Okay so I'm sure most of you have seen the Wasp brake ducting kit by now but I haven't seen a good walk through yet so I figure it'd be nice to put one together. This whole thing started when I contacted Wasp a couple months ago begging them for an AP1 duct kit since I was planning to start tracking my car. They were actually in the process of finishing the mold and the set I got was the first AP1 set. Okay so let’s get into the install and my impression.

Things I used:A few notes about my car just for reference: I have an 02' but I've removed the air pump and all associated hardware. I also have an AEM V2 intake. These are both relevant because of the front duct routing; otherwise my car is basically stock. I'm also 99.9% sure that this would work just fine with an air pump and other intakes, you'll just have to adjust the position of your duct routing slightly.

Lets start with the hub side duct. To get at this you will need to remove the wheel, brake caliper and rotor. This shouldn't be all that hard, if you have trouble here then just stop and bring the car to someone who knows what they're doing. Don't forget to properly support the caliper so you don't break the brake line.

After getting that out of the way you'll have to remove the stock dust/heat shield. This is best done by removing the three phillips screws with a set of pliers or a vice grip as you cant get anything else into the tight space.


Once you have the screws removed you'll need to hack away the rear portion of the shield with a shears or saw of some sort, this is a bit of a pain. Watch your hands here too, the edges aren't finished so the damn thing is sharp.


Once you get that bad boy off you'll use the same three holes the original screws were in with the supplied allen head hardware that Wasp gives you. The hub side duct is two pieces but this should be really easy to figure out. Again use a pliers or vice grips to get the three screws nice and tight. If you have a really small allen tool that would work as well but it likely wont fit.


The next part is getting the ducting run. This should be pretty easy to figure out but you'll want to run the 2.5" tubing through the plastic faring in a spot that lets it get around the air pump or intake if either are installed. Make sure to think about wheel/tire clearance as well. You'll pretty much just wedge the drill in as best you can and go to town. Make sure you remove the bumper so you can see where the hole is going to end up in relation to the pump and other bits.


You can clean up the hole with a dremel and finish it with some c channel if you like, this should help the tubing last a bit longer.


Your next step is to run the tubing and attach it to the hub side duct. Use zip ties to secure it to the front side of the upper a arm. The zip tie closest to the brake should be left loose and the tie further up the a arm should be nice and tight. Use a couple of hose clamps to secure the ducting to the brake duct. Check for binding by turning the wheel lock to lock and having someone adjust the tubing accordingly. This is what the final product should look like:


Now for the bumper side duct. Obviously you'll need to take the bumper off. Start by dremeling out the fake vent part of the bumper. You should end up with something that looks like this:


You'll then need to apply the Liquid Nails to the duct.


Then just line it up and stick it on. This is super simple. Just make sure that you clean both surfaces and follow most of the directions on the glue stuff, not hard. It might be smart to glue the provided netting to the duct at this point (more on that later).


Then make sure that you have doge supervise the drying. The packaging says it takes 16 hours but I had a race the next day so mine only got 7 hours while I slept and I was doing 130+ at ACS the next morning with zero problems.


Getting the ducts connected was a bit of a pain. I found it easy to fold the lower plastic splash guards back and work mostly by feel with the bumper held on by two of the top screws only.


I also noticed that I could peek through the slit between the headlight and the bumper and see a bit of what I was doing (see picture below).


The process here is really straight forward. Use some hose clamps to secure the tubing to the duct. Not too tight that it cracks the duct but tight enough that it doesn't come off. Optionally you can use the provided net to prevent debris from entering the hose. Its almost certainly a better idea to use the netting but I was in a rush and couldn't get it to line up easily (this is where my earlier note applies, maybe glue it on before hand).


After that you pretty much just put everything back together and enjoy!


The Wasp ducts are hands down, without question the best way to get cool air to your brakes. You can see from this picture of the back of the hub with the ducting on that the duct lines exactly with the edge of the rotor and shoots the air straight into the center veins of the rotor.


I run these ducts with project mu hc+800's and RBF600 and have ZERO complaints and nothing but great results. The day that I finished these vents I ran at Auto Club Speedway and turned a 1:59.9 in a pretty much stock S2000, I'm told that’s an impressive result and it was good enough to place me at the top of street class even though I run in stock class. I had fade free braking almost all day until the 3rd session when everything was already hot, I had a 220lb friend in the car, ambient was north of 80 degrees and I started burying the car in the braking zone testing the limits. 120+ down to about 30 mph in turn three at that track and I turned 8+ laps with zero fade in my first two sessions. I had no fade in the fourth session with a lighter passenger and less aggressive driving and still managed a 2:00.1. Here's a video of my fastest lap from that day if you want to get an idea of what I'm talking about: http://youtu.be/CNgRqN7cCzE

Bottom line, if you plan to track your s2k I wouldn't even think about doing it without having some ducting on the brakes and there simply isn't a better solution than the Wasp kit. I was silly and bought my kit in pieces but I spent an extra $100 on the tubing and still don't have the ball joint protectors so by the time you're done it just makes more sense to ante up and buy their full kit. If you track, I'd call this an absolute must.

Anyhow, that’s my install write-up and impressions, thanks for the read!

 

Extremely detailed and informative write up. Excellent job with all the work on the actual job and the post, need to get this moved to the library for sure, amazing man.

 

Gustav, this is a much better solution than hacking through your heat shield like you mentioned earlier in the month

Great write up

 

Thanks guys. Just figured it'd be nice to share my experience with it. And yes WhyW, its a much better solution. I've heard bad things about just cutting into the stock shield. Mostly concerns about the inside rotor being much cooler than the outside rotor and cracking the vanes because of the heat difference.

I also ate through 75% of a set of shitty pads at streets of willow my first time out so I figured that would get expensive to keep doing, better to get good stuff and run it within its temp range.

 

What was pad wear like when you were at autoclub speedway?

 

I run the HC+800's on the street as well as at the track so I haven't pulled them off and measured them but I know it was minimal based on my brake fluid level. I saw no noticeable change in fluid level. I know that's not a precise measurement at all because you only really see the fluid level change after a LOT of pad wear but thats the best I can say right now. The pads look just as meaty as before from looking at them in the caliper but that's similarly imprecise. Next time I track I'll make sure to take a before and after measurement of pad wear and update here.

 

I didn't know Wasp made a duct kit for the AP1. Can you send me a link so I can buy these right away?

 

I didn't know Wasp made a duct kit for the AP1. Can you send me a link so I can buy these right away?

 

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