[F87source]

Credit: ECS Tuning https://www.ecstuning.com/b-ecs-part...ach/6-ecs-001/


Credit: ECS Tuning https://www.ecstuning.com/b-ecs-part.../001359ecs01a/



Introduction:

In this product review I will be going over the ECS Tuning Stainless Steel Rotor Set Screw and why you should purchase these to replace the horrible (at least imo it is absolutely horrible) stock rotor set screws.


If you are interested in purchasing these rotor bolts here are some links:

Front Rotor Set Screws (you will need 4 set screws, 2 for each rotor): https://www.ecstuning.com/b-ecs-part.../001359ecs01a/


Rear Rotor Set Screws (you will need 4 set screws, 2 for each rotor): https://www.ecstuning.com/b-ecs-part...ach/6-ecs-001/


Note: These front and rear rotor set screws will fit on the F8X 4 pot blue brakes or the F8X 6 pot brakes as well. For full vehicle compatibility check these links to the OEM rotor set screws, if your vehicle chassis code is listed these set screws should fit your car:


Front: https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/par...&q=34111123072

Rear: https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/par...&q=34211161806



Disclaimer:

Damage/Injury Disclaimer: Any information, guidance, technical advice, coding advice, tuning advice, datalogging advice, installation instruction, calculation, experiment, safety information, or product installation demonstrated in my reviews is to be consumed/read/understood/followed and or done at your own risk. I will not be responsible/held liable for personal injuries, injuries to others or any living being, or any damage to your car, or any property damage.

Monetary disclaimer: I do not make commission, or profits or any kind of monetary gain from the sale of the ECS Tuning Stainless Steel Rotor Set Screws.

Sponsorship disclaimer: The way my reviews work is that I determine what product that I want to buy and actually use on my own car, and during this process the product that I end up choosing is what I believe is the best option on the market. I then reach out to the company offering the product and ask them if they would be willing to sponsor me in a review, if the answer is yes then I write a review, if the answer is no I would end up buying the product (sometimes at a later date) but I wouldn’t complete a detailed review about it (I might write something, but not to the same extent as my standard reviews). But the critical thing is that I reach out for a sponsorship and not the other way around, this means that the products I am reviewing are actually things I believe in and would use on my own car. This also means that I am not being paid to review something I do not care about. Would I do a review if a sponsor reached out to me? The answer would depend on if I believed in the product, and I would make it clear in my review if this were the case. But at the time of writing this review, such an interaction has not occurred yet.


Time of writing disclaimer: everything I am writing about in this review is described at the time of writing and may not be updated in the future, so there is a potential that things are no longer accurate in my comparisons as parts are changed and upgraded as time passes.


Bias and comparison disclaimer: Throughout this review I will attempt to be as unbiased as possible while drawing comparisons to other products.


Mistakes and Inaccuracies Disclaimer: Throughout my review I will try to be as factually accurate as possible, but there are always chances that I make mistakes and write things that are incorrect/false. If this is the case please point it out to me and if indeed it is true that I am incorrect, I will correct these mistakes and apologize for them. Afterall I am only human, so mistakes can and will inevitably happen.


Subjective Disclaimer: Please note, these reviews are also written in my own opinion, so when I am comparing different products to determine what I see as the best, there are many factors that I go through to form this opinion. Obviously there will be disagreements between people, so I will do my best to objectively determine what I deem to be the best, but at the end of the day it is still just my own opinion whether it be right or wrong. Take whatever I say in my reviews with a grain of salt.


Information Disclaimer: I read a lot of material over the years just out of sheer interest or to make these reviews. I also accumulated a lot of knowledge over my many years of education that are really relevant to cars (Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics). That being said, my reviews are mostly based on this accumulated knowledge and I cannot always cite these sources due to the original source material possibly being lost to time, or there being so much knowledge compiled to make a single point. So, when possible I will cite my source(s) (for example data on tensile strength of a metal, or peer reviewed research). There are cases when I get information from blog posts, youtube videos, or forum posts I may not cite it, because I go through a lot of these sources only to use the gained knowledge in a small section of my review and it is not feasible to list them all. So pretty much what I am trying to say is I am not citing “common knowledge” - I will cite peer reviewed research and photos though (if applicable or used), or really explicit user experiences (if applicable or used).



