Im also looking for a new set of brakes. Used EBC HH Sintered on my Ninja 250 and was happy with them. Current pads have 36,000 miles on them and have been experiencing some shuddering at low speeds while turning and braking. Couple of days ago was turning off the street into the parking deck at work and had a good bit of shudder, nothing scary and was not trying to brake real hard. The front tire does have some uneven wear (cupping) which may be the cause. Thinking it may be time to do something about the brake pads.
Attention:thread-jack begins here!
Oh boy, I am really go off on this topic!
Since the 15000 mile mark I have had this same intermittent shaking/chatter under similar conditions. I have chased it in so many ways that it has become an obsession to cure it some day. At this point in time I have made the following checks/changes to try and solve the problem:
- R6 fork mod. I have manipulated oil viscosity/level, ride height, fork tube position, rebound and compression damping and full rebuild of ALL internal wearing components. None of these changes has cured the shaking problem.
- R6 front calipers as part of the R6 fork mod. Changed from EBC HH pads back to stock Yamaha pads, rebuilt both calipers, rebuilt master cylinder, replaced lever pivot screw, changed brake fluid multiple times. No specific effect on the shaking problem either way.
- Front wheel. Pulled rotors and checked runout of the front wheel axial and radial, and checked the runout of the rotor mounting surfaces. Absolutely nothing out of specs. Looked carefully for any cracks or debris that might cause this problem, nothing found. As a point of mental comfort I changed the wheel bearing and seals. Rebalanced the wheel after all was reassembled. All of this effort resulted in no change at all.
- Steering assembly. Although I had replaced the stock steering bearings at about 20000 miles I disassembled and inspected again at 80000. Found that the tapered bearings had worn a set of indentations at the forward position. New bearings, full inspection of all of the clamps looking for any sign of fatigue or cracks. Reset everything, no effect on the chatter problem.
- Frame inspection. Looked for any sign of distortion or bending, nothing. Checked the torque value of all six T-50 Torx screws that hold the two halves of the frame together in the steering stem area. A couple of these moved a bit to reach full torque but not what I would classify as "loose". I then supported the weight of the motor with a jack and loosened all of the motor mounting screws. I did see that two of the motor mounting points did not want to align exactly on mark so I used so line-up pins to get everything in place without stress before I proceeded to re-torque in the correct sequence. After all of this effort-no change. Again. This is getting quite frustrating!
- Body work. Looked everywhere to see if something loose or displaced my be having a effect, but of course nothing was found.
- Rear end. I have the Ohlins shock setup, and it's dialed in nicely so that isn't the cause as I had the chatter before I made the suspension change. Checked wheel alignment many times using the string method (everytime I replace the rear tire), that's not the problem.
- Front brake rotors. I have replaced them TWICE, most recently with the 5VX-2581T-01-00 revision rotors. All three sets of rotors have always measured less than .004" axial runout both on the fixed carrier and the floating rotor. Replaced the anchor screws once. Currently this seems to have stopped the shaking. I went for a very aggressive 350 mile ride Monday, really pushing the limits of the bike and trying to induce the chatter. Only happened twice the entire day, but both times were heavy braking while changing direction.
- Tires. I have had the chatter with several types of tires, and pressure/temp vector seems to be the only variable that has any useful feedback value. I am going to do another ride Friday to test some pressure changes as I mounted fresh tires today as my ride the other day just cooked my Bridgestone BT-023 tires, though they were getting near the end.
There might be something else I have checked and haven't mentioned so I might add to this thread later. My opinion is that rivets that secure the rotor to the carrier wear over time allowing the rotors to move in a RADIAL motion as you apply brake pressure. It doesn't happen everytime I stop, but it has happened at speeds between
5 and
120 MPH. When it occurs it causes my front wheel/handle bars to shake from side to side/like a tank slapper would be. I can usually bring it back into control by slightly modulating brake pressure down then back up. But it has caused me to lose control once while downhill braking and turning that I just could not bring back to normal, forcing me to run wide into the opposite lane. Scared the **** out of me as the front wheel would not turn or stop and it had been fine for the previous 100 miles of that particular ride. Needless to say I want to cure this problem for good and share the results with everyone else for reference.
I will update in a couple of days.
