Shaving pounds to add performance, ? on component weight

[Chuck78]

These posts are great ideas for saving weight. How about fastners? I am currently doing a ground up restoration and have been derusting nuts and bolts. When lumped all together like this for cleaning i have found them to be very heavy. any idea's?

Not worth it, you need strength. Titanium fasteners maybe if you have incredibly deep pockets, but that's absurd. Go stainless, it will add a slight bit of weight, but nicer in the long run. Same with spokes on wire wheels. S.S.

[TheCafeKid]

Not worth it, you need strength. Titanium fasteners maybe if you have incredibly deep pockets, but that's absurd. Go stainless, it will add a slight bit of weight, but nicer in the long run. Same with spokes on wire wheels. S.S.

I'd be cautious with stainless in certain areas as well. It's strong but brittle if that makes sense. Rather than stretch it will simply snap. If you do use it just make sure if you use it on the triple tree or elsewhere where it would see varying degrees of load that it's a comparable strength

[Chuck78]

Chuck I've got a stock GS rotor for the rear that has been drilled.
I'd say it's about 1/2-2/3 as heavy as stock. And it's thick enough that it won't deform or warp at all. If you'd like it let me know.

Thanks for the offer, but I just picked up one of these GSX1100 (1100F Katana?) front rotors that will be a 100% direct bolt-on to my rear hub, $30 and it's at 5.03mm thickness, 1.03mm of life left on it, and MUCH MUCH lighter than the GS rear rotors, even the drilled ones.



Now on to figure out which caliper hanger bracket I can use... Anyone have the smaller 80's Tokico rear caliper and care to measure the mounting bolt spacing?

[TheCafeKid]

No prob!
I need some new rotors for my ZRX this year, the double H pads had finally done a job on the originals. They're 12 years old so not bad I guess.
I am goin to try those Galfer wave rotor knock-offs from china. I was leery about them but many of the ZRX guys say there just as good as the stock ones if not better. And they certainly look cooler. Hahaha

[Chuck78]

Well it looks like the 83-86 GS550E_ models and the '89-'02 GS500 models that use the Tokico rear caliper appear to have the same 80mm caliper bolt spacing as the 1981 GS1100E rear brake setup as far as I can tell that I have, but the Tokico look-alikes with the AJP logo used on 2003-2010 GS500's use smaller bolts on a 75mm center to center distance. I am going from an ebay photo on a 1997 GS500 rear brake hanger bracket with a tape measure in the photo, but I have contacted an ebay seller of a 2002 gs500 tokico caliper to double check for me.





I may potentially set up a jig/guide in my drill press to enlarge the caliper holes off .center 2.5mm wider each to the outside to the larger bolt size of my stock caliper, if that will work out, & then tap new threads in the caliper. If that doesnt work out with enough material left, or if the insides of the existing holes are too close to alow this to work, then I guess I got a $20 pair of slightly used brake pads.


1997 GS500 caliper hanger bracket, appears to read around 3-5/32"which translates to around 80mm.

[Agemax]

it wouldn't cost that much to have a caliper bracket made to your spec!

[Chuck78]

I was just about to give up and go yank the 81 GS650 caliper off at the junkyard after comparing brake pad heights on the GS500 caliper vs an 81 GS1100E caliper. Even if mounted on the same older caliper bracket as the GS750/1100 etc, the GS500 pads in the GS500 caliper would give you a shorter rotor contact surface with a maximum effective rotor diameter of 260mm (good if you want to use those GS550 front 260mm rotors). If I am using this GSX1100F 88-93 rotor that arrived today (woohoo!), the pad would fall short of the outside of the rotor by 7mm while contacting the inner part of the rotor where it should. Well, then I looked up GSX1100F brake pads, and saw that they are the same pad style, but the GSX1100F has friction material much higher up (7 - 7.5mm I presume) on the backing plates. This is a plus, and definitely on the right track for what I'm trying to do. This also makes me wonder if the 83-86 GS550E pads are the same, shorter style since it has a compact zero offset rotor as well. This could potentially mean that the really cool looking GS550E 83-86 caliper hanger would be the correct distance for the 275mm rotors, but drawback is like what Postman Pat did, just have to drill the axle hole out from 17mm to 20mm.

I had considered plug welding the mounting holes on the GS1100E caliper hanger bracket that I have and redrilling the holes where I need them, but welding aluminum is a chore, and welding cast aluminum especially is a chore for someone like myself who isn't very experienced with aluminum and only has a MIG spool gun (and not a TIG).

