Front Caliper Upgrade?

[AOD]

My '79 550 has only a single rotor up front, so it needs all the braking help it can get. I just got my custom made steel-braided brake lines in this week, so I'm looking at the caliper now.

I was going to try the Versah (sp?) Carbon Fiber brake pads from CRC2, they're about the same as semi-metallic/organic pads, and a newer design. I'm not sure if this is going to give me the gusto I need up front.

Has anyone converted to a dual piston (it's 1 'cylinder up front, but 2 halves, so i think that's single piston) caliper that bolts into our forks?

I swapped in a drilled rotor last winter...Just need the brake pads to make more heat to use those vents!

Thanks guys,

~Adam

[first timer]

doing caliper upgrades are pretty easy, i hve been reading about them from race bike prep book. go buy yourself new calipers ebay gsxr stuff then remove your old one. take some .065in welding rod tape it to the out side edge of you rotor, this will give you rotor to caliper clearance. slide the new caliper over the old rotor situate it so it site teh best it can. you may need someone one to help you hold it or if you can keep the caliper compressed it will old it's self. next get some cardboard trace out a new mounting bracket so you can fit the new brakes on your fork arm. then go to a metal shop and ask them to shear out the shape you made with the card board in probly 1/2" 6061-t6 aluminum. then you will have to go back and center and drill all the new mounting holes for you new bracket.

i know this is harder then it sounds but it still sounds pretty easy. you are going to need to make sure that any new caliper you get can handle the thickness of the rotor and you may need a diffrent thickness to the mounting plate or maybe some sort of offset to make teh new calipers fit right.

-ryan

[AOD]

What you described is not that hard sounding...it's just a matter of finding a shop to do this work. I only forsee one problem, the current braking setup puts all of the caliper load into the fork. With a bracket bolted to the existing caliper mounts, you have a weak link in the system. Of course it may never show up, but who knows.

[first timer]

shop to do the work??? this stuff is homebrew a shop will charge tons o money.

you would just be replaceing the caliper mount so the caliper would be mounted to the bracket thent eh bracket to the fork. these new calipers or 2 to 4 or 6 pot and so that mean the pistons are on both sides of the rotor therefore the caliper does not have to move back and forth like it does on the gs set up since that setup is a one piston set up. these new calipers make it a pretty direct and strong mounting. finding a shop should be real easy where ever you find a place to sell the aluminum they will have a shear and it will be real easy for them to shear out a rough shape of what you need. the all will need is to drill and smooth it out and that can be done with a angle grinder and a vice if you are good.

just look in the yellow pages for metel supply houses and call a couple you could even all a few machine shops and see if they can give you some advise on finding the metal you need.

-ryan

[AOD]

it's home brew stuff when you have all the equipment to do it.

I have access to some of it at work here...even a CNC machine if I really was nice to the operators.

I'll try picking up a 4 pot caliper and 'engineer' a cardboard bracket, then a real one.

Anyone know a good 4 pot front caliper model/year bike?

~Adam

[first timer]

go with what ever you can find for cheap such as gsxr stuff specially the new stuff they have very good brakes and are at least 2 pot but probly 4 pot or even bmw stuff i think lots of bmw use brembo brand calipers and they are real good. you can tell when you look at them how many pot they are by the round bumbs on the side you see? you may even be able to use a rear caliper off some of these new bikes but they may use a lot thiner rotors.

-ryan

[Anonymous]

In my experience, the pads you use are critical to braking effectiveness, and the harder semi-metallic pads don't work as well as the OEM type softer ones.

I've proved this to myself on my GMC pickup and a 1980 Kawasaki KZ440 LTD. In the KZ's case, the single disk brake up front was marginal, and I was starting to search eBay for the parts to add a second one. In the meantime, I changed the fluid (no difference) and swaped out the metallic-type hardly worn pads for a set of OEM pads. Wow, what an improvement!

I was then able to easily lock up the front wheel at 40-45 MPH, and two-finger braking was easy. I abandoned the search for a second brake assembly.

My advice is to install your new brake lines and try different pads (be sure to thoroughly clean the rotor) before you spend serious money on upgrades. Even if you still want to upgrade, you'll at least have better braking in the meantime.

[Anonymous]

Rick, I totally agree with you. All too often people think that they are better off with high performance brake pads and that's just not true. The high performance pads are made for racing type of driving where the pads get hot and stay hot. Street driving with hi performance pads means that there may be times when the pads are cold and they just won't work nearly as well as stock pads. The other downside to the hi performance pads is that they eat up rotors because of the metallic particles inbedded in the pad material and as a result are quite often noisy as well. Stock pads for street driving are your safest bet.

Vic

[Anonymous]

A couple of things to watch for:

1) Clearance between the rotor and wheel. Since the GS's use single action calipers, there is not a lot of room between the inside face of the rotor and the wheel spokes. Many late model sport bike 4 or 6 piston calipers are way too wide to fit in the space available. If this is an issue (I know it would be on my 82 1100E), the best choice is CBR600F2 calipers, they look like 4 piston units, but are really two pistons with both pistons on the outside of the caliper, similar to the GS ones. And they are dirt cheap on E-bay.

2) Check for the max rotor thickness that will fit in the caliper. Many 70's bikes had very thick rotors that will not fit into newer calipers. The ones on my 1100 are OK, but check out your rotor to be sure. Most newer bikes have rotors that are 5.0mm thick max and many are 4.5mm.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Rick. Thanks for that post. I just did some work on my girlfriend's GS450 (thanks SqDancerLynn1) and took it for a ride. The front brakes were hard as a rock and didn't stop well at all. I was about to look into a new setup, but this post made me remember that the shop put some new-fangled fancy pads on it. I'm going to swap them out for OEM pads and see if there is a difference.

[AOD]

Rick, I think I may try that. I imagine the brake pads are original, or crappy replacements. We scuffed them last winter it seemed to take some of the 'fade' out of the brakes, but they're still too mushy for me in the mountains now.

Ryan, I'm pretty sure that a 4 pot is the max you would ever fit on a stock GS rotor. Some of these new brake rotors coming out are almost as big as the damn wheel...which is not the case with our GS's.

~Adam

[AOD]

Of course Bikebandit never makes it easy... http://houseofmotorcycles.bikebandit.com/partsbandit/oem_schematic_view~mscssid~X215GEBTR2LB8G080MCDD9P TG98E97K6~schem_dept_id~1021868~section_dept_id~1~ section_dept_name~OEM+(Stock)+Parts~dept_type_id~2 ~model_dept_year~1979~model_dept_mfr~Suzuki~model_ dept_id~988018~model_dept_name~GS550EN.asp

5-1: BRAKE PAD SET 509929-001 $33.56
5-2: PAD SET 509938-001 $81.67

$33.56 is a bit steep at $10 more than aftermarket replacements, but if they're the way to go...so be it.

I'm going to check Alpha Sports, anyone have another supplier for OEM pads?

~Adam

[Anonymous]

I got pads for my GS and the KZ from eBay. Thet're usually readily available. Good prices as a rule.