I am putting new aggressive brake pads (from Terry) and a new brake line (from Dave Dodge).
I will give my opinion / review after the weekend.
Brake pad information:
EBC Double H Sintered
HH rated - Highest friction Rating
Grippiest street legal pad you can buy
Don't go flying over the handle bars what ever you do! Big brakes stop big time!
I should be good. Sports bike have two brakes so I should be good.
I installed those pads back in the Spring. I think they made a bigger difference than the stainless steel brake line. The line does improve the feel but does nothing to improve the braking capacity while the sintered pads do make for more braking power with less effort. I think you're going to like them.
Both together will make a pretty big improvement.
FYI the pads are more aggressive therefore will wear your rotor a bit quicker too.
I was losing confidence in my front brakes, the pads felt like they where just pressing on the disk not gripping the disk. The new pads are gripping the disk firmly not just pressing against it. The braking has improved greatly.
The new brake line were for both appearance and improved braking.
I was just afraid the rubber hose was getting soft being 17 years old.
So far I am very happy with it and highly recommend them both.
Terry and I did talk about the increased wear on the rotor but I decided the improved braking was my goal.
I will let Terry give his experience with his bike using the same pads.
just curious, about how much $$$ did this upgrade run? As soon as I figure out my cam chain woes, I would like to try this upgrade it really sounds worthwhile.
Assuming you DIY, it's probably less than $100 for both the line and pads ($50-$60 for the line and ~$30 for the pads) ... probably one of the biggest bang for the buck mods you can do for this bike.
Less than 100.00
I had no free time.
I took it to a dealership extra 150.00. I had the caliber cleaned and rebuilt also.
Robert you need to quit working so much and take a little free time, brake line brake pads clean caliper maybe 2 hours.
I will never forget the morning after I did this upgrade. Leaving for work on a normal day, I would come off the hill from the house and threw a patch of grass to stop at the end of the driveway. Before the upgrade, I could grab brake and slow down in the grass with no problem. The morning after I did this upgrade, riding down the same hill and hit the brakes and OH- #@#$ :shock:, the front tire locked up and me and the bike wrestled eachother until I came to a stop. I still don't know how I didn't keep from dropping the bike!! The brakes were like night and day. One of the best mods I ever did to my magna!! :cool:
Quote from: Magnum Magna on July 09, 2011, 06:46:03 PM
I will let Terry give his experience with his bike using the same pads.
I used the sintered pads for 40,000 miles and had little to no discernible wear. When I purchased the 01 Magna I switched the sintered pads over to the newer bike which had 3500-4,000 miles, we will see as the miles stack up but I don't think my findings will be much different concerning rotor wear running the sintered pads.
That's good to hear Terry. I do like the sintered pads better than the organics so even if I did have to replace the rotor eventually, that would be okay but not having to worry about it for a long, long time makes it even better :)
where did you get the pads? and line?
I got the pads from Ron Ayers:
http://www.ronayers.com/ProductDetails/N/687/SKU/1428972 (http://www.ronayers.com/ProductDetails/N/687/SKU/1428972)
and the stainless steel line from Fluid Transfer Products (FTP):
http://www.fluidtransferproducts.com/cruiser.html (http://www.fluidtransferproducts.com/cruiser.html)
I got pads from Terry http://www.cli-maxridinggear.com (http://www.cli-maxridinggear.com)
EBC Double H Sintered
HH rated - Highest friction Rating
Grippiest street legal pad you can buy
Line from Dave dodge
928-387-1206
both should be found in the Commercial Vendors section of the magna page.
I had the sintered pads (EBC) on my SuperDuper Magna (the one with the CBR wheels and brakes), but I took them off because I felt they were an accident waiting to happen. They really had no progressive feel. They were either 100% or 0%, with nothing in the middle. A couple of times in heavy traffic I had a car pull into my lane without looking. I had to hit the brakes a bit hard (like a hard flick of the fingers on the brake lever) to avoid hitting the car and in both cases I locked up the front wheel and almost went down.
I have since switched to the EBC generics and they are much better. With good clean fluid and the SS lines, it still stops on a dime, but it no longer locks the wheel on hard braking. The brakes have a much more progressive feel to them. A quick emergency jerk on the lever engages the brakes and brings the bike to a quick stop without locking up the front wheel. It is a much more secure feeling now as I drive around.
I don't know. Maybe my problem is due to the fact that I have two rotors up front on a bike that was supposed to have one. Also, my master cylinder is also from a VTX 1800, so it is more powerful than the Magna's or CBR's.
Or, it could be that the sintered pads are supposed to be used on the track and tend to work most efficiently when very hot. In normal driving the pads and rotor are fairly cool, and this supposedly causes the pads to lock more easily (when cold) than when they are hot.
Anyway, food for thought.
I definitely think the custom setup on your superduper Magna had more to do with the way the sintered pads worked. I find them to be very easy to modulate and they require considerably less finger effort than the stock pads do. Having only one rotor up front does limit things a bit so it's not surprising that your dual rotor setup was a bit more sensitive.
Thanks, definitely going to look into it.
Quote from: LIMagna on July 15, 2011, 07:54:26 AM
I definitely think the custom setup on your superduper Magna had more to do with the way the sintered pads worked. I find them to be very easy to modulate and they require considerably less finger effort than the stock pads do. Having only one rotor up front does limit things a bit so it's not surprising that your dual rotor setup was a bit more sensitive.
Charlie is correct, on a stock Magna setup, you have no issues as described. The front tire I have never locked up and it would take some effort to do so.
Probably true. On most of the CBR forums, riders really seem to hate the sintered pads unless they are using them on the track. Almost everyone running a street bike is going with organic pads because with dual rotors, the sintered pads bite too hard in front and are almost lethal on the rear rotor.