motorcycle brake pads.

[OtisBlkR1]

Kevlar Carbon $25.99
v.s.
Sintered copper alloy pads $100.00 (ish)

The Kevlars >look< like what my motorcycle came equiped with, although i have not researched it yet.. with that said the factory pads perform just fine for street riding and aggressive sport riding.

Ive never installed Sintered copper alloy's before, my friend at the bike shop says "i wont put anything else on one of my bike" OK, great.. im sure there great, probably better than the Kevlars the price difference is huge.

I street ride the R1 very little anymore, although it does go with me to the mountains atleast once a year for aggresive street riding, Im just about due for pads and considering throwing some new ones on before a trip here in a few weeks.

Before i start digging into the WEB for more details can anyone shed any real light on this topic for me ?

 

[ddtmoto]

I bet your R1 came with HH sintered oem pads. You don't have to pay 100 bucks for pads. Lots of after market brands that are great. Don't buy the Yamaha brand and you will save a lot. Look around on line if the locals are gouging. Kevlar's are not a track pad. You won't like the kevlars coming off of HH pads unless you want to have less braking. HH is a friction rating.

 

[OtisBlkR1]

Im having a hard time finding exactly what came on the bike, but i bet your right. Ive been doing some reading and it would seem logical for the bike to come equiped with these pads.

 

[Andy636]

You just can't go wrong with EBC HH Sintered pads.
I used to buy them at solomotoparts.com since they dispatched internationally and the price was nice too.

 

[irekm]

EBC are excellent pads , like them a lot

 

[rraiderr]

Many of the high end race pads need heat in them so they are not so great on the street.

If you are not track riding pretty much any of the high quality street pads will do.

Keep in mind some are harder on rotors that others and if you do switch pads make sure to follow the rotor cleaning and bed in process.

I run Vesrah pads but I don't ride street.

 

[RonH]

In 45 years of street riding I've found 99% of the time you are better off staying with factory pads. I've found in the past as much as 3x faster wear using aftermarket, and a lot of times squeel. Couple that with rotor wear with aftermarket pads, I'll never take the chance again. There is lots of garbage out there in aftermarket in every area of motorcycle parts. Some aftermarket is good, although I haven't seen much of that in 45yrs. I'll be like Sunrah and call myself aftermarket [censored] myth buster. I'll post all the results if requested, most aren't pretty.

 

[dirtydannyd]

A vote here for Brembo street HH sintered pads.
I put them in the speed triple. Also put them on the track R6.
Great initial bite (not too aggressive, not too light) and no fading.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: irekm
EBC are excellent pads , like them a lot

Kawi shop put EBC pads on my Vulcan last year. They work OK, but they're annoyingly noisy when coming to a stop. I'll have to find a way to quiet them down.

 

[SOHCman]

I had ebc sintered on a dual sport, and now am back to stock. The ebc had amazing bite for scrubbing speed on the highway, and you could lock the wheels up at lower speed if you weren't careful. The stock feel weak in comparison, I think a middle ground would be best.

 

[JPQ]

Sintered pads are for stainless rotors. You don't want to put sintered pads on carbon steel rotors as they will chew the rotors up.

Organic pads are for carbon rotors. You can also use organic pads on stainless rotors with no ill effects.

Sintered pads will give better braking but you have to follow the manufacturers initial break in procedure. Once broken in they are aggressive. They need to be warmed up to provide best braking and they like to be run hot in my experience.

Organic pads tend to produce more noise than sintered pads do. From my experience Organic pads are also dirtier than sintered. Especially because I like gold and silver colored wheels, I was cleaning alot more. I currently run brembo organics on my monster and they are filthy! I'm always cleaning the wheels to keep them looking good. I'm changing rear pads this week and I am just to lazy to change out my rear rotor for a stainless rotor to use sintered, so I bought a set of organic EBC's.

I am a rear brake dragger because of habit. Being that way I kill rear brakes

They were cheap and I will see if they are noisey or produce alot of dust. I can live with dust but if noisey I will dump them and the rotor for stainless and use sintered as they respond to heat really well.

On my 748r I used sintered pads and once you got them warmed up, they were great at dropping your speed down.

My advice is to put a magnet to your rotors and see if they are stainless or carbon steel. If steel get a set of Ferodo organic platinum or EBC organic pads. Ferodo would be my first choice, and EBC as a second.

If you have stainless rotors, get the Ferodo HH sintered pads and enjoy the 2 finger braking power they have!