WELL.... I then noticed that the 88-93 GSX1100F (duh, OF COURSE!) uses the same style Tokico caliper as the 89-02 GS500, but uses a 275mm rear rotor! So I'm going to look into a GSX1100F hanger bracket and pads since I have this GS500 caliper, and I think that will complete this setup. I'll have to confirm the 75mm vs 80mm width. The BIG Tokico rear caliper off the older GS's uses wider pads to fit the wider caliper opening, but I speculate that all of the newer style Tokico rear calipers that I'm discussing use the slightly narrower width pads like the GS500, which will not accept the 1st gen gs rear pad width in the narrower (front to rear on bike) caliper.

Still unsure if the 89-02 GS500 calipers share the 80mm mounting width or not, but that photo does indicate that unless that one has the model of bike mis-labeled.I'm getting conflicting info on the caliper mounting bolt spacings. The seller of that cool GS550E 83-86 hanger and caliper in the above photo said that the center to center spacing was 75mm, just like this 2003-2010 GS500 caliper I have here, but the photo above seems to indicate that this 1997 GS500 caliper has the 80mm spacing, as 80mm = 3 5/32" approximately.

[Chuck78]

Another note, good or bad maybe depending... BEWARE some GSXR calipers look practically identical to the Tokico caliper I am trying to use, but they have the bleeders upside-down and the brake stay mount on the opposite end for underslung placement of the caliper below the axle instead of the old school top placement. I don't really wanna relocate and re-weld the brake stay mount on my aluminum GS1100E alloy swinger, although a custom brake torque arm/stay that extended to the steel frame would be easy and keeping with the newer trends of modern sport bikes (and lowering the center of gravity with braking parts close to the ground). 90's GSXR calipers and even an 02 or 03 Hayabusa Tokico rear caliper looked like they'd be good candidates for this kind of setup.
And an underslung caliper on a 70's vintage looking bike sure would throw a few people off, especially since most of these parts still look fairly vintage! Buying a used caliper and chopping and extending my GS1100E brake stay wouldn't cost much at all though! Food for thought, someone else PLEASE do this mod! I may eventually, but if I can end up using this GS500 caliper with the GSX1100F hanger, that is the obvious immediate plan.

I suppose that's another option, although I literally JUST nabbed a Bandit 1200 brake stay for $13 shipped that has a nice offset to clear a massive tire and I hear is a nice fit on the GS1100E swing arm to work around having to bash the 1100E brake stay with a hammer to clear the tire.

[TheCafeKid]

it wouldn't cost that much to have a caliper bracket made to your spec!

Heck if you had access to a decent band saw capable of cutting billet Alu and a drill press and sander, you could probably build a decent looking one yourself.

[Agemax]

Heck if you had access to a decent band saw capable of cutting billet Alu and a drill press and sander, you could probably build a decent looking one yourself.

exactly, you could make the initial bracket yourself this way and there are quite a few people on here who have a milling machine who could dress it up for you.
you can get the aluminium billets cheap as hell on ebay if you look.

[Chuck78]

If I could have my friend mill the mounting surface heights flat into a piece of aluminum, I'm sure I could "relieve" the rest of the block of aluminum myself, but on a twin opposed piston caliper especially, I don't want to have the margin of error that I might end up with using a belt sander table and bandsaw... I do have a portaband and a drill press, and access to a nice bandsaw table, but I'll leave this kind of thing to the machinists when a high degree of accuracy us required. I would feel more confident using my MIG spool gun and filling the holes on an OEM hanger to redrill where I needed them.

Another note that was on my mind last night, I have a suspicion that the cool looking 83-86 GS550E hanger bracket (used for the shorter 260mm rotors), GSXR600 and GSXR750 hangers, and the GS500 hangers that all share the same cool drilled out lightweight look, well, that most of these are probably the same. GS500 uses 250mm rear rotor, GS550E uses 260, not sure on the others. The shorter pads would work with the caliper in the same location as the bigger rotor, but those pads take it from a tall 275mm rotor to a shorter friction surface height 260mm effective diameter rotor even though there is more height in the caliper to stuff the bigger rotor (7.5mm more). On the GS500 and others using a 250mm rotor, I suspect that the hanger brackets are 5mm shorter, but one designed for a 260mm rotor and the short pads that don't fill out the caliper would seemingly work on a 275mm rotor just by swapping 88-93 GSX1100F pads into it, although they came on smaller bikes and you may need a 20mm reamer or drill bit to enlarge the axle hole.

[Agemax]

how hard is it to drill 2 holes at a set distance and tidy up the surrounding area afterwards??????????

[ozman]

maybe im taking weight reduction to seriously

this little number on the steel clutch centre of the GS1000 saves 128 grams !!



example of how seriously POPS took weight reduction

love what he did to the selector drum

[ozman]

abit more weight saving
magnesium sump
sump plug moved so oil can be drained with 4 into 1 pipe still on

[Chuck78]

How much does one of those cost and where are they sold?