Better front brake

I find that having little travel at the brake lever better suited to my riding. The stock SV master cylinder does not seem capable of providing enough oomph to do this no matter how much I bleed. I've changed all the rubber throughout the system and upgraded to braided hoses. A little improvement but nothing in the fireblade class.

Should I upgrade to a bigger volume master cylinder? Having a bigger piston there should give me one finger braking with little travel in my opinion. Am I right in this and if yes what donor bike should provide me with a better spec Master? I've looked at Blades and Gixxers and they seem to have this low travel feel. I'd like to buy new if not that expensive.

[ophic]

overhauled the calipers recently?

Yes done that about a month ago

[ophic]

how were the pistons? and did you replace the seals?

The pistons looked great, all they needed was a good cleaning which brought them back to mint condition. I've replaced the seals with OEM throughout.

Don't get me wrong. I have very strong brakes, in fact recently I had to brake hard and my wife riding pillion ended up sitting beside me on my lower seat.

It's just that I'd love to have less travel at the lever.

[ophic]

yeah sorry i had a similar problem a while back, you may have seen my thread - the eventual cure was a caliper overhaul - suspected the worn seals were causing the pistons to retract too far. Just checking if your problem was something similar but it appears not.

The only other trick I can think of is to bleed from the top banjo bolt as air sometimes gets stuck here.

Hey, nothing to be sorry about, I'm grateful for good advice.

Bleeding from Top Banjo bolt? How do you do that?

[Viney]

The brakes are only so good on the Sv plain and simple. Other than going the Gixxer caliper route, with master cyclider, i dont think you can do more than you have done. The only other thing is cable tie the lever to the bar over night. This should remove the final bits of air from the system. Just changing the master cyclider isnt really going to make a huge improvement.

I have no idea why you would want minimal travel, therefore making them like a switch, but each to thier own. The SV's brakes are more than enough for the bike it is!

get a mityvac and bleed the brakes with it. mine even made a hornets brakes less spongy....

[ophic]

Originally Posted by zunkus

Bleeding from Top Banjo bolt? How do you do that?

bleed as normal except instead of using the bleed nipples on the calipers, bleed from the banjo bolt nearest the master cylinder. You'll need a lot of rags all around the area to catch/soak up the brake fluid though.