I've also heard others say that you can actually introduce air into the system while pumping the brake pedal with the bleeder open. Unless you are just doing one full "press" of the brake pedal then close the bleeder each and every time ... that takes twice as long with a BBK where you have a total of 8 bleeders...

 

I close the bleeder at the end of each pedal stroke . So yes, it takes a little longer, but not appreciably longer. I swear it takes me longer to jack the vehicle up and remove the wheel than it does to bleed the brakes.

 

Have you tried to bleed the brake cylinder? You could have air trapped there if for any reason you let the fluid get too low while bleeding. Same thing happened to me and I fould a few air bubbles there.

 

BA,

Thanks for the link! I've been using the mighty vac and it's crappy little reservoir;

http://www.zcarparts.com/store/merch...tegory_Code=TE

It functions fine but a complete fluid flush through all eight bleed screws seems to take 2 hours of trigger squeezing and bottle dumping, it's tedious. That Griots setup looks like it would cut the time in half - I'm there!

 

I assume you are talking about the master cylinder? How do you bleed that without actually flushing fluid all the way through?

 

A quick reality check about the Griot's bleeder: since it's pulling from outside the caliper with quite a bit of force, it will pull air through the connection that it has with the bleed screw. This air won't go into the caliper, but you will see it coming through the hose into the catch-bottle along with the fluid. As a result, you can't visually tell when you've gotten all of the air bubbles out of the brake line.

This doesn't prevent me from using the Griot's bleeder, as it's great for a full flush or a quick bleed at the track if nobody's around to help, but I always have the wife come do a few pushes at the brake pedal at each caliper to make sure that no bubbles are in the system. And the Griot's piece is good for that, too...just don't pressurize it, and now you've got the world's biggest catch-bottle.

 

Mighty Vac has the same issue, not a problem, I'm just sick of wasting so much time with the hand pump. The Griots is worth a try.

 

Well, I guess I assumed it had a bleed valve. The 8 does and I thought the Z did too. If it doesn't, I don't know. I've got 5 valves on the RX-8, one for each caliper and one for the master cylinder.

 

Hmmm, if there is a bleeder on the master cylinder then I never knew about it... I'll have to check that out. The master cylinder should be the same between the Z and the G afaik.

 

The master cylinder between the base and the track model have different part numbers although they look mostly the same. My car brakes insanely good and I have the base master. Even people that have STi that have driven it they comment how good the brakes are.

 

Correct, you will see bubbles coming in threw between the unit's hose that attachs to the bleeder nipple. I put a small clamp on the hose/nipple to minimize that effect. It's not a show stopper.

This approach has yielded the best results of any tool/method I have used to date (my wife thinks this tool was well worth its cost).

I had the same experience using the Might Vac... it's great for building up your handshake grip... but it gets pretty old. The Griot's unit takes 4-6 easy pumps to create a good amount of vacuum.

I'm trying to imagine why I would go any other way. Even when I've sucked the master cylinder dry... it's not that big of a deal to rid the system of the resulting air... it's just wasteful in terms of fluid... but the tool clears the system with ease.

BC

 

Man - only rotary engine people run out of fluid when they bleed the brakes