Linked or not???

czakky · Dec 15, 2012

So while cleaning and lubing my chain today i noticed a little bit of brake drag on the rear...no big deal, but as I hit the front lever (as wheel is still free spinning) nothing happened the rear lever works fine.... What gives??

P.S. do not buy cheