Major Brake Problem

So I was working on my brakes today on my car. The rear philips screw on one of my rear rotors was stripped so I couldn't remove it so I decided to only do the front brakes. On the front brakes, I installed Brembo Blank rotors, Hawk HPS Street Performance Pads, and the Acura Legend Dual piston caliper upgrade. After the installation, I bled all the brakes starting from the furthest one from the cylinder and working my way up to the driver one. Afterwards, I started my car to test it out and noticed my brake pedal was extremely spongy to the point where I can basically shove it down to the floor. I tried just doing minor 1 feet movements with the brakes and I had to exert about 80% of the brake pedal to just stop the car. Plus, the idle would fluctuate a lot but I heard that is normal if you push on your brake pedals a lot. So my friend and I thought I might have bled the brakes the wrong way and decided to rebleed them again through the DIY posted for bleeding brakes, starting from the drivers and working all the way to the rear. We basically flushed the whole system as we thought there were a lot of air bubbles and hoping it would fix the problem. We used about 32 fluid ounces of brake fluid and I'm sure that would be more than enough to clean out the entire system of any air bubbles AT ALL.

The problem did not go away. The pedal still had barely any response to it and went all the way down to the floor. We inspected the area around the car and even the wheel for any brake fluid leaks at all. NOTHING! We checked the master cylinder and the fluid level did not go down at all.

So my question is, is my master cylinder not powerful enough to even push the dual pistons from the Acura Legend Calipers? I'm currently a 4 cylinder and I have never ever experienced this problem at all. OR did my master cylinder fail and I didn't realize it until I installed more pistons on my car and it didn't have enough pressure to engage them to brake fully?

If it is the master cylinder, I am just planning on taking it to a shop and having them fix it. I don't have any time at the moment to slowly inspect the car for what the problem is as it seems like a major internal problem and I can't even drive my car safely to the shop or anywhere at the moment without rear ending someone so I am just going to get my friend's AAA service to tow me for a fee of $60.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

i have legend calipers on my 4cylinder LX (no ABS rear drums) and its not spongy at all I would imagine its something to do with the master cylinder if you flushed out the whole system...

pressure or vacuum bleed FTW

I prefer vacuum. You'll never get all of the air out of the ABS pump and what not by using the pump and bleed method, you just don't move enough fluid all at once.

Waiting on a tow truck right now to take it to a local shop. Hopefully it's not anything too major and at most is just the master cylinder.

when you flush you brakes, you do it from the passenger rear. then just bleed the rest starting from driver rear to passenger front; finished w/ driver front. not from drivers first

jwong512 said:

After the installation, I bled all the brakes starting from the furthest one from the cylinder and working my way up to the driver one.

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It seems as though he did do the bleed in the proper order.

spongy brakes is air in the system 9 times out of 10. THe other time it is the master, but usually a master will still make enough pressure to feel hard, but if you hold it the pressure bleeds past the seals and the pedal slowly drops.

If it's spongy from the get go I'd still bet on trapped air somewhere. It's a PITA to get the ABS system air free using the pump and dump method, which is why I went and bought a vacuum bleeder. Some guys prefer the pressure style because you can force new fluid, but I like the vacuum setup because I don't need a new master cylinder adapter for every car I touch.

nsjames said:

It seems as though he did do the bleed in the proper order.

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but when he flushed them after he bled them properly, he did it from the front

We bled them from the farthest to the closest at first and tested out the car. The brakes barely responded and we did it in reverse order and still, it had the same exact effect. I just dropped off my car at a local performance shop that all my friends go to and they said my master cylinder was leaking and they'll replace it. Getting my rear rotors and pads installed as well cause one of the rotor screws was stripped and I couldn't take it off as I didn't have a drill. Got them to put some Dot 4 brake fluid as well since I've baked Dot 3 brake fluid in the past.

I can't wait to feel how these new pads, bigger rotors, and legend caliper upgrades will feel once I get my car back tomorrow. I got them to clear my stock 15 inch wheels without removing or modifying the dust shield at all. Just have to bend it back and there should be no problems.

jwong512 said:

We bled them from the farthest to the closest at first and tested out the car. The brakes barely responded and we did it in reverse order and still, it had the same exact effect. I just dropped off my car at a local performance shop that all my friends go to and they said my master cylinder was leaking and they'll replace it. Getting my rear rotors and pads installed as well cause one of the rotor screws was stripped and I couldn't take it off as I didn't have a drill. Got them to put some Dot 4 brake fluid as well since I've baked Dot 3 brake fluid in the past.

I can't wait to feel how these new pads, bigger rotors, and legend caliper upgrades will feel once I get my car back tomorrow. I got them to clear my stock 15 inch wheels without removing or modifying the dust shield at all. Just have to bend it back and there should be no problems.

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Shoulda came to me! Now your probably paying a pretty penny for that master cylinder and brake/rotor install. Why would the master cylinder all of a sudden go out?! Sounds like BS. You can't bleed an ABS system like a DX-LX trim. You have more piping to work with. *Sighs* I happen to have a vacuum machine made for bleeding the brakes w/ABS systems. Also, to get that screw out of the rotor you gotta hit it with a chisel to brake it loose. Good luck!

- Captain Hindsight

redlinevtec said:

Shoulda came to me! Now your probably paying a pretty penny for that master cylinder and brake/rotor install. Why would the master cylinder all of a sudden go out?! Sounds like BS. You can't bleed an ABS system like a DX-LX trim. You have more piping to work with. *Sighs* I happen to have a vacuum machine made for bleeding the brakes w/ABS systems. Also, to get that screw out of the rotor you gotta hit it with a chisel to brake it loose. Good luck!

- Captain Hindsight

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Needed it done asap. I had a feeling it was going out in the first place with my stock setup but I thought it was something else. I thought my pads were going out due to my pedal being spongy or the brake fluid having a lot of air bubbles. But when I bled it, there were almost no bubbles at all and my pads still had plenty of life in them so I knew something was wrong to begin with.