Another brake pad thread

The Vesrah pads are unbeatable, no matter what compound you go for. The CT compound is the most affordable while the XX and ZZ have better bite and fade resistance (and about 25% lower life than the CT compound). The ZZ is better for street use as it has the advantage of developing its braking power at a much lower temperature.

You seem to be veering toward the EBC HH pads. I have used these and they have great price/performance ratio. They are not Vesrah-level, not even close. They are not as progressive as the Vesrah (it actually is an unfair comparison due to the significant price difference) but I would not worry about trail braking with these pads. You adjust quickly to their character and can trail brake as you please. The EBC HH are not top-notch pads, definitely not; but they offer great value for your money.

I have used Vesrah ZZ pads, Carbone Lorraine XBK5 pads (too timid for me), Brembo SC pads (just about okay), EBC EPFA pads (great performance once warmed up; **** in rain) and EBC HH pads. The Vesrah are in a different league to all others. But the EBC HH are a great budget option.

Ok @RCAnnon now we are getting someplace! I knew the previous owner lowered the stock pegs when I purchased the bike as he told me about it. I have been wanting to return them to stock height as its difficult to get the kickstand down because of the position of things after the pegs have been lowered. I actually didnt put it together until last night that this might also be causing a problem with the way the rear brake is functioning but when you look at the extreme angle of the pedal it makes sense. So I think your suggestion to put the pegs and the pedal back where they belong may be the smoking gun as far as my specific issue. Which is when i press the lever down it goes a long way before it does anything at all or a better way to put it is that it feels like there is air trapped in the line. Now in october when i put the bike away I changed the fluid and bled the lines but this made no difference to the rear brake. This is what has sent me on this mission.

One the thing I am hearing consistently is that the Vesrah are superior. Far superior to anything else. Ok Im hearing it enough that there has to be song creedence to it. I simply cant afford the RJL pads right now at 160 a set up front. However the CT pads are comparable in price to the EBC.

So what I am going to do is this, I am going to take Rcannons advise as well as that of several others and Im going to put the sintered CT pad on the front and the Vesrah JL pad on the rear. I will remove the lowering kit on the pegs and readjust the pedal back to its stock setup. Short of changing out the entire thing I think this should make a large improvement. Does everyone agree?

Now one last piece of the puzzle. If you look at my picture there is no return spring present on the master. I am assuming the previous owner took it out to install the peg lowering kit. Would that be a correct assumption and would it be a good idea to purchase the woodcraft return spring as suggested by 57X?

FWIW, I see trail braking gets talked about a lot in online forums. In reality, trail braking is principally a remedial technique used either for mid-turn correction (encountering an unexpected obstacle, etc.), or when the rider misjudges corner entry speed and goes into too hot. Essentially, what the rider does when trail braking is leveraging the remaining traction the tires (mainly front) have left while banked over. To do so, by definition, you are operating near the limits of the motorcycle's road holding. In Keith Code's speak, you are spending whatever cents you have left in the $10 worth of traction. If your tires have lots of leftover traction capacity while in a turn, your entry speed was too slow for that turn, so why would you be trail braking? Save the advanced techniques for the track days, where you can more safely push the limits of the bike... and your ability.

Trail braking is an important technique to master for sure, but one that should only be exercised on public roads as part of the rider's safety reserves. If you are doing it constantly, you are either not doing it correctly as the technique is intended as outlined above, or you are going over your head more often than what's prudent on public roads. Instead focus on the first two primary techniques... (1) Judge your entry speed correctly and (2) pick the right line, and you'll spend most of the tire's traction on cornering adhesion through 1st half of the turn, then roll throttle back on through the 2nd half of the turn to power out of the corner. Use trail braking only as a contingency for speed/course correction.

Now, about trail braking and brake pad friction characteristics.

Because trail braking, as the name clearly indicates, is when the rider trails off the braking force proportionally as the bike is banked over, the brake pad's initial bite has little consequence at that stage of the braking effort. If the rider execute the turn properly, he is supposed to judge the corner entry and initiate braking as late as possible to keep the bike going as fast for as late as possible. Then at the braking point, with the bike still upright, he initiates braking. At that point, the rider must know how his brakes react, so he can roll into maximize braking effort as quickly and as smoothly as possible. This allows the rider to scrub off speed to just the right speed precisely at the point where the bike needs to start turning. At that point, the rider will begin rolling off the braking effort, swapping braking traction for cornering traction, until the point of max lean angle, where the whole $10 worth of traction is devoted to cornering.

So... the aggressiveness of the pad's initial bite is only consequential at the point where the rider begins initiating corner entry speed reduction. Because the name of the game is to build toward max braking effort as quickly as possible, I personally prefer a more aggressive initial bite. It is the same area under the curve as with accelerating. The sooner you can build up braking power, the more area you can cover over the same short time period, the quicker you can reduce the bike's speed. If you can do that, you can brake later and be faster overall.

However, given two pads with the same ultimate frictional coefficient, but different aggressiveness on initiate bite, they can both be coerced to yield the exact same braking force. The difference is in how the rider works the brake lever pull. So, in the end, it all comes down to rider preference and the application, which was exactly what I said above in my first response to this discussion.

Mrblackbird said:

So what I am going to do is this, I am going to take Rcannons advise as well as that of several others and Im going to put the sintered CT pad on the front and the Vesrah JL pad on the rear. I will remove the lowering kit on the pegs and readjust the pedal back to its stock setup. Short of changing out the entire thing I think this should make a large improvement. Does everyone agree?

Click to expand...

Mrblackbird, when I first got my 2012 the brakes were ****. The front were pulsing. The rear was gritty and had low power and long travel. RC helped me fix the front brakes, hooked me up with the right pads and rotors. Like you I was a bit skeptical of his advice because I like being a know it all so I tried fixing it my way....failed. So after wasting $85 on **** rotors, I switched gears and followed RC's advice and the man was 100% spot on. My 2012 front brakes are awesome! Strong, easy to modulate, quiet, clean, and the ZX10R 310 mm front brake rotors are smooth. Probably the best brakes I've had in a while. So easy to modulate.

So now I just listen to the man as he knows the N1k really well.

Slightly used ZX10R 310 mm rotors with 5mm spacers courtesy of RC. Way, way better than the OEM set up with 14k mile shelf life!
Edited to add: I don't even need steel braided hoses on this setup. It is solid as can be, consistent as hell, no brake lever creep as miles pile on. Whatever Kawi uses for brake hoses and banjo bolts are kick-*** and I'm not messing with success!
Untitled by rogue_biker, on Flickr