As you might recall my friend Sean dropped off his E36 M3 at my house the other day. We spent some time getting his brakes rebuilt which was a pretty significant project. He got them powder coated and they look absolutely amazing.

We use an air compressor at 140-150psi to blast out the pistons from the calipers. The current setup is AP Racing CP5200 front big brakes kit w/ 330x28mm rotors and Porsche 996 rears big brake kit w/ 328x20mm E46 M3 rotors. The pads are Porterfield R4S. Sean purchased this 1995 BMW M3 build as a shortcut to his goals for an M3 build.

However, he quickly realized virtually everything has to be rebuilt. Purchasing someone's build can be a huge gamble. Sometimes you buy a built car and it's awesome, the previous owner did a great job. Other times you wind up re-doing the whole thing. This is one of the reasons it's nearly impossible outside of very specific circumstances to get your money back out of a build. It's such a huge risk to the buyer. The other big reason of course is a difference in personal goals, styles and preferences between owners.