| Author | Message | ||
     Guard_rail |
I love that sound!!! | ||
| Buellerandy |
I'm totally missing whatever your getting at  | ||
| Jdugger |
Little clicks and klunks? Can you get the same sounds, but perhaps slightly different, when you pull up on the bars or away at a stop light? Retorque your steering head bearings. | ||
| Guard_rail |
When you squeeze the front brake the rotor sounds like crickets in the trees late at night rubbing there legs. Maybe it's just mine??? | ||
| Guard_rail |
It's only when applying the front brake at any level of squooze(i made that word up. I think) | ||
| Captain_america |
Its the air sheering through the cross drilled holes in the rotor. Yes, its nice. | ||
| Jdugger |
I never heard or noticed anything like you describe... I don't think. How old is your bike? How many miles? Can you take a picture of your rotors? Can you take a picture of the drive bushings? That's done by taking a picture along the plane of the wheel, instead of perpendicular to it. Does the clicking directly correlate to the speed of the bike? If yes on the latter, I MAY have some bad news for you. I've had to replace every front rotor on my bikes because of it... | ||
| Froggy |
All 4 of my ZTL bikes have done it. Its normal. | ||
| Dannybuell |
Captain America go it right. I too love that sound. casting down a hill in neutral engine idling and whirring of the front pads on the rotor. sometimes people on the sidewalk will turn their heads when I apply the brakes. sometimes I check for brake drag and pulsate just to see if I can hear the whirring when on and no whirring when off the brakes. | ||
| D_adams |
I got a solid thunk out of mine today when I had to do 2 stoppies to keep from hitting a cager that decided to make an unannounced stop and left turn in front of me today. 1st stoppie scared me a little, let out of it, looked right to see if I could get over, nope, car there that also slammed on his brakes, so had to do another stoppie to really shave some speed, by this time I was maybe doing 20 mph, finally slid over to the right, clipped the tail light of the truck that stopped with my elbow. Totally scared the crap out of me, but I got extremely lucky today. After all this, I must say, the ZTL2 brake system f*^king works! What sucked was, I had NOWHERE to go and I know better than to follow closer than 50 yards back. I didn't leave myself an escape route, too much damn traffic. The road in question normally doesn't have much traffic at all, I just so happened to hit it when there was a lot. Erik, if you read this, THANK YOU! The brakes work like you intended. | ||
| Jdugger |
ZTL does work well. It's service intensive, though. I need new pads every 2 front tires, and I have to rebuild the caliper with a piston/rings kit every 2 sets of pads to keep it working fresh. Also, the drive bushings on the rotor mount hardware are a *wear part* and if you don't keep an eye on them and replace frequently enough gouge out the insides of the rotors, mandating replacement. I beat people on the brakes at the track all the time, so while ZTL might not technically be as refined as a two disc set up, it works darn well enough at the novice racer level. Just gotta keep an eye on the bits and service it frequently. | ||
| Guard_rail |
Before I got my 1125r I read everything I could find on the net and mags about this bike 99% was good to great 1% was about the brakes being poor to bad. Almost 1500 miles in 4 weeks later, IMHO those people didn't know what the £|_|€|{ they were talking bout. This brake will stop the $#!¥ right out your @$$#0|| if you Want it to. Plus I just love that little cricket sound. It takes me back to when I was a kid in the summer and mom would let you stay out late on the steps with your friends and there was no traffic so you could really here those crickets xtra loud… | ||
| Captain_america |
I think Its a cool sound myself... Something I've never heard on any other bike... | ||
| Syonyk |
Ride another modern sportbike and you'll understand why a lot of reviewers think the brakes are horrid. Most other bikes have hyper-sensitive brakes - touch the lever, and you're stopping. Pull the lever, and you're doing a stoppie or going over the top. The "inch of slack before the brakes do anything" bit is not present on any other modern sportbike. I agree, they're brilliant when they engage, and if you're used to it, it's not a factor, but if you're not used to it, they feel poor. ... and on topic, my bike has chirped like that since the day I got it. | ||
