Standalone ABS Installs (MK60 and More)

Andy Hollis said:

Will this work for a car that has one of the rear wheels off the ground a lot (FWD) on corner entry trailbraking? 

This is the best non-race ($$$) standalone ABS system in existence. Porsche GT cars swap MK60 based systems in their cars. 

I am sure it would work very good in your application. I was amazed at how well it sensed slip in trailbraking (due to the yaw sensor setup I am assuming), and very subtly activitaed one of the other wheels ABS function to keep the car stable. It was incredible coming from a e36 that hasn't had functioning ABS for 15 years. 

Andy Hollis said:

Will this work for a car that has one of the rear wheels off the ground a lot (FWD) on corner entry trailbraking? 

Let's get one installed and find out! I would expect it to work, as Olemiss540 said, but I like proving things in the real world.

So, I stole this parts list from the linked Miata forum thread: 

1x E46 M3 ABS Pump/Controller (Rob's Note: this is the MK60 box)
2x E46 M3 Brake Pressure Sensors P/N: 34521164458
1x E46 M3 Integrated Accel/Yaw Sensor P/N: 34526764018
1x Z3 3.0i Front Right Wheel Speed Sensor - P/N: 34526752690
1x Z3 3.0i Front Left Wheel Speed Sensor - P/N: 34526752689
2x E46 M3 Rear Wheel Speed Sensors - P/N: 34526752683
1x Custom MK60 ABS Harness

But it looks like you could use wheel speed sensors from just about anything that had a MK60? Also missing here are the 'Tone Rings' - Anyone have a suggestion on sourcing them? 

I want to basically know what I am looking for, once I start piecing this all together. This thread was all the prompting I needed to plan to add ABS to my Sunbeam. 

DocRob said:

So, I stole this parts list from the linked Miata forum thread: 

1x E46 M3 ABS Pump/Controller (Rob's Note: this is the MK60 box)
2x E46 M3 Brake Pressure Sensors P/N: 34521164458
1x E46 M3 Integrated Accel/Yaw Sensor P/N: 34526764018
1x Z3 3.0i Front Right Wheel Speed Sensor - P/N: 34526752690
1x Z3 3.0i Front Left Wheel Speed Sensor - P/N: 34526752689
2x E46 M3 Rear Wheel Speed Sensors - P/N: 34526752683
1x Custom MK60 ABS Harness

But it looks like you could use wheel speed sensors from just about anything that had a MK60? Also missing here are the 'Tone Rings' - Anyone have a suggestion on sourcing them? 

I want to basically know what I am looking for, once I start piecing this all together. This thread was all the prompting I needed to plan to add ABS to my Sunbeam. 

Anything that had a MK60 is a good start. Those will all definitely work, and you don't have to use rear sensors on the rear or front sensors on the front. They're just different shapes, so will be beneficial in different applications.

For tone rings, you can just google ABS tone ring and find some of them pretty cheap, but they aren't likely to include any dimensions of the tone ring in the ad. You can also run by your closest you-pull-it junkyard and go pull a few hubs off of cars so that you get different diameter tone rings and you can find what works best for you.

12GS said:

I have a bit of experience with the MK60E5, and was going to talk a little about that in the third post when I get there, but not planning on going too deep into that one at this point.

Hello, I joined to learn more about this. I think my Z4 has MK60E5 and I am interested in how it processes wheel speed signals. Specifically, what does it output via CANBUS for wheel speed? This is needed for DCT gearbox control.

Matthew Kennedy said:

Don't get the Z4 one, it's weird. The other 2003-5 E46 ones are all fine.

For better or worse, this is what my Z4 came with. What makes it weird/different? 

Online I find a lot about the 2003-05 E46 units. Trying to find more about my Z4 unit...

thanks cheesedip

cheesedip said:

12GS said:

I have a bit of experience with the MK60E5, and was going to talk a little about that in the third post when I get there, but not planning on going too deep into that one at this point.

Hello, I joined to learn more about this. I think my Z4 has MK60E5 and I am interested in how it processes wheel speed signals. Specifically, what does it output via CANBUS for wheel speed? This is needed for DCT gearbox control.

 

Matthew Kennedy said:

Don't get the Z4 one, it's weird. The other 2003-5 E46 ones are all fine.

For better or worse, this is what my Z4 came with. What makes it weird/different? 

Online I find a lot about the 2003-05 E46 units. Trying to find more about my Z4 unit...

thanks cheesedip

If you have a Z4 unit in a Z4, it's fine. I don't know much about the regular MK60 in the Z4, other than the Z4 is special in many ways. The Z4 MK60E5 is very special though, in that it works very different than the regular E5s. The other E5s use directional wheel speed sensors, while the Z4 unit does not. The sensors are different for the Z4 E5 (can use E46 wheel speed sensors, but all the other sensors don't seem to be interchangeable with any of the other MK60 models). I also think you need more external sensors to make the Z4 E5 happy. The E9x E5s are happy to run standalone without any external data. 

