from just slapping a big master cylinder on a plate and calling it a day, is they use pedal boxes with a 6:1 or 7:1 ratio.

Like anything else on Motorsport chassis, with Manual Brakes, setup is everything. We make a Single Piston and Dual Piston Brake Booster Delete. Where our Single Booster Delete differs; it's a single piston design and its working with the stock 3.5:1 to 4.5:1 pedal ratio (depending on the chassis). The pedal ratio is basically just a way to measure leverage you're giving the master cylinder, it's the distance from the top swinging axis to the brake foot pad divided by the distance from the top swinging axis to the master cylinder clevis mounting point. Our Dual Piston is a 6:1 Pedal Ratio which is what you see on high end motorsport pedal boxes.

Changing the pedal ratio to 6:1 is a major function and feel upgrade to allow the use of a larger master cylinder. The OE pedal ratio can only leverage so much, so we’re limited to a 3/4 or smaller master cylinder. The improved Motorsport pedal ratio gives you a better mechanical advantage with additional leverage. This means we can use a larger 1 inch master cylinder with more fluid being pushed per mm of piston travel inside. It allows you to have a better braking feel and more force to the calipers with equal or lesser force at the pedal. That translates to less leg effort and more braking power while keeping a similar throw distance.