Le_Fromage_Grande wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 1:32 pm
A lot of the problems with older Japanese bike brakes are the master cylinders which are generally too big for the brake calipers, giving wooden feeling brakes, LC350s come with a 5/8 master cylinder but the brakes are much better with a 1/4 master cylinder from a 250LC.
The brakes on my 350 were amazing. I was a demon outbraking folk
Yours was an F1 with twin piston calipers, the 5/8 master cylinder was more suited to those than the single piston LC calipers.
Though I've just remembered you had an LC before the YPVS, maybe repeated crashes improved the brakes
Le_Fromage_Grande wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 1:32 pm
A lot of the problems with older Japanese bike brakes are the master cylinders which are generally too big for the brake calipers, giving wooden feeling brakes, LC350s come with a 5/8 master cylinder but the brakes are much better with a 1/4 master cylinder from a 250LC.
The brakes on my 350 were amazing. I was a demon outbraking folk
Yours was an F1 with twin piston calipers, the 5/8 master cylinder was more suited to those than the single piston LC calipers.
Though I've just remembered you had an LC before the YPVS, maybe repeated crashes improved the brakes
I bought the LC 3 months old. Superb brakes. Massive upgrade from the RD400
inewham wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 1:58 pm
I binned the twin discs on my LC350 and replaced them with a single disc with an opposed piston caliper and it stopped much better
Still got the originals hanging on the garage wall I should put them on ebay
Strange.
One season I raced both and 350 had much better brakes. Even though 350 was much faster, I was using same braking points.
KungFooBob wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 1:49 pm
Did the 400 have the same pivoting caliper the 250 had?
What a bag o'shite that was.
RD400 E and F have that brake, earlier C and D had the Lockheed copy calipers that were actually pretty good, but if you used the brake hard you could see the forks flex.
The CB400 four - everyone loves them but the front brake on that scared the bejeesus out of me, even when it had a brand new pivot pin, new pads and fresh fluid and bleed you could slow yourself down with the soles of your boots faster
'07 Griso 1100 (for sale), '94 Sprint 900, the scabbiest Himalayan in the country
Le_Fromage_Grande wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 1:32 pm
A lot of the problems with older Japanese bike brakes are the master cylinders which are generally too big for the brake calipers, giving wooden feeling brakes, LC350s come with a 5/8 master cylinder but the brakes are much better with a 1/4 master cylinder from a 250LC.
I fitted a 1/2" master cylinder (not a 1/4", that would be silly) and now the brakes on my LC are not too bad at all. Nowhere near as good as even 15 y.o. Brembos, but way better than I remember them.
Mr. Dazzle wrote: ↑Sat Apr 09, 2022 10:09 pm, brakes that actually work etc.
Well...the brit iron ultimately went out of Business, so maybe they were less "influential" and more "supplanting".
Oh no they didn't, pre 1980s Japanese disc brakes are really terrible (apart from Yamahas with the twin piston calipers)
To be fair the science of pad material was, if not in its infancy, still pretty early. When sintered pads became a thing you did stand a better than even chance of stopping in the wet. But to get around the patent on opposed-piston brakes, most of the Japanese went for sliding calipers, which remain one of my pet hates. Certainly the improvement when I went from standard Yamaha (sliding) calipers to AP Lockeed opposed piston jobs on my 350LC was dramatic and immediately noticeable.
Research showed that cutting radial slots in discs dispersed water.
But, for some reason, manufacturers persevered with drilled discs, where the holes retained water.
My car has neither slots not holes in the disc faces (inside it does, yes, before anyone says it ). I would guess the same is true of 99% of cars. Ditto on sliding callipers.
If you fit grooved discs to a car they sound bloody awful. Presumably they do on a bike too, you just can't hear it
So there has to be more to it than "solid discs is shit in the wet". Could just be the fact cars have boosted brakes, but not all cars do.
Horse wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 5:55 pm
Research showed that cutting radial slots in discs dispersed water.
But, for some reason, manufacturers persevered with drilled discs, where the holes retained water.
Sintered pads was a fix rather than cure.
Is it really that simple? Doesn't the wheel/disc rotation shed water, whether discs have holes or slots? If wet weather braking could be improved by such a simple expedient, I'm very surprised that manufacturers didn't pick up on that.
Or maybe most riders just don't go out in the wet these days...
Mr. Dazzle wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 6:13 pm
My car has neither slots not holes in the disc faces (inside it does, yes, before anyone says it ). I would guess the same is true of 99% of cars. Ditto on sliding callipers.
If you fit grooved discs to a car they sound bloody awful. Presumably they do on a bike too, you just can't hear it
So there has to be more to it than "solid discs is shit in the wet". Could just be the fact cars have boosted brakes, but not all cars do.
Mr. Dazzle wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 6:13 pm
My car has neither slots not holes in the disc faces (inside it does, yes, before anyone says it ). I would guess the same is true of 99% of cars. Ditto on sliding callipers.
If you fit grooved discs to a car they sound bloody awful. Presumably they do on a bike too, you just can't hear it
So there has to be more to it than "solid discs is shit in the wet". Could just be the fact cars have boosted brakes, but not all cars do.
My car has drilled discs :p
I accidentally bought a set of grooved ones for my car once....they went "vvvwwwwwwwrrrrmmmm!" when you braked. Funny for about 5 mins.
Mr. Dazzle wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 6:13 pm
My car has neither slots not holes in the disc faces (inside it does, yes, before anyone says it ). I would guess the same is true of 99% of cars. Ditto on sliding callipers.
If you fit grooved discs to a car they sound bloody awful.
Put it into context that, in the late 1970s, the alternative to that noise was silence followed by 'crash!'
Le_Fromage_Grande wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 1:32 pm
A lot of the problems with older Japanese bike brakes are the master cylinders which are generally too big for the brake calipers, giving wooden feeling brakes, LC350s come with a 5/8 master cylinder but the brakes are much better with a 1/4 master cylinder from a 250LC.
I fitted a 1/2" master cylinder (not a 1/4", that would be silly) and now the brakes on my LC are not too bad at all. Nowhere near as good as even 15 y.o. Brembos, but way better than I remember them.
mangocrazy wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 1:22 pm
The Harrison Billet company had (and probably still have) a very nice little earner making calipers for Harleys that actually worked...
Best brakes I ever have had. Billet six pots on EBC discs. Brilliant wet or dry.
20200505_005749.jpg (249.62 KiB) Viewed 160 times
I had a Goldwing in 1976. Brakes were as good as they could be in the dry, but useless in the wet. Stay away from stainless steel discs, kids
Went on a trackday and warped a disc trying to use my R6 brake markers.
Replaced them with PFM cast iron jobbie. They were amazing. You got a nano-second of nothing while they warmed up a bit then a really progressive build up of stopping power.
). I would guess the same is true of 99% of cars. Ditto on sliding callipers.
