Hope E4 brake issue

Kanya

Hoping someone on here may be able to assist or point me in the right direction, as I am pulling my hair out now!

I recently bought a set of Hope E4's, and as the rear brake is internally routed needed to route & shorten the hose before install. Installed then discovered that the 90 degree connector was causing a Z shaped kink from chainstay (brake is mounted within rear chainstay unfortunately). Brake lever was spongey/pulled to bar and zero power.

I ordered up the straight connector for caliper and installed that. Hose is now a clean run, and I also removed the kinked part of cable completely as hose needed a further shorten to tidy things up.

Got a Hope bleed kit from EpicBleed solutions, and then put through a ton of 5.1 fluid from lever to caliper, following the Hope instruction vid to the letter. (Open, pull lever, close, release etc), Also tried pushing pads back which also forced some air out via bleed nipple with lever pressed

Got quite a bit of air bubbles out, however lever is still spongey and pulls to bar. Tried a burp bleed, some small bubbles but nothing of note.

Any ideas, as I'm at my wits end with this, and usually Hopes are easy to bleed.

The lever will firm up if I pump it like crazy, and can see pads slowwwwwly advance out until they meet. Its like there is still zero pressure

Anything I am missing here? Trying to avoid taking it to the LBS as I have all the kit at home but feeling I may need to concede defeat on this fix.