 

[ddtmoto]

I am sorry, it is not a good idea to go to less effective brake pads by installing a non HH/sintered pad in a system designed for HH pads. The R1 is a sport bike, not a scooter or a dirt bike. It has top shelf brakes from the factory and needs good aggressive sintered pads to function properly. Sintered pads work just fine for street or track. Generally they are easy on rotors and last well. Like anything else if abused pads go faster. Even on my track bike I go thru 4 sets of front pads to rears...
We are talking front brakes here, right? Cause if you are wearing out rears often, you are using the wrong brake in most situations. The proper way to brake is to use the front brake virtually all the time alone, no need to touch the rear in most normal stops. The rear brake can be added for 5 to 10% additional braking. But with the weight transfer on a sportbike when hard on the front brake, the rears really are not much of a help. If you have practiced and really know what your bike will do in a panic situation, that would be a good time to add the rear brake use. If you lock the rear in a panic and don't get off the rear brake real quick things will go quickly from bad to worse...practice, practice impending lockup brake applications...braking is the most important feature of a bike...do it right

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: Andy636
You just can't go wrong with EBC HH Sintered pads.
I used to buy them at solomotoparts.com since they dispatched internationally and the price was nice too.
+1 Got them on my BMW airhead, better than the stock Brembo. Pads for stainless steel rotors need a different formulation.

 

[ABCarr]

Hard to beat the Vesrah RJL as an aggressive street/trackday pad. No real warmup required, good feel, strong initial bite, long life. A bit pricier than some, but well worth it.

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: RonH
In 45 years of street riding I've found 99% of the time you are better off staying with factory pads. I've found in the past as much as 3x faster wear using aftermarket, and a lot of times squeel. Couple that with rotor wear with aftermarket pads, I'll never take the chance again. There is lots of garbage out there in aftermarket in every area of motorcycle parts. Some aftermarket is good, although I haven't seen much of that in 45yrs. I'll be like Sunrah and call myself aftermarket [censored] myth buster. I'll post all the results if requested, most aren't pretty.
Of course a company like REPCO makes BOTH OEM and aftermarket pads so generalizing about it tells us nothing.

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: ddtmoto
I am sorry, it is not a good idea to go to less effective brake pads by installing a non HH/sintered pad in a system designed for HH pads. The R1 is a sport bike, not a scooter or a dirt bike. It has top shelf brakes from the factory and needs good aggressive sintered pads to function properly. Sintered pads work just fine for street or track. Generally they are easy on rotors and last well. Like anything else if abused pads go faster. Even on my track bike I go thru 4 sets of front pads to rears...
We are talking front brakes here, right? Cause if you are wearing out rears often, you are using the wrong brake in most situations. The proper way to brake is to use the front brake virtually all the time alone, no need to touch the rear in most normal stops. The rear brake can be added for 5 to 10% additional braking. But with the weight transfer on a sportbike when hard on the front brake, the rears really are not much of a help. If you have practiced and really know what your bike will do in a panic situation, that would be a good time to add the rear brake use. If you lock the rear in a panic and don't get off the rear brake real quick things will go quickly from bad to worse...practice, practice impending lockup brake applications...braking is the most important feature of a bike...do it right
On the one hand, you don't want to lock the rear, on the OTHER hand you REALLY don't want to lock the front.

 

[qwertydude]

You really don't want to lock the front but proper braking technique and practice means that's less likely to happen when using the fronts.

Try panic stopping with rear brakes only and the braking distance will be very long and you'll likely lock up and once that happens braking distance increases. Use the front brake and I guarantee you you'll stop in a lot shorter distance than the rears and won't lock them up because of the weight transfer to the front increasing braking traction. For example a VCE study with maximum braking force on rears only, you might get an average 166 foot braking distance. With the fronts you you can stop in 94 feet so even taking it easy on the fronts and stopping at 125 feet, that's still 25 feet better than rear only. And you're still well away from locking the fronts.

Go to the advanced MSF riding class, they specifically have the riders practice using only the front brake. It's to break the bad habits of cruiser and dirt biker converts to street from constantly mashing the rear brake. The street is not the dirt, front brakes won't suddenly lose traction on you. In fact on most bikes you'd end up doing a brakie before you reached the traction limits of the front brake. With practice it's fairly easy to feel and hear the impending lockup and ease off the fronts before they send you falling.

 

[David_g]

Originally Posted By: ABCarr
Hard to beat the Vesrah RJL as an aggressive street/trackday pad. No real warmup required, good feel, strong initial bite, long life. A bit pricier than some, but well worth it.

+1