Stock setup
The stock setup was:
- 14mm master cylinder, non-adjustable brake lever
- 276mm single disc
- 30mm dual-piston caliper
- Rubber brake line
- Honda brake pads
Bone stock, but working
The bike suffered a drop sometime in the past
Spacetiger's plans
Spacetiger made a nice overlay to show how much bigger a 296mm disk would look, and made some suggestions on what calipers could be used.
This shows the minor cosmetic impact of the bigger disc
The impact on caliper placement
A bigger caliper bracket was needed
Following these plans, I visited a motorcycle spares shop (basically a guy who takes apart damaged/junked motorcycles and catalogs the parts). The owner was of great help getting the correct disk and caliper.
The caliper is off a CM450, the disk is a VT700 one, but fits other models. It came with a set of Lucas organic pads, which gave so-so stopping power.
I needed a new caliper because the mounting on the Nighthawk was not very common. The mounting for the CM450 caliper was more common, with this we were able to select a caliper bracket with the correct offset.
The stock caliper which I stripped of paint and cleaned thoroughly
The new caliper, off a CM450. Note the different type of mounting
The new VT700 disc bolted right on
Whilst looking good on the outside, the inside was filthy
All seals were replaced
This is the new caliper bracket on mm paper, for size
Cleaned, it's gray!
Backside of the caliper bracket
Intermediate setup
Initially I used this brake configuration:
- 14mm (stock) M/C with a cheapo adjustable brake lever
- 296mm rotor
- 30mm dual-piston caliper
- HEL SS brake line
- EBC HH sintered pads
The intermediate setup, I like the look of the vented disc
This setup was used to go on a 3000km motorcycle trip, with no failures, except for the cheap aftermarket adjustable brake lever.
It was of such a bad pot metal alloy that the pushing part compressed, which meant that after a while, the lever did not fully return to it's starting position and the brake light was always on. This was spotted soon, and corrected with a bit of duct tape on the brake light switch part of the lever.
Semi-final setup
However, improvements could still be made.
Spacetiger put on his Santa hat, and sent me a 32mm caliper out of his own stock!
He previously pointed out that, if I combined his caliper with a 1/2" master cylinder upgrade, I would get a 38% improvement in ratio. This would increase the "feel", but I decided to keep the stock MC.
Shiny!
Old and new ratios are highlighted in yellow.
Spacetiger's recommendation is highlighted in red
The "near final" setup was:
- 14mm master cylinder
- Honda original adjustable brake lever
- 296mm single disc
- 32mm dual-piston caliper
- HEL SS brake line
- EBC HH sintered pads
The new caliper has been promptly fitted
Honda original adjustable brake lever (part n° 53170-MBW-006)
Final setup
I still wanted to know what improvement a 1/2" (12,7mm) master cylinder would make..
I was able to get a nice deal on a new Nissin 1/2" master cylinder, only downside was its remote reservoir.
I fabricated a bracket to hold the reservoir, as the included bracket was way too long, and required me to use 10cm of tubing. This setup is a bit less cluttered.
I combined it with the 32mm caliper from Spacetiger, an thoroughly bled everything, but the lever required a serious amount of travel before braking became effective. The feel was great, and I was able to consistently brake very hard until right before locking the wheel, but the lever simply felt too spongy to my liking. I consulted the ratio chart again, and dug up the previous 30mm caliper. Combining the 1/2" MC with the 2x30mm caliper gave me a ratio of 11,6 which is still a nice improvement over the previous setup.
This proved to provide the right balance between feel and power, with smooth but firm, progressive lever travel resulting in equal performance.
The final setup:
- 12,7mm Nissin axial master cylinder
- Nissin adjustable brake lever
- 296mm single disc
- 30mm dual-piston caliper
- HEL SS brake line
- EBC HH sintered pads
The bracket places the reservoir inline with the MC inlet
A familiar view..