The issue: Mini brakes, being a single piston design, require that the Caliper assembly be able to slide side to side to self center when the brakes are applied. The slainless steel slider pins run through rubber (yes rubber!) bushings to accomodate this movement. Needless to say, Rubber is far more flexible than brass or other metals, so the calipers have some Damped movement when brakes are applied. Clamping forces will be slightly unequal, with a bit of Mush in the original design.

here they are:



Tyrolsport has designed a set of precision machined Brass sleeves which replace the rubber bushings in the caliper:




Install is a breeze...Sinply push out the rubber bushes, slide in the brass parts and use the Provided Circlips to retain them in the caliper body:




Lube up the new sliders with the provided grease:



and re-mount your calipers using the new pins:



Others have commented on improvement so I won't go into great detail, but suffice it to say, removing rubber and potential flex results in better feel. The side benefit includes more even pad and rotor wear and less potential for squealing. For those retaining the stock brakes and doing any upgrades to pads and or rotors (or not), this is really a Must do. Combine with stainless lines and you can improve the feel of the stock brakes nicely for not a lot of money ($79).

 

wow - i just posted a thread in the regular forums talking about drive quality of the stock MCS -including the brakes. I agree they feel a bit mushy for a car that is supposed to be performance oriented.

 

if not mistaken these have been available for years, I installed them on my '03 over 2 years ago.

 

They are a great item to add to the MINI. We add them to some of our Stage brake kits.

Chad
Detroit Tuned

 

but it's not a big deal that another has added to the collective wisdom of the masses....

For what it's worth, I've had them in for about 70k miles and really like them.... While they don't freeze if you don't lube them, they will cake up a bit from dirt in the grease that you did use the first time you installed them

Matt

ps, your photos are better than the ones I took....

 

explain how you can feel deflection from the calipers in the brake pedal

 

When you get on the brakes hard it's sorta like the pedal gives a little....

 

Easy install, You'll feel the difference, Not an expensive mod.

I do remove the pins & re-lube a couple time a year. When you have the wheels off, only takes an additional 10 min. to re-lube.

 

Same for me as well.

 

What are you lubing it with?

 

It looks like it comes with anti-seize for the lube. When I was doing the brakes on my Ford pickup a few years back I picked up some of their (motorcraft) Silicone Brake Caliper Grease, to use for the same appication. I'm not sure which woud last longer though.

 

I have to say thanks for posting this. I kind of wanted to do this but was unsure of how difficult installation was. Now, if I end up keeping my '50, this should be a cheapo mod I should do.

 

I also don't see the point of this, seems to me the point of the rubber bushings is strictly noise isolation and the inherent flex allows the caliper to align to the pads and rotors better. In other words, there's a reason BMW built it like they did.......the only thing that could cause mushiness in the pedal is air.........if the pistons are being knocked back further because of the flex in the rubber, the only difference would be slightly longer pedal travel, not mushiness. Lastly, these are not precision fit parts (I helped install a set on a friends MCS recently) so there's a certain amount of flex in them as well, but I'll admit it's less than in the rubber. Downside, another maintenance chore to add to the list.......

 

Since you don't see the point, I would suggest you not bother to do this mod. I, as well as many others have, seem to see & feel the benefits.

 

translated: "i don't see why i would want to do this since MY calculations are different from the OP and it seems that I've never felt a mushy pedal nor have i really driven my car to the point of feeling the mush and to top it all off I'm too lazy to undo a few pins and grease them while my wheels are off."

just a little jab

 

Do you track your car? If you haven't felt the squishy *** stock brakes on the track you can't really contribute here .

 

Apparently the "precision" of Rubber is more than enough for your needs..

 

uhhhhm... no

my post was a tongue in cheek translation of MINIdaves
i do not feel the same as he.

 

Mine are almost .25" too long for the caliper...

This means the brass bushing moves in the caliper instead of the bushing & caliper (together) sliding on the stainless steel bolt.

Either Mini has a huge variation in caliper desigin or Tyrolsport doesn't know how to use a ruler.

It looks like Modshack's kit fits perfect- Anyone else have this problem???

 

Meant that for him...sorry!...

 

They make kits for several cars as well as a rear kit for the Mini......possibly you got the wrong one?
I'd get in touch with Tyrolsport..

 

Mine works fine . I had these on one of my previous cars and it worked fine as well .

 

aint no thing but a chicken wing

 

if you stop a moving part that was designed to flex from flexing, it will just bind instead. I had these on my beetle, and they dirty up quick, and just bind. and no i couldnt feel a difference, but thats because i didnt pay for them. i'm sure if i had paid what tyrolsport wants, i wouldve felt a difference as well.

 

There are a lot of reasons to use a rubber bushing, performance isn't one of them. Remember that OEM is a compromise between 95% of the people out there, and us (Performance market). If you haven't been on the track with a car with these then you haven't pushed your brakes anywhere near 100%, so you have no place to talk about their effectiveness. I've MELTED the rubber bushings on the track before. After a hard session I measured the rotor temp at somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 degrees with an IR thermometer (With smoke flying everywhere), and that was after a cooldown lap. (Confirmed by thermographic paint on the actual rotor)

You can't take a quick canyon and mash your brakes 2-3 times and say you know what driving at the limit is like in your car. If you drive at the limit on the street, stay away from me .