What exactly is the difference in the brakes between the non-s and s coopers?
are the calipers or rotors different?

 

There are differences in almost every year, but not all. For instance, my 2008 base cooper, the Justa, came with the "S" sized brakes and rotors from previous years. Which was lucky for me as I wanted to use the smaller 15" wheels and they do fit over the brakes. The "S" models in 2008 generally came with the brake package that has larger rotors and calipers that would not fit 15" wheels. Those brake pads are at least two inches longer and are not interchangeable with my brakes. Since Mini's can be ordered from the factory with optional upgrades, someone could have spec'd the larger "S" brakes on a Justa, but I don't think you could separately order the JCW brakes without the full JCW package.

What are you trying to find out exactly?

 

Rotor size , brake caliper for the fronts. The rears are shared, Cooper/ Cooper S. Now the JCW Brembo brake kit has JCW fronts and JCW rear , rotors / caliper / pads. That's an add on option for the Cooper and Cooper S.

 

so if i were to take the bigger rotors from a cooper s would it fit onto my 2007 justa?

 

If they were bigger rotors you would also need the calipers and I think what they mount to as well. And if you use 15" wheels they won't fit anymore. I don't have a manual in front of me, do you have one?

What are you trying to accomplish? Better braking can also be done with pad choice.

 

Yea, what are you trying to do. +1 on rock az, you will need bigger calipers.

I would just go with Hawk or EBC pads if you want simple better brakes. Swapping out can be a job. Simple fix is new pads.

 

since my rotors are kind of gross and rusty in the near future i would like to just swap them out.. i knew that the cooper s rotors were bigger but i was just wondering if they fit into the justa calipers and you could use them aswell for a little bit more stopping power.

 

I changed Cooper rotors to Cooper S rotors as I was getting bad brake fade in hilly country. It's an easy swap as the callipers are the same for both and only new calliper mounting brackets (and rotor/pads!) are needed.

I can't say the S brakes feel much better but they've never faded. But I've now fitted uprated pads and that has improved them noticeably.

 

Where did you pick up the mounting brackets for the brakes?
This only applies for the front brakes correct?

 

I just bought the brackets from my dealer, though they are a sobering $120 each side. I was doing the conversion on a 6-month-old car, so wanted to use OEM parts.

 

I was looking at doing something similar, as far as I could tell on my 2011 the calipers for the justa and the S are the same part number, but the carrier is different. Was going to ask around to see if I could just swap out the carrier use the same caliper and upgrade to a larger rotor, but have been getting mixed responses.


Seems like it would be a good midway upgrade to go with slotted larger dia rotors, new pads, ss lines without going full BBK, but I think the issue would be with the rims, but I upgraded to 17s so I don't see it being a problem

 

There seem to be three reasons why folks upgrade brakes (in order?):
1) styling;
2) boasting ability;
3) braking ability.

Swapping to Cooper S discs is extremely easy but only addresses number 3 and only if you are getting bad fade. The S brakes feel no better and work no better than the Justa brakes, at least with OEM pads, but they don't fade so badly - or indeed at all, in fast road use for me. To get better brakes I then went to aftermarket pads which did improve the high speed bite - the OEM pads seem very biased towards low speed use where I find them too sharp.

On 1), the S discs don't look any bigger - the extra 10mm or so radius is too small to notice, even if you know it's there.

Nothing except the carriers (and the discs and pads, obviously!) needs to be changed and the existing calliper and hose is the same for both models, so that avoids even touching the hydraulics.

I know it is heresy, but you can also forget the s/s hoses too as those are just cosmetic (shiny = fast). I lived through all the braided hose bull**** when they became the fashion for sportsbikes and was interested to see that eventually a bike mag found someone with a 'hose tester' (that measures expansion under pressure) which showed that OEM rubber hoses were better than all but the very best s/s hoses. But of course this is like saying the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes....