My thoughts on Brake Products
If you found this link you probably already
now the backstory and the reason so many of my articles
of this nature exist. The idea behind sharing this much
info comes from multiple threads on internet discussion
forums so once again instead of typing out the same basic
replies once every 2-3 months I decided to put those
thoughts down for everyone to view. I've
used pretty much every brand of rotor on the market at
one point or another whether on my personal bikes or on
test bikes. Braketech and Brembo are at the very top of
the list of what I will actually use now and in fact I
actually have BOTH brands on my ZX-10R currently with Brembo rotors on the front and Braketech
FF on the rear. Brembo the largest name in motorcycle braking components and found on almost every single MotoGP bike makes some of the finest braking components in the world. They also make a lot of entry level products that are OEM fitment themselves and simply no better than most other OEM fitted products. Their M4 and HP CNC 2 piece calipers say Brembo on them, but in my experience are no better than the Tokico 2 piece calipers that came standard on my old 2004 CBR1000RR. In my opinion you really need to upgrade to at least the GP4-RX calipers if you really want an improvement over most OEM style calipers and even those are just a minor upgrade when you compare them to the GP4-RR calipers that are $1900 EACH with titanium nitride coated pistons and you have to buy the pads separately let alone the 4 pad monobloc's that are in the $2500 range EACH and require narrow band rotors which are $1200 etc. You can spend big money on braking components, but when you get into that high end stuff you really do get what you pay for. The lower end stuff not so much. I mean it is likely worth the cost for what you get, but that doesn't mean it is better than the OEM stuff you already have. I have seen a lot of sportbike owners switching to Brembo M4 calipers in the 108mm spec. I would personally not spend my hard earned money on the M4 calipers. They are are nothing more than OEM style calipers on older Ducati's. Why people replace one OEM caliper with another OEM caliper is beyond my level of comprehension, but it likely goes back to the aforementioned idea that something different isn't always better. I went with the standard Brembo Supersport rotors on my latest build instead of the T-Drives because: 1. It was cheaper yet still offers amazing performance improvement that was good enough for the Yoshimura Suzuki AMA team so I think it will suffice for my needs. & 2. I cannot discern the
difference in a blind test between the Brembo T-Drives
and the Supersport rotors and I do not believe anyone out
scouring the internet for this kind of info can either.
Now if you just want the cooler bling factor of the
T-Drives because they cost more or the black carrier
matches your tennis shoes then I am all 100% for that.
When it comes to getting performance versus the dollar or
replacement rotors because you used up the OEM rotors the
Supersport rotors will be the better value. The one
caveat to that would be weight savings. If you are
cutting every ounce of weight as a priority then T-Drives
are lighter than the SS rotors and the additional price
is commesurate with that weight savings. An aftermarket master cylinder like a Brembo 19X18 or the adjustable RCS19 is definitely an upgrade over OEM master cylinders. Not so much in outright stopping power, but for feel and modulation so I do highly recommend that mod and for around $300ish dollars it is a good deal with a nice return on the investment. Again just switching to an OEM style master cylinder like the Brembo unit that comes standard fitment on an Yamaha R1 or the Ducati's is not the way to go and in some cases can be detrimental to your performance as their newer OEM Duc M/C's are designed to be used with the specific M50 calipers that come as OEM fitment on the Panigale and other Euro bikes. Which BTW is exactly why Brembo released the RCS17 Master Cylinders which work specifically with those calipers. I'll add more to this article as
needed |