2012 R56S, getting JCW brakes this weekend. The car sees occasional track use and after a COTA trip on 3/2 the brakes (with minor upgrades) were not up to snuff.

Since I'm going to a much higher temp rated fluid, I really want to make sure I get as much of the old stuff out as possible to not water it down. I'm familiar with the basic process, I have a Motive and an air-assisted vacuum pump. I have 7 bottles of Motul 660, and I'll use however much I need, but at ~$20 a bottle I'd rather not waste any either. My main question gets into bleeding/flushing the ABS pump to get out the old and in with the new. I have a Foxwell NT510, so I can activate the pump for that process, just kind of wondering at what part in the bleeding/flushing process to do that? Likewise, I ought to bleed/flush the clutch as well, any snags to know about on that?

ANSWERING MY OWN QUESTION
Thanks to Nik for all of the info and documents!
Long story less long, my task was to install JCW brakes on my R56S, but including some optional parts that required having the brake system open pretty much anywhere it can be open. Knowing that, I knew I was probably going to need to bleed the DSC/ABS system too, I just wasn't sure in what order that would fall. I am not a mechanic, but I'm old and learned to do stuff for myself growing up, so don't take this as gospel! After doing all of the hard parts, I bled the system in the typical manner, but let lots of fluid flow to get that flush I wanted. After that, the pedal was soft and took a pump or two. Not unexpected. The next morning, I followed the DSC/ABS bleeding directions provided on the Foxwell and I now have a nice normal firm pedal. There was a fair amount of bubbles that came up through the master cylinder and Motive hose during the process.

 

Nik will chime in eventually, but he said the brake pedal needs to be pushed down and held in place. On my clubman, I bled using pressure bleeder, filled with 2 liters of fluid, passenger rear first, driver rear, passenger front, driver front. I bled them till the fluid was clear, rear takes a little bit. Then if you want to do the abs, it says to have pressure bleeder hooked up, start sequence and follow which caliper it says to open. I didn’t press brake pedal down, but did bleed abs a couple of times. Too be honest I wouldn’t touch the slave cylinder on the clutch, pain in the *** to bleed correctly.

 

Hi there!!

Here is the first step in the factory procedure for replacing calipers:


I recently replaced my front calipers with the big GP2 6-piston style. I followed this first step, and when the brake line was disconnected, I had VERY little fluid leak out. It was on the order of drops. After replacement, I performed a full fluid flush using a Motive bleeder on all four corners. For reference, I never cycled the ABS unit during the process. Afterward, I noticed no change in pedal pressure as if there was any air in the system.

That being said, I did take the car to the local Mini dealer to have the reprogrammed for "JCW Sport Brake Retrofit." This coding reprograms the ABS unit. I have no clue if they cycle the ABS unit during the procedure, or if it is a software only process. (I am ~85% sure its just software coding) After the coding, staying out of ABS engagement, I noticed no change in pedal operation.

If all you are doing is flushing brake fluid through your system, and never introducing air into the master, I wouldn't worry about performing the ABS procedure. Just flush your brake fluid through and be done.

 

Thanks, got a pedal presser ordered.

I didn't go into details, but I'm going a bit farther than just a caliper swap. Also replacing flex lines, front & rear calipers, AND swapping to the GP2 master cylinder, so my brake system is going to be VERY open. And as I said, I want as complete of a flush as I can get, I don't want my Motul 660 getting watered down into Motul 450. Heading into turn 11 at COTA with whimpy brakes isn't any fun, ask me how I know!! :-)

 

Sounds like a great plan!

Have you reviewed the GP2 install instructions from ECS?
https://assets.ecstuning.com/edoc/PD...tallation1.pdf

Interesting to note that ECS doesn’t mention cycling the ABS during the bleeding process….

 

Not specifically, but thanks for that. At a minimum, I'll print it and use it for wrench/socket sizes and handy torque spec's. I browsed the Bentley manual for anything that looked new to me or seemed Mini specific, seems fairly straight forward. I think I'll do a good bleed, then run the ABS pump to clear it and a quick rebleed to get whatever it dumped into the downstream lines.