Image Credits:

Images and videos used in this review are all property of their rightful owners as credited below each image, I am just using them for the purpose of this review but if you (the owner of the image) would like them removed please let me know via pm. Otherwise thanks to the respective image owners (I made sure to credit your online name and link where I found the photo) of the photos, without you this review would be so much more bland.



Review Disclaimer:

First and foremost I would like to thank ECS Tuning for agreeing to sponsor me for this review. Despite this I will remain as unbiased as possible during the review. Please note, the dynamics of this relationship was that I reached out for a sponsorship review and not the other way around. This should demonstrate how I truly feel about the ECS Tuning Stainless Steel Rotor Set Screws - in the sense that I truly believe it is an absolute must have for any BMW owner currently working on their brakes. In fact I actually have these set screws installed on my own m2 as of now, and I really love not having to worry about my set screws potentially stripping and having to fight to remove them.



What are Rotor Set Screws:


Credit: F87Source



Credit: F87Source



Rotor set screws are the little screws that attach the rotor hat to the wheel hub (I circled them in red in the images above). Essentially the only job that these set screws have is to secure the rotor to the hub and prevent it from falling off when you remove the wheels. They do not help transfer braking torque from the rotor to the hub in any way shape or form, they are purely there just to hold the rotor onto the car. Technically you can “delete” these screws because once the wheel bolts are on, they will hold the rotor to the car so the set screws are only there to hold the rotors on while the wheel is removed. Now, the reason why you shouldn’t delete these set screws is because it is insanely difficult to simultaneously hold the rotor onto the hub while trying to get the wheel on at the same time (imaging balancing the wheel on the hub while trying to stack another wheel on, that’s what it feels like - and rotors are pretty heavy so it isn’t an easy or fun task to do). So personally I wouldn’t want to delete these set screws because the rotors are way too expensive to risk dropping and damaging.



Why do you need to upgrade?:


Credit: F87Source



Credit: F87Source



So why do you need to upgrade these rotor set screws? The answer to that question is because imo the stock rotor set screws that BMW uses are absolutely garbage simply due to how susceptible to corrosion they are. If you look at the images above (it’s a zoomed in image of the rotor set screw itself on the rotor, and the other images are of the set screw after it was removed) you can see how extremely corroded the stock BMW set screws are and how warped the hex is (to the point of almost being stripped/rounded out). The concerning part about this is that my M2 has never been driven in the winter nor the rain, and the only moisture it gets is during car washes. So this is an alarming amount of corrosion for a car that has never seen moisture outside of car washes. Plus the second image is of screws that are literally ~5 months old after I replaced my rotors, so that’s quite a bit of corrosion for a few months of being on the car.

Now if my car can get this bad without seeing winter use where road salt will expedite corrosion of these steel fasteners, then anyone who daily drives their car (especially in the winter) will risk these bolts getting so corroded they will strip out or seize to the hubs when you are trying to remove them. If you Google this, you will actually see it is pretty common for BMW’s to have their rotor set screws round out due to being so badly corroded - for instance: https://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1611154 You will also notice that once these set screws strip out, you will have to spend hours trying to drill them out - which is always huge paint to deal with.

So, the reason why you would want to upgrade to stainless steel rotor set screws is to avoid having to deal with corrosion of the rotor set screws and having to deal with the massive hassle of having to drill them out.



ECS Tuning Stainless Steel Rotor Set Screws:

Why Stainless Steel?:

Let’s first begin with the question, why stainless steel? The answer comes down to the following reasons:

1) Superior corrosion resistance vs. coated steel fasteners: coated fasteners can easily corrode if the coating on the fastener is damaged - this is the case with the stock BMW rotor set screws, as the coating is easily breached during install resulting in corrosion of the set screws.

