this post is borderline silly.. I have always had at least two bikes, and nothin but EBC pads for year. no issues. The other 2 brands of pads are good as well, but that was not your issue. Especially if you were using either the EPFA or GPFA extreme pro pads. and an F3? that bike is HOW OLD?? it's entirely possible there was something wrong with the bike, NOT the pads. And some of you (the above poster included) don't seem to understand that when moving and putting inputs into the bars, the forks flex and move the pads just a bit outward. Try it sometime. Finish a hot lap but try to just use the rear brake as you come in the last corner and onto pit road and onto the rear stand. the front wheel will spin quite freely.
Just a thought but did you push the pistons in an extra few mm to clear the rotors. Sometimes if the pistons have been not pushed in far enough after a rebuild the o-rings don't seat themselves properly and tend to hold the pads against the rotors instead of retracting slightly after releasing the brake.
You're right, it was borderline silly for me to post a "suggestion" if the intended thread starter has/had tried everyone else's suggestions. It's different for different riders being on different year/make/model of bike at different skill levels. I don't know much because I haven't been around the racing scene too long. But I can share what has worked for me and what those around me have seen, suggested and witnessed. There's not a day go by I'm learning something new that I would have sworn could or would not happen. As long as the guy having the issue with wheel drag gets it figured out, makes not a bit of difference to me who helped him do it or how he did it. Just hope some of the suggestions in the Tech section assisted. Can't really tell if you're implying the problem I had with front wheel drag on my bike magically corrected itself at the same time I choose to try something different (such as trying a different brand of brake pads). Or that I mistakenly overlooked one of the multiple things I tried previously. Or better yet implying it really has something to do with the fact I'm racing a bike as you put it "an F3? that bike is HOW OLD?" As stated before, there are many possibilities and all we're trying to do is help a fellow racer out. If he is, in fact, using EBC pads and it turns out something else caused his wheel drag issue... more power to him. I'd like to know what it turned out being because that's just one more thing for me to learn. I think I do alright at the track and am more than happy to sponge information off anyone that has experiences they are willing to share. As long as there's a positive end result, I'm willing to listen, learn and pass it along.
Trying a different pad is one thing, and suggesting he do so isn't a horrible idea. But opening with the suggestion "STOP USING EBC pads" is more than silly, it's an ignorant statement like "well you wouldn't have lowsided had you used brand "X" tire cause all the others suck".. I'm am also not convinced in your case it was just a simple pad change that rectified your issue. Maybe it was, but i highly doubt that was THE issue. It's possible you warped the backing plate of the pads, glazed them somehow, changed fluid when you changed pads but forgot, who knows..
I get tons of spin with my EPFA's. Suggesting someone tries different options seems fair, but to state flatly that EBC's cause brake drag contradicts my experience and apparently others.
On my f4i the brakes dragged a lot and what fixed it was a combination of: - wheel mounted backwards - put it back the right way and made sure to bounce the front/roll back and forth and slam breaks prior to torquing - sanded rotors to remove old pad material - rebedded pads - calipers dirty - cleaned the poop out of them - too much fluid - expands when hot Hope this helps.
I had a bad dragging problem on my 675. Turns out the rotor had made itself bowl shaped. I found it by watching the rotor as I squeezed the brake lever. Every time I applied the brakes, the rotor would flatten out and you could see it move.
by design? or mechanical problem? So only a small amount of the rotor face would drag when the calipers weren't applying pressure?
It was definitely a mechanical problem. Yes, on one side the rotor face would only touch a portion of the pad, but the other side was trying to constantly push the piston back in the caliper. My first clue that something was wrong was that during the first lap of a race, the lever would come back toward the grip much further than it had previously. However, after the first lap, when the rotor was hot, it was flexible enough that it didn't try to spring itself back to the "bowl" shape it had and my brakes worked perfectly.
the simple test is this one.... lift the front wheel with no calipers and turn, check if the is any noise or vibration for the bearings, also check the rotors then put just one rotor and then put the other one. and see wich one makes the draging.....
On my 675R one of my rotors is doing that. But at 4.5mm they are stupid thin to begin with so I was expecting this to happen.
I had the same problem on my '12 600rr after switching to Galfer 1003 pads. There were a few things conspiring to give bad brake drag on my bike, so I'll go through everything I learned/addressed: Brake Rotor "Buttons"--apparently, on the Hondas these are really tight when new and take a little while to break in before they allow for a little float. There's not much you can do with these, besides manually working the rotor side to side a little. Riding the bike is probably more effective, though. Brake Caliper Rebuild-- Honda seems to be pretty miserly with lube when assembling bikes. There was a lot of friction with the pistons in the caliper, so I just pulled them out and lubed them (most people agree the lube you need to use is very specific, so make sure what you use is compatible with internal brake parts and not just brake hardware). I did not use brake fluid to lube the pistons and seals, because it absorbs water and creates friction. There is an outer and inner seal, so if you're sketched about your grease reacting with the brake fluid, only use grease on the outer seal. I also sanded and polished the pad holding pins (stick them in a drill press at a slow speed and hit them with 1000 grit; don't get them hot). Master Cylinder "Preload"--I use stock levers, but this is a problem I heard was prevalent with aftermarket levers. Basically, the lever at rest preloads the system with some pressure on the piston in the master cylinder. In my case (even with stock levers), it was preloading the system too much and not allowing the fluid to expand back into the reservoir when super hot. So I filed the little pin down a little (1mm?). NOTE: This increased lever travel required to engage the pads. After doing this, I realize how easy it would be to build a homemade pad engagement adjuster, so I might make one over the winter. Brake Pad Prep--I now make sure to sand down all the sharp edges on the pad backing plates to prevent them hanging up as they move back and forth in the caliper. I think this is the reason people have problems with certain brands' pads; because the manufacturing process (stamping, laser cut, water jet, tumbling, etc.) will affect the finished shape of the backing plate. And we all know Honda likes to make things with a very small clearance variance... I can't say which one of these steps was the magic bullet, but after doing all this stuff, I have very little brake drag (all bikes with this kind of system has some brake drag) Cheers, -jerry http://codeofthejerry.blogspot.com/
It's my understanding a master cyl.( disc brakes) should maintain a pound or two of pressure on the sysytem to help prevent excess lever movement during application. hot rodders learned this when they started converting old drum brakes to disc but stayed with a drum brake master. too much residual pressure can cause the drag
Never heard of that before. There should be no pressure in the system and the fluid should move freely when the pedal is not applied, there is a fluid vent into the reservour for this reason. The pistons self adjust and the seal of the caliper should pull the piston back a smidge when the lever is released . I can see a problem going from drum to calipers using the same master, the piston sizes are likely totally off from one another
you are correct, brain freeze....i have it backwards, drum brakes used residual valves in the master. i always crack a bleeder to see if any residual pressure is present in either case
Jerico that was a good read! It's been a while since I check in on this thread. I haven't had a chance to work on it since but I have new seals to rebuild the calipers and I was going to be polishing and tweaking a few things while I'm in here. I'll past back some results and maybe a few picks. Thank everybody!
Okay! I've fixed it! The brake drag was from the calipers! I removed the pistons, wet sanded them with 2k grit sand paper finished with a metal polish. Cleaned once more with brake fluid and reassembled the brake calipers. 4-5 spins easy now!