| Froggy |
The brake feel is mostly affected by the pads, the stock pads are fine, but aftermarket ones like Lindals give a more progressive feel, and the EBC HH give more of a lightswitch feel similar to a traditional sportbike dual disk. | ||
| Captain_america |
Bunny Lover, lol, I meant froggy, Have you tried both? Which pads do you prefer? | ||
| Froggy |
Currently running stock on my 1125s, I like the Lyndals and have them on my ZTL2 XB. I don't like the EBCs though, I think its a good track pad but I don't like them on the street. (I haven't tried them on track, just going on others observations). | ||
| Captain_america |
ok Your thought on that makes sense. Track = Light switch braking = EBC Street = variable braking = Lyndals ... Good to know | ||
| D_adams |
I have the EBC's on mine, street riding only so far. Yeah, it's a light switch, and I'm damn happy about it. Instant stoppies, at least I didn't rear-end that damn truck. | ||
| J2blue |
I think I heard parakeets once, when I squeezed the lever too hard.  | ||
| Jules |
I think the ZTL brakes are fantastic, OK so I was riding a 1997 TLS prior to this but I'd upgraded that to a pair of 6 pots up front and this will still outbrake the TL. I must admit I love the sound too, I sometimes just hold on the brake a little deeper into the corner just to listen to it... I know it's a bad habit, but then again so is riding a bike! | ||
| Jdugger |
> The "inch of slack before the brakes do anything" bit is not present on any other modern sportbike. This is somewhat a function of heat, somewhat a function of the master cylinder. On my '09, which is bone stock, I can make the lever feel much firmer by getting the brake HOT. By hot, I mean, using it enough to turn the rotor golden, blue and purple. As the system heats up, the lever firms up and the brake actually gets better, IMHO, as long as you have good fluid in there. On my '08 dedicated track bike, I went to a Brembo RCS19 MC. WOW, WHAT A DIFFERENCE. It starts just a titch soft, but within two corners is hard as a rock! It feels like "those other sportbikes". The big difference is you still get the very progressive feel of the ZTL brake. So, trail braking is actually easier, IMHO, since the brake force isn't so "binary". The big defect of the ZTL2 system is brake drag -- that is the tendency of the brake to continue to remain engaged after lever pressure is removed because of the heat in the system. It's enough of an issue, combined with heat from the system in general, that I go on track with my reservoir at minimum level, and come off track with it nearly at the high mark! The Brembo allows this back pressure to flow back into the res, where as the OEM does not, and I think it makes a big difference. The new rotor mounting hardware and finned rotor from EBR go a long way to correcting this issue. As does good fluid, and a clean, well maintained ZTL caliper. As has been discussed, pads also make a huge difference. Since there's only one rotor, and it "travels a lot through the pads for a given stop", high wear is to be expected. The OEM pad is a "trackday" pad, and honestly isn't suitable for most street riders. Basically, if you aren't getting your brake rotor slightly yellow/straw in color, you need to step down to a "street" pad, not to a race pad like the EBC 4HH. I think it's finally accepted in general: not using the brakes hard enough with a more aggressive compound causes more problems that it solves. | ||
| Syonyk |
Hm... I'll have to look at a street pad setup, then, as I definitely don't get the brakes hot enough for race pads in my normal riding. | ||
| Captain_america |
I have been using my brakes almost as hard as possible on the street and haven't had any problems. If I'm using the front brake, more than likely, the back tire is off the ground. I don't have any real color in the rotor yet but it does not have that warped feeling that the first one did. I love that front brake AND THE REST OF THE BIKE! | ||
| Milleniumx1 |
My stockers are still working great at 1,085 miles. Coming off of H-D big twins, it took a bit to get used to that much front brake. And yes, I love that cricket sound too! Mike | ||
| Jdugger |
Captain, The color will come when you are using the brake hard for extensive periods of time, building heat. But, definitely, if you are using the OEM front pads, sensibly, of course, USE THEM HARD. | ||
| Captain_america |
I haven't don this yet lol He's thinking FML!!!!!  |
