Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

I fitted radial calipers off an '09 ZX6R to the REX today. You need adaptors that are on eBay (Taiwan) to make it work. I was able to use the Goodrich braided lines and stock m/c. I only did about 40kms after fitting but the result is very strong brakes with progressive feel. I was worried that they might have been on / off but they're not. However, even with 1 or 2 fingers gently caressing (source Mills & Boon) it's like hitting a brick wall .

I bought the '09 ZX6R calipers brand new from the U.S. (US$250 shipped) and the adaptors from Taiwan (US$155 shipped), so for less than A$500 it's a huge improvement.

Changeover was straight forward (30 mins) and I bled the brakes by myself (like getting an octopus into a string vest) which took me about 90mins.

Worthwhile upgrade to the stock brakes. The calipers came with stock Kwaka pads and lines and I'll use the pads for a while. I only did ~40kms today on the new pads so when they bed in they may be better again. At some stage I'll change to EBC HH and that may give even more improvement.

All in all, a very happy camper
TC

Very nice. Can you post a link to the mob in Taiwan you got the adapters from? I'm going to have a look for some for a 9

dave#3 wrote:Very nice. Can you post a link to the mob in Taiwan you got the adapters from? I'm going to have a look for some for a 9

will do tomorrow as it's on the work puter

Excellent.
Those callipers are A1

"functional bling" to quote a regular around here

Why are radial calipers so much better than standard ones?

its not just the fact they are radial,

but the nissin ones work fuckingexcellent!!!

Very nice TC, something i've been looking at doing on mine as well, good to hear they work with stock MC

You staying with the stock MC or planning on going radial?

Do you mean radial mounted brakes Laidback? Radial mount brakes are better at staying in contact with the rotor due to their stiffer mounts. I read also that by mounting them fore/aft as opposed to athwart the bike you can place spacers to accomodate brake rotors of larger dimensions more easily. Plus with the greater braking power realised, you can reduce the size of the rotor and maintain same braking power; thereby reducing the gyroscopic motion of larger rotors and aid turn in..

I agree with Wattie, the nissin caliper mod are well worth doing; top brakes..

Radial mo

Mine already has the Nissin calipers/EBC HH pads/standard rotors and even without braided lines my tracky pulls up as quick as I can manage although I only do track days not racing so they would work the brakes a lot harder me.

My simple mind...Why do they get greater power...doesn't that come from the hydraulic pressure exerted on the pads?

I can see that changing rotor size would be easy and that would be an advantage also.

See you can learn stuff every day...

well the stock zx10r calipers are tokiko radial calipers.

and you stick the nissin radial calipers on and its like braking in a datsun to braking in a ferrari.

it's not only the pressure per square inch because even fitting a 18/19 Brembo on the Tokkico calipers doesnt completely fix the problem.

I would be guessing but it would have alot to do with the piston and seal components used in the Nissin's compared to other calipers.

I know on cars (lot bigger calipers) the ability of the caliper to withstand flexing when the brakes are applied contributes to better braking performance so maybe the Nissins are better at this than some others.

dave#3 wrote:Very nice. Can you post a link to the mob in Taiwan you got the adapters from? I'm going to have a look for some for a 9

It's not letting me post the url, but type either of these in and you should get there. The vender is a guy called Leslie and he is very helpful -
- ZRX1100 ZRX1200 ZRX Calipers Bracket Tokico 108mm
- Item Id: 320465280921
Cheers,
TC

laidback1952 wrote:Why are radial calipers so much better than standard ones?

Sames question was asked on the ZRXOA site - I've reposted here -

http://www.motorcycledaily.com/13nov...ialbrakes.html

By Willy Ivins

Radially mounted brake calipers ("radial brakes") seem to be The Next Big Thing. Coming (eventually) to a showroom near you. Kawasaki's redesigned ZX-6R and RR models and Suzuki's King Kong GSX-R1000 will be sporting radial brakes for 2003.

Why radial brakes? Aren't the ones we have good enough? Is this a marketing gimmick? All are good questions . . . and there are probably more than a few of you who are asking other questions about radial brakes that I haven't thought of. Let's talk about the basics.

A radially mounted caliper is stiffer, and is better at maintaining alignment with the rotor. This means the pads stay in alignment better, making better contact with the rotor and exerting less lateral force on the rotor while generating less heat for a given pad pressure.

With traditional caliper mount points on the trailing end of the caliper, pad pressure at the leading edge of the caliper has considerable leverage to misalign the caliper in relation to the rotor. Radial mounting takes care of that. Putting a mount at both the leading and trailing end of the caliper, leverage at the leading edge of the pads is reduced to a level that it becomes insignificant.

Increased caliper stiffness can be achieved without radial mounting, but the costs can be high. Materials like high-tensile billet aluminum, magnesium, etc., can be used. Manufacturing processes, like CNC machining one piece calipers. Design details, such as adding a 'bridge' over the gap where the pads are inserted, as Brembo has done. All are effective, and in the racing world where cost is no object, these design and manufacturing elements are combined to maximum effectiveness, which may partly explain why Honda's AMA and WSB spec RC51s still use the traditional mounting method (though the MotoGP Honda uses radial mount calipers).

I recently read the opinion of an individual (one in the brake retailing business) that a street rider would not be able to appreciate the increased performance of radial brakes, saying the finer points of caliper stiffness would be lost on the street rider. Huh?! How can this person summarily dismiss the entire street riding public as being unable to appreciate the improved performance of radially mounted brakes?

The brakes we have are good enough, I suppose, since they get the job done, but the new ones are better. Applying the "average Joe can't tell the difference" logic would have halted motorcycle development long ago, and, moreover, radial brakes will make a difference for the average Joe.

For the price-conscious street-riding public, trickle-down race technology must be affordable, and so while street bike calipers will not be made stiffer via machined billet aluminum or magnesium (too costly), they are going to be stiffer due to more efficient, radial mounting. They will also employ another trick - for each caliper piston, there will be a separate brake pad. This means that there are four, instead of two, leading edges on the pads (of a four-piston caliper), creating more/better initial bite, and since each piston has its own pad, the need for differentially sized pistons to equalize pad wear on a "long" pad is eliminated, and power is increased.

So effective is this new design, Kawasaki saw fit to reduce rotor diameter to 280mm on the 2003 ZX-6R, down from 300mm on the '02 ZX-6R. Doing so reduces gyroscopic effect away from the axle centerline, reducing steering effort. Concerns about thermal capacity and warpage due to excessive heat are addressed with 1mm thicker rotors on the '03. In this day and age of 330mm rotors, making rotors smaller had better have more than marketing gimmickry behind it. As you have read from our Spanish counterparts, the brakes of the new middleweight from Kawasaki have already elicited excited comment from them, and the Japanese testers as well, so the performance is discernable and reality-based. Even average Joe on the street can benefit from this reduced turn-in effort, added power, and increased control (even though his knee won't end up on the pavement mid-corner) and, heck, it will be a lot easier to clean the front wheel with those small rotors.