2) Strength: Stainless steel fasteners are quite strong compared to other corrosion resistant materials like aluminum.

Originally Posted by Unified Alloys

Source: https://www.unifiedalloys.com/blog/s...el-vs-aluminum


The tensile strength of stainless steel alloys typically starts around 515 megapascals (MPa) and can reach as high as 1300 megapascals (MPa) in some cases.

Aluminum tensile strengths start around 100 megapascals (MPa) and peak around 400 megapascals (MPa).

This is very important on such small fasteners like rotor set screws, because you want them to be strong enough to resist stripping - which is very easy to do on small screws.


3) Price: This is probably one of the most important factors to why stainless steel was used, and the reason why is because it is easily made and quite cheap. This cheap price allows the product to be justifiable to potential purchasers, because no one wants to pay $10+ for a single rotor set screw, and thus it was made out of stainless steel vs. more exotic and hard to work with metals like titanium.




Now let’s take a closer look at these ECS Tuning Stainless Steel Rotor Set Screws:

Images:

Front Set Screws:


Credit: F87Source



Credit: F87Source



Credit: F87Source



Rear Set Screws:


Credit: F87Source



Credit: F87Source



Credit: F87Source




As you can see above these are the ECS Tuning Stainless Steel Rotor Set Screws



Front:


Credit: F87Source



Rear:


Credit: F87Source



Credit: F87Source



And the images above are the stock rotor set screws



Measurements:

Next let’s go over the measurements of these stainless steel rotor set screws, and the reason behind this is to address the concerns that I constantly hear about not using aftermarket screws as they can potentially have the wrong thread pitch or size and thus will damage the female threads on your car.


Front:


Credit: F87Source



Credit: F87Source


- The front rotor set screws have a 6 mm hex, this is 1 mm larger than the stock set screws which have a 5 mm hex. But the good news is that you can use the same hex socket for the front and rear rotor set screws now.


Rear:


Credit: F87Source



Credit: F87Source


- The rear rotor set screws also have a 6 mm hex size just like the stock rotor set screws.


Before we analyze the measurements it is important to know that all metric bolts have a tolerance range due to machining tolerances and the fact that the male thread and female threads need to have some variance range otherwise they won’t be able to thread into one another as they are too tight. As stipulated by BMW’s ETK these rotor set screws are supposed to be M8 X 1.25.

Rear (item 6): https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sho...diagId=34_2201

Front (item 6): https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sho...diagId=34_2199


Also M8 bolts have a max major diameter of 7.972 and a minimum major diameter of 7.760 mm. Source: https://fullerfasteners.com/tech/thr...rews-and-nuts/



- The front rotor set screws have the correct 1.25 thread pitch as shown by the thread pitch gauge, and it has a major diameter of 7.93 mm. So, the front rotor set screws satisfy the specifications for m8 bolts perfectly.


- The rear rotor set screws have the correct 1.25 thread pitch as shown by the thread pitch gauge, and it has a major diameter of 7.93 mm. So, the rear rotor set screws satisfy the specifications for m8 bolts perfectly.



Installation Images and Tips:

So here are some installation tips that I have:

1) Use some anti-seize on the threads, this way they will never be seized to the hubs, this now means you never have to worry about corrosion nor the set screws seizing and being hard to remove. Be careful not to use too much anti-seize as you don’t want to get it on the friction rings or brake pads. (BMW doesn’t specify to do this so do it at your own risk).

2) Since anti-seize is a lubricant it will act as a torque multiplier, this means you cannot torque the set screws to BMW’s specifications so you will have to do it hand tight. This should be totally fine as the purpose of the set screws is to hold the rotors in place for wheel install - not to transfer brake torque so it is not too critical. Now be careful not to over tighten these screws and strip them. (Again this is against the advice of BMW who do specify a torque value so do it at your own risk).

