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Wheels and Brakes
The
installation of the Momo wheels is probably the
thing that I receive the most positive comments
about. In addition to looking nice they have also
reduced the sidewall flex. I actually did not intend
on installing 18" wheels, but decided to go with
these once I saw them and the AP Racing brakes required
bigger wheels than stock.
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Here I have installed Pirelli Super Sport
P7000 225/40R18s on Momo 18"x7.5" Quasar 2's
(4x108) from Custom
Wheel Service in Anaheim, CA, AP Racing
330mm front rotors with EBC Greenstuff V4
pads, EBC grooved rear rotors with AXXIS-PBR
pads, H&R 5mm wheel spacers with 35mm M14x1.50
lug bolts (that were later replace with studs)
and braided steel brake lines front and rear.
After a few test runs, I later discovered
that the Greenstuff pads were not up to the
task and I replaced them with a pair of the
Redstuff pads. The Redstuff pads have held
up much better. |
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| Wheel
bolt replacement with H&R
wheel studs - When I had originally moved
to 18" wheels with the 5MM H&R spaces, one
of the first recommendations that I received
was to install a set of stud conversions.
Great idea! However, actually finding a set
would turn out to be a different story. What
I needed was a 14mm x 1.50 thread stud that
was 60mm long (you can actually go shorter,
but I had room under the wheel caps for longer
studs). After doing alot of research on the
Web, I was reading an issue of European Car
and they had an article on just such a conversion
on a BMW. I called the supplier they listed,
Evosport.com, and asked if they might have
what I was looking for. The first response,
(which I found out is not all that uncommon)
is "Saab? We don't carry anything for Saabs."
After explaining a little more, the rep called
H&R directly (which I would suggest doing
in the future since they will give you the
part number for what you want and you can
then call Evosport) and we were able to locate
just what I was looking for. The wheel stud
conversion kit not only makes it much easier
to now get my wheels on the car, it also provides
a much better mount then the lug bolts. |
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| Here
you can see the difference between the stock
front brake setup and the AP Racing brakes.
Needless to say, the AP's bring the car to
a stop in a hurry and don't fade as quickly.
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shot gives some of the details on the parts
that make up the AP Racing kit. The guys at
Nordic in Sweden made the blue adaptor block
that enables you to mount the brake in the
correct position for rotor clearence. |
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found that I needed to do some shuffling with
the wheel spacers. While the ones in the rear
were working well because they still provided
the hub centering capabilities, the fronts
were not. With the addition of the AP Racing
rotors and the 5MM H&R spacers, the hub center
was flush with the surface of the spacer.
This caused an issure with getting the wheel
exactly centered around the hub. This is important
because any slight deviation causes a wobble
at high speeds. I added the SpeedParts 10mm
spacers, which actually turned out to be about
7,5mm, and they extended the hub centering
feature out and allowed the wheel to be centered
again. This looks to be about the maximum
the wheels can be pushed out before you would
start to encounter rub. |
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