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MarJay |
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MarJay But it's British!
Joined: 15 Sep 2003 Karma :
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Posted: 11:50 - 19 Mar 2019 Post subject: VFR800 commuter braking dilemma VTR fork swap - Stinkwheel? |
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Greetings.
As you guys know I have a VFR800 that I bought late last year to use on my commute. It's a great bike. It goes OK, is comfy and has great weather protection. It even goes around corners very nicely, and is stable and confidence inspiring.
However... The brakes. Oh the brakes. How awful are they? Bad. Very bad indeed. It's not so much the linked-ness (although it is annoying if barely noticeable) but more the 2/3piston slideyness and the 19 year old rubber hoses. They work but they are bottom twitchingly inefficient. If I plan ahead a lot they are useable but compared to my other bikes they are weak.
So I read online that you can't do a caliper swap on the standard forks as the mountings are weird. This makes sense, as part of the left hand front caliper mount is actually a master cylinder for the rear brake (! Yeah I know!). So a common mod is to take the fork bottoms from a Firestorm and put them on the VFR stanchions.
Wonderful, I thought. So I bought a set of Firestorm forks and a pair of Firestorm brake calipers with hoses and master cylinder from Fleabay.
Now comes the problem. In reading into it further, it seems that the spacing of the Firestorm forks is different from the VFR items. Also, the Firestorm fork lowers are wider as they have two pinch bolts for the spindle as opposed to one. "Bloke on the internet" reckons that you can just use the VFR spindle and spacers, and wheel and then you have to space out the brake calipers a bit to make them centre on the discs. But then, I'm not 100% sure "Bloke on the internet" is right. As people have said on here before "Bloke on the internet" has supplanted "Bloke down the pub" as the repositry of all dodgy knowledge.
Bloke on the internet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQC5XJlFLDQ&t=8s
Being this is a commuter, if I make an irrevocable change to the bike that doesn't work I'm a bit screwed. I need this bike to work. So my plan was to do the mods over Easter to give me time to make it all work. I'm worried that reverting to the original setup will be a pain due to the quantity and age of the hoses in the braking system right now.
It seems that Stinkwheel has done this mod before, but to a VFR750... in 2010... NOT an RC46 800... So he may have some insight into this.
https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=198412
So, have I made a huge mistake buying Firestorm parts I can't use? Do I press ahead with the mods and hope it all just works? Or do I leave it OEM as I'll have to sell the bike in a year or so anyway when the ULEZ expands? Do I use the slightly shorter (~10mm) Firestorm fork stanchions as then I will have damping adjustment? Will Batman escape the clutches of the Joker? Will that annoying ringing in my ears ever go away?
The answers to these questions, and more, hopefully found in this thread! ____________________ British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another. |
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sickpup |
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sickpup Old Timer
Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Karma :
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B5234FT |
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B5234FT Brolly Dolly
Joined: 28 Sep 2009 Karma :
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stinkwheel |
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stinkwheel Bovine Proctologist
Joined: 12 Jul 2004 Karma :
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Posted: 21:33 - 20 Mar 2019 Post subject: |
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I really don't know about the swap onto an 800, I definately had to use the firestorm spindle on mine.
You could get a pair of pretecs... I did and they are awesome, although they would probably cost more than the bike is worth.
I have personally found fitting brembo brake pads makes an enormous difference to mediocre brakes.
Anyway. You have the firestorm forks and callipers in your sweaty little hand?
So. Just test fit them. You don't have to plumb in the firestorm callipers until you're ready to use them, just bolt them on and see how they fit with the wheel and spacers you have. Not a big job and nothing irreversible. Just tie the current calipers back out of the way until you decide.
If they are only slightly out, you can buy bags of shims pretty cheaply to space-out callipers. It's good practice to do this with opposed callipers anyway. My pretecs came with a baggy of assorted shims.
Mmmm. 6-pots.
https://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f216/stinkwheel/VFR/1CIMG1610_zps4f9ecba6.jpg ____________________ “Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles. |
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MarJay |
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MarJay But it's British!
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MarJay |
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MarJay But it's British!
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kgm |
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kgm World Chat Champion
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MarJay |
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MarJay But it's British!
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wr6133 |
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wr6133 World Chat Champion
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MarJay |
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MarJay But it's British!
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ThatDippyTwat |
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ThatDippyTwat World Chat Champion
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MarJay |
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MarJay But it's British!
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ThatDippyTwat |
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ThatDippyTwat World Chat Champion
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Serendipity |
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Serendipity World Chat Champion
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Posted: 09:54 - 22 Mar 2019 Post subject: |
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Are the EBC pads you have waiting to go in the double H ones? Hopefully that could make a difference. I find the initial bite and braking power of those better than OEM on the CBF1000. You've already said you have the pistons sliding freely. That's the other thing I find improves my brakes. I've let them gum up before and they get steadily more wooden. Cleaning the pistons and applying red rubber grease and sliding them in and out several times makes them wonderful again.
I didn't realise that the VFR linked system activated the rear with a pull of the front brake. My ABS CBF only goes the other way. The rear brake activates a single piston in just one of the front calipers. So using the rear brake on its own I can feel the braking from the front, but its very gentle. Where I notice a big difference is braking hard with the front on its own. Its much more powerful when used in combination with the rear pedal. That's probably an obvious statement, but the effect is more pronounced than using both brakes together on an unlinked system. ____________________ 2007 CBF1000-ABS - Commuter heaven | 1994 CBR600FR - Awaiting defibrillation |
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MarJay |
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MarJay But it's British!
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P. Red Rocket
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sickpup |
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sickpup Old Timer
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MarJay |
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MarJay But it's British!
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ADSrox0r |
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ADSrox0r World Chat Champion
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sickpup |
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sickpup Old Timer
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MarJay But it's British!
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Robby Dirty Old Man
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MarJay |
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MarJay But it's British!
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MarJay |
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MarJay But it's British!
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ADSrox0r |
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ADSrox0r World Chat Champion
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Old Thread Alert!
The last post was made 5 years, 36 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful? |
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