3) To remove the stock set screws I think it is a better idea to use an impact, as it uses vibrations and rapid hammering actions with a very high impulse to remove stuck fasteners. This lowers the chance that your round out the bolt vs. using a breaker bar with a large continuous torque.

4) Apply the parking brakes to lock the rear wheels from rotation, this will make it easier to remove the set screws.

5) For the front wheels which do not have a parking brake, have someone apply the brake pedal for you so it locks the wheels in place and makes it easier to undo the set screws - if you are using an impact this will likely not be necessary.

6) You will need some sort of jack stand to support the car and remove the wheels - I personally recommend the Rennstands if you don’t already have the proper jack stands to do the job, since they have the proper BMW jack pad adapter to support the car without damaging the plastic jacking points. Plus they make it easier to jack the car up without having to figure out where to place jack stands to support the car, because you literally jack the Rennstands themselves and place the legs on once the car is at ride height. I have a review on it here if you are interested: https://f87.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=2106349



Credit: F87Source




Now that the installation tips are covered here are some images of the stainless steel set screws installed:


Front:


Credit: F87Source


Rear:


Credit: F87Source



So my overall impressions are that the ECS Tuning Stainless Steel set screws are incredibly high quality, they fit like stock, and the install was painless and easy. Nothing out of the ordinary for me to note, everything fit like it should.



Addressing Concerns:

Finally the last thing I would like to address would be the one concern I keep getting when I do reviews regarding products with stainless steel or titanium fasteners, and that is galvanic corrosion.

So what’s the issue here? Well the concern is in regards to the difference in electrical potential between the aluminum rotor hat and the stainless steel rotor bolts (which are in contact as that is important for galvanic corrosion to occur) resulting in degradation and corrosion of the aluminum hat. Well in my opinion I don’t think this is a major concern at all, and here is my reasoning:

1) For galvanic corrosion to occur you must have an electrolyte present, in completely dry conditions galvanic corrosion doesn’t occur at a fast enough rate to cause any sort of issue (it would take forever for galvanic corrosion to occur when the 2 metals in contact are dry). So the issue would be when your rotors get covered in water (rain, salty water during the winter, car washes etc). Now this water doesn’t really pool in the rotors for a long enough time for this to be an issue since the rotors are completely perpendicular to the ground meaning is is very hard for the water to pool there, and the rotors get very hot during operation meaning the water evaporates very quickly. So this is one reason why galvanic corrosion isn’t a huge issue.

2) The aluminum is typically oxidized from being in contact with the air - this creates an aluminum oxide layer that protects it from galvanic corrosion. This is even more true when you have aftermarket rotor hats that are hard anodized with a thick protective layer.

3) The F8x rotors use a pin drive system to facilitate radial floating of the friction rings, and stainless steel pins are used to attach the friction ring to the aluminum hat on the F8X BMW M vehicles with the 2-piece floating rotors. You can read more about it here on SHW’s website (SHW is supposed to be the OE for all the M and M sport brake rotors for BMW): https://www.shwperformance.com/our-products

So the fact that BMW don’t seem to be overly concerned with galvanic corrosion should be good enough reason not to worry about it, and as you know the rotor pins actually are vital in transferring braking torque front the friction rings to the wheel hubs (and if they fail your brakes fail too) - unlike the rotor set screws which literally are only there to hold the rotor to the hat. This is likely the final straw showing that galvanic corrosion really isn’t a big deal for these rotor set screws.



Credit: SHW Performance https://www.shwperformance.com/our-products



Summary:

So overall what I must say is that ECS Tuning has made a really nice little modification for us BMW owners with their stainless steel rotor set screws, and these set screws will finally solve the issue of the stock rotor bolts corroding and stripping out extremely easily. Thus I think this is a must have item for any BMW owner, as it will help ensure you avoid ever having to drill out the stock rotor bolts.


If you are interested in purchasing these stainless steel rotor set screws here are some links:

Front: https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/par...&q=34111123072

Rear: https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/par...&q=34211161806

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