Twinpot Brake upgrade on 78 Skunk

[mmattockx]

Has anyone used this Chinese "Arashi" brand of aftermarket rotors?

<snip>

Has anyone ridden any of these new aftermarket replacement Chinese brand rotors extremely hard, and have you had good or bad experiences with them?

Aside from being round those look a lot like the ones I posted a pic of in post #630 of this thread. I can't say mine have been used extremely hard (assertive street riding, but no track time), but the first set of CBR600 rotors I had warped in no time while the Chinese ones are still going strong a few thousand miles later under the same operating conditions. If warping is a problem maybe go to a set of the petal style rotors, they are less susceptible to warping due to the irregular OD shape.


Mark

[Chuck78]

Has anyone used this Chinese "Arashi" brand of aftermarket rotors? They come in nice fancy aftermarket packaging made to give the impression that they are high quality. Notice that they completely cloned the Arai helmets logo for their "Arashi" branding?!? Trying to gain some sort of familiarity recognition through a bit of trickery...



Has anyone ridden any of these new aftermarket replacement Chinese brand rotors extremely hard, and have you had good or bad experiences with them? One friend said he put some Chinese replacement rotors on his Kawasaki ZRX1200 and warped them significantly within 2 weeks. My wife is cringing at the fact that I want to seek out another set of $150 used OEM rotors from a 1990's Honda in lieu of buying a new set of EBC's at $185 each x2... I finally warped my 93 Honda CBR900RR rotors and have been just not using the front brakes much in the past year (was out due to knee surgery 1st half of this season), using the rear til the tire squeals/fishtails, and replying on engine braking heavily... can't ride like a 30 year old racerboy anymore without relying heavily on hard front braking, maybe it's a good thing at age 41 and coming out of a serious knee surgery!

Note - the standard ones that work with Salty's twinpot brackets and spacers and do not need the entire pattern redrilled, just need the existing holes enlarged, only come in the wave pattern, Arashi # DBS008W, these pictured are 23mm offset like stock GS rotors, the do not work with Salty's spacer behind them but will work with Salty's bracket, they come in the round smooth circular outer surface.

[salty_monk]

The stock disks for the dual brake bikes are 274mm dia. You can't use those with the caliper. You need to use the larger ones from the GS550 or the single brake GS750 / GS1000. The material is not right for the pads you can get for the twinpot caliper so the pads in theory would tear up the disk but in practice we've had members do many miles with no problems. I put about 3,000 miles on that setup with no appreciable wear showing early on...
A bracket to fit the 274mm disk is not really workable due to the clearances (it becomes a four bolt bracket instead of a 3).

The later ninja caliper does not feel as good as the earlier one and the mounts are not the same so the bracket needs to be different, the clearances are much tighter but it is now in more plentiful supply so I may switch over at some point in the future is there is still demand. I have played with them a bit & have a couple of sets on my shelf. The V-strom & SV guys go up to GSXR calipers (their forks are wide enough) whilst the KLR guys and plenty of others go up to the Ninja ones..
Just when I think everyone is done I get a few more bracket requests.

(Oh and before giving me too much credit.. another member used the caliper first, I just refined and developed it & added in the rotor swap )

[Grimly]

Yes, you can run the factory 295 mm rotors, but due to the different steel alloys and brake pad compounds used in the 70s and early 80s, the pads for the upgrade calipers will tear up the old rotors quickly.

Right, that's what I need to know.
I use engine braking a lot, so my pads and discs get an easier time of it. I haven't yet worn a disc to the point of it needing to be replaced, and the only one in my possession that's close to it had the wear put on it by the PO.
Mind you, that's all with older tech pads... so maybe the pads for Kwak calipers might be more aggressive. There's always a option of finding the least aggressive ones.

[Chuck78]

I found it interesting after telling my wife to look into these Tokico brake calipers & a custom DIY bracket, & forego all of these $800 dual disc aftermarket brake caliper sets for her '86 Harley FXR front end upgrade (crash replacement/huge upgrade to $975 rebuilt 39mm "Jap" Showa fully adjustable XL1200S Sportster Sport forks), that it turns out that Still Kicking Moto sells CNC aluminum adapter brackets to use these brakes on 1999 and earlier Harley Davidson dual disc forks with 292mm (11.5") rotors!
Quite the popular choice all around! At least for those Harley owners that don't use the word "Jap" as a racial slur when describing our bikes!
I know this caliper or this family of malphurs rather is also used by other circles of bike enthusiasts for different models, but I think that our GS useage maybe the most widely used and documented, thanks to Dan the Salty Monk!



They actually recommend the SV650 type of Tokico caliper for the Still Kicking Moto '99 & earlier Harley upgrade, but they are nearly the same thing, but use 2 pistons of the same larger size, rather than having the trailing pistons being a slightly smaller diameter (I believe doing this leads to less chatter and squeal due to toe-in tendencies, but wear more unevenly), and also the mounting brackets are not universal left and right on this other style, so both the caliper and the mounting bracket are side specific. The calipers we use on the GS upgrade mount exactly the same, and the calipers are handed left and right, but the mounting brackets can be taken off the calipers and are identical when flipped around to the other side.

https://www.hotbikeweb.com/first-gen-39mm-dual-disc-upgrade#page-20

I'm pretty certain that we could utilize these SV650 and EX650 (600?) calipers as well, they should bolt up the same as far as I can tell. I have an ADP version that looks just like them from a later GS500 after they stopped using the Tokico caliper on the GS500. The only difference is the hydraulic leverage ratio. Using a master cylinder with a slightly larger bore by 1 mm or so might benefit? Or just get the matched master cylinder off of those bikes.

[Chuck78]

Can I retain the original discs while using your brackets with Kwak calipers?
I ask because I have several front wheels I routinely swap out when needed and don't want to have to fit CBR discs to all of them.

Yes, you can run the factory 295 mm rotors, but due to the different steel alloys and brake pad compounds used in the 70s and early 80s, the pads for the upgrade calipers will tear up the old rotors quickly.
Also somewhat related to that, it's not a good idea to use worn rotors with any grooving or anything of that sort and then swap to a different set of rotors on those same pads. The pads will not say consistently bedded in, and I suspect the breaking performance will be downgraded a bit. I would keep the same set of rotors matched to the pads if you want the best performance.

[Grimly]

No, the only alternate disc is the GS550 one. They can be picked up cheap enough and cross-drilled to look similar to the later ones though...

Ok, thanks. I take it the GS550 disc is the right dish/offset and diameter, needing no mods other than some drilling?

[salty_monk]

Salty monk I PM’d you

one back at ya

[salty_monk]

Can I retain the original discs while using your brackets with Kwak calipers?
I ask because I have several front wheels I routinely swap out when needed and don't want to have to fit CBR discs to all of them.

No, the only alternate disc is the GS550 one. They can be picked up cheap enough and cross-drilled to look similar to the later ones though...

Salty monk I PM’d you

[Grimly]

Can I retain the original discs while using your brackets with Kwak calipers?
I ask because I have several front wheels I routinely swap out when needed and don't want to have to fit CBR discs to all of them.

[salty_monk]

Bumping this thread up as I've been asked for the link a couple of times recently. I do have some brackets on my shelf.

[salty_monk]

Back & can ship brackets again for anyone who needs a set.

Happy New Year everyone!

[salty_monk]

Just bumping this up & letting people know that I will not be able to ship brackets over the Christmas period - If you want some lets get them shipped in the next couple of weeks.

[salty_monk]

Yes, not sure why they switched sides on that model but at some point they did.... All the Ninja ones are black but some are a different gloss level/texture (the newer 250 ones). The Concourse ones are always silver.