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Often when you’ve heavily modified your Subaru BRZ/ Toyota GT86/ Scion FRS, with track worthy coil-overs, sway bars, wings, splitters, and larger braking components, the anti-lock braking system will become very inconsistent. On our track cars we would notice increased “ICE Mode” events, which feels like you’ve lost your brake booster, resulting in an extremely hard brake pedal with extremely low deceleration. The other issue is that the “Brake Force Distribution” is too slow to react to an advanced driver who could get some front brake lock up before the ABS computer had forced more braking power to the rear brakes. When the ABS system goes into a “Failsafe” the car is nearly impossible to stop safely at track speeds as the fronts will lock up very easily. Much of this has to do with the OEM brakes being very unbalanced mechanically and therefore it relies on the computer to shuffle more brake torque to the rear brakes but unfortunately it’s much too slow to do this.
There is no easy solution to those problems as you can’t simply unplug your ABS fuse and live happily after because the ABS pump module inhibits rear brake pressure. You can either purchase a really expensive braking system that had been redesigned to mechanically correct this, so you’re not relying on the computer to shuffle rear brake pressure, or you can eliminate the ABS pump and run your brake lines directly to your calipers. When you do this however you will not have the ABS computer which has very important wheel speed sensor data that is used by the CAN system for the car’s speed, individual wheel speeds, and for the stability control system.
We’ve designed an ABS computer mount and cover that will allow you to remove it from your ABS Pump, mount it to the chassis, protecting the internals and circuits, while also maintaining the very important wheel speed sensor data.
The Element Tuning ABS computer mount is 3D printed from an engineering grade carbon fiber and PA6 nylon blend. Nylon is an extremely heat and chemical resistant plastic but it’s fairly flexible. Zip ties are made from nylon and they live happily in our engine bay, have very little fatigue, but are very flexible. While printing this component from PA6 nylon will work, it has a little too much flexibility given the heat and vibrations it will experience while supporting the ABS computer and wiring harness. By blending in carbon fiber, we actually improve the products heat and chemical resistance but more importantly it increases the rigidity substantially. Plus it gives us that nice dry carbon fiber color, feel, and look.Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
In this prototype, the print was stopped to analyze the wall thicknesses, which range from 2 to 3 mm thick, and the infill density and structure. The main mounting hole has full wall thickness as the 8mm threads are printed in that shape. This works out really well with the CF-PA6 material as it feels similar to threading a bolt into a “nyloc” nut. The computer mounting bolts are very small and fine pitch so those are printed as holes and then threaded.
Nylon based filaments can be tricky to print as they tend to ooze when melted at 500F for printing but that gives them excellent layer adhesion! There is some level of inconsistencies or artifacts when printing so just keep that in mind. These are 4 prints which illustrates the slight differences you could experience with each individual printed part. While there are other materials with carbon fiber blended in that print almost perfectly every time, the temperature resistance is barely adequate, they are much less chemical resistant, and in our testing are much more brittle. Even with that material the only time once of these was broken, it was because I leaned on it hard while working on the engine during a race.
We feel the CF-PA6 nylon upgrade is well worth the added heat protection, flexibility, and chemical resistance for a small drop in detail or print consistency. The print with the Nemesis logo showing the wall thickness, is the other material I’m referencing.
Works with other makes and models that use this Bosch ABS module that fit this form factor