It also seems like maybe it uses an entirely different CANbus data structure than the other E5s, just based on the fact that the sensors are not interchangeable. The E9x E5s have a known message structure, and definitely do output wheel speed data on CAN, but I don't know much about the Z4 units. I assume they do since the E46 (with an emulator) and E9x units will, but I can't verify that, and don't have the CAN data structure.

How about this retrofit in a rear engine car like a 911?  Anyone tried that? Edit: wanted to specify - 964 variant - which does have ABS.

stanglife said:

How about this retrofit in a rear engine car like a 911?  Anyone tried that? Edit: wanted to specify - 964 variant - which does have ABS.

I have not personally done it, but I am told that swapping the mk60 is a popular answer for Porsche Club racers who are running GT3 Cup cars.  (GT3 Cup did not allow ABS, so those cars don't come with it)

I had no idea that ABS brakes were possible on my 67 Camaro, I guess I need to start looking for sensors?

loosecannon said:

I had no idea that ABS brakes were possible on my 67 Camaro, I guess I need to start looking for sensors?

Drums or discs?  Drums are sufficiently different in terms of their response to hydraulic pressure that I would not assume a system built for discs would work on them.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

loosecannon said:

I had no idea that ABS brakes were possible on my 67 Camaro, I guess I need to start looking for sensors?

Drums or discs?  Drums are sufficiently different in terms of their response to hydraulic pressure that I would not assume a system built for discs would work on them.

 

Wilwood discs all the way around. Front upright is based on C6 Vette and rear is Ford 9" so something must be available, although it's a full floater rear axle so that may complicate matters

I have this car waiting on my "to do" list to get down to "-Go to scrap yard."

It still has what I'm pretty sure is mk60 abs installed as I'd only ever seen folks use the M version, so I didn't pull it. If someone here is in need for a swap, and this could work, let me know. Don't need to get much for it...just make it worth my time to work standing on the back of an f550. (Or buy the whole shell with a title for like $150 and I'll dump her wherever your wife says is least offensive!)

Non-M3 mk60 has been working well for me in CAM-T. 09+ C6 hubs have sensors that are compatible with the e46 mk60. I had dodge tone wheels with the right tooth count machined and pressed onto the 8.8 axles I'm using. 

Curious how it compares to other vehicles' factory abs systems?

Specifically I'm curious about how my 06 c6z's brakes stand up against the same car with a mk60 system?     
 

In reply to Spearfishin :

I'd be interested in the MK60, yaw sensor, and pressure sensors.  Looks like the wheel speeds are gone, but if not I could use those too.  I just signed up for GRM so I can't DM you yet but maybe I can receive?

jfryjfry said:

Curious how it compares to other vehicles' factory abs systems?

Specifically I'm curious about how my 06 c6z's brakes stand up against the same car with a mk60 system?     

No personal experience with the C5 or C6 systems, but from what I've heard from friends the difference is night and day.

If the BMW forums are to be believed it is entirely possible to program the M3 or Race file in the ABS module what is not possible to to toggle between them with a button like you would in an M car ie you can have M mode but not normal mode and M mode. 

Missing pin in the connector and missing capacitor on the board might be easy to retrofit but I did not see where it had successfully been done.  

This is all fascinating. That is all.

jfryjfry said:

Curious how it compares to other vehicles' factory abs systems?

Specifically I'm curious about how my 06 c6z's brakes stand up against the same car with a mk60 system?     
 

 

So GM changed the ABS in 2009 to use a different ABS entirely, so my experience is likely very different than the one you have had (or will have). The MK60 was very similar performance-wise to my OEM 2012 Grandsport ABS, maybe marginally better performance. The reason why I swapped was I stripped all of the OEM wiring and electronics out and the OEM ABS needs that to work.

By all accounts, it sounds like the C5 ABS and early (pre-09) C6 ABS was absolute trash. It wouldn't stop well (less than 1.2-1.3Gs of decel on hoosiers is what I hear). Ice mode all over the place. Just not a good time on track. A MK60 will be miles better than that (I see 1.6-1.8Gs of decel on hoosiers). But until recently it required changing to 09+ ZR1 hubs and axles. That changed as of last week. I successfully track tested a passive hub to MK60 converter last week and plan to have PCBs built and bake the converter into C5/C6 harnesses so that you don't have to spend thousands on hubs and axles.

Note - for most cars, I recommend just retrofitting an active sensor onto your car because its not that hard. But the C5/C6 integrated the sensor into the hub and it is prohibitively expensive to swap for some people.

Someone just asked me about OEM MK60E1 vs Motorsports flashed MK60E1 and if I had any experience with it. I actually did some back to back testing with them back in June, but just realized I posted the results on Facebook groups and that isn't really easily found through Google, so I'll add my review here for people to find -

_________________________________________

Warning - long post but worth the read if you're interested in possibly ponying up for the Motorsports flashed MK60s. TLDR at the bottom.

I got the unique experience on Friday to test an OEM MK60E1 and a Motorsports MK60E1 back to back. Same driver, same car, same tires, same day. Thanks Louis Gigliotti and Paul Costas for getting me on track on a member day, codriving to back up findings, as well as for letting me use your shop space to swap modules in the air conditioning (I need A/C in my garage now, so thanks for that ...).

As far as I know, I don't think anyone has done any back to back testing like this in the past, so we didn't know exactly what to expect, but we had our own predictions that turned out to be close, but not entirely right.

Before anyone asks, the Motorsports module was programmed for a car nearly identical to mine. Same chassis, same brakes, and total weights are within 100lbs of each other, so the module was essentially programmed for "my car".

Testing methodology was to go out on track and try and abuse the ABS to see how it would react, note any strange reactions, and then swap modules and repeat the tests in the following session (30 minutes between sessions)

So for the tests, we started out the morning on some old Hankook RS4 street tires. These gave a good baseline lower grip results, and also allowed us to test for "ice mode", since my ST47 pads can easily lock the tires with very little effort. Driving the two back to back sessions, the braking characteristics were indistinguishable. I could get he car sideways and hit the brakes and both modules would gather the car back up, I could brake on the rumble strips and the ABS just straight up worked, and the straight line braking deceleration rates felt nearly identical (data backs that up with ~1.2Gs of decel for both). If you "slap" the brake pedal and lock the tires up too quickly, you could get a hard pedal and braking power would be reduced slightly (not nearly as bad as traditional GM ice mode where theres no chance you're going to stop though). Decel differences between ice mode and non-ice mode according to the data was about 1.2G vs 1G (remember these are 3 year old endurance street tires, so we weren't expecting crazy decel numbers).

So we came back in and decided to swap tires to some Hoosier A7s to test the other end of the grip spectrum, as well as decided to have Paul codrive with me to get someone else's to opinion and maybe test any scenarios that I was missing.

We went out first with the Motorsport module and Paul came back impressed with the performance of the ABS. Again, the ABS just took whatever we threw at it.

We swapped back to the OEM module and went out for one last session. Paul drove the first half of the session, and then we swapped in hot pits. As we were swapping I tried to ask what his thoughts were but he was avoiding the question and said we'll talk about it after my laps. I did my laps, the ABS felt amazing once again. No ice mode/hard pedal problems with the correct brake pad/tire combo. Again, I couldn't distinguish any differences. In the back of my mind I knew Paul had found something so I tried make something happen to no avail. Looking at the data, straight line braking decel jumped up to 1.6Gs with the Hoosiers, which is about what I was hoping for.

So Paul and I sat down after the session and we talked through the difference he found. Basically, he found that if he got deep into a corner, trail braking in, and then just suddenly give it too much brake and lock the tires up, the Motorsport module would gather the car up, and tuck the nose in, like you would expect for normal trail braking. The OEM module on the other hand would introduce a slight (read very slight) push (understeer) into the car in the same scenario, seemingly because the tires would lock up and release too slowly. We're not sure what the exact difference that causes the module to behave differently, but Paul was able to reproduce this same thing multiple times during his sessions. Louis described this finding as "the difference between setting 1 and 2 on a Bosch Motorsports M5 ABS, while you still have 10 other settings to play with". After a whole day of abuse, this was the only difference we could find

TL;DR - So is the Motorsport flash worth it? For some people, yes it will be. You'll be able to reliably use the ABS in trail braking and don't even need any skill. For an endurance car, like WRL, where you are guaranteed to see changing weather conditions, this would be a great addition (especially if you're competing for the front of the field). For a hack driver like me that is somewhat smooth and doesn't use the ABS for trail braking, the ABS modules performed exactly the same.

12GS said: 

I successfully track tested a passive hub to MK60 converter last week and plan to have PCBs built and bake the converter into C5/C6 harnesses so that you don't have to spend thousands on hubs and axles.

I would probably buy one of these.  MonZora has C4 front and C5 rear sensors.  Same tooth count, same sense element.  I was gonna integrate the C4 ABS since i had the whole electrical system out of my 94 parts car, but that thing is comically large and heavy.

In reply to 12GS :

Thanks a lot for the excellent info!

MK60 units are getting much harder to find. The usual suppliers are now only selling them with full motorsports flashes (more money) as the supply goes down.

Mk60E5 is the next thing to explore.

mr2peak said:

MK60 units are getting much harder to find. The usual suppliers are now only selling them with full motorsports flashes (more money) as the supply goes down.

Mk60E5 is the next thing to explore.

They also seem to blow out pressure sensors spectacularly on track lately. The OEM sensors are getting old and brittle, and the aftermarket ones aren't great quality. Both seem to be failing unfortunately ... I am pushing all of my customers (all 10 or so of them ...) to using the MK60E1 currently. I will sell kits with the OEM MK60E1, but I will only sell the harness for the E46 MK60 due to liability if someone wrecks because of it.

Yes, the E5 is more readily available in the US, but it requires the special wheel speed sensors and magnetic tone rings that can be a little difficult to install. Not to say it can't be done (there are quite a few people retrofitting them lately), just more effort involved to make it happen currently.

In reply to 12GS :

Hi, very interested in your harness. Let me know if you can make one for me. I am not good with electrical.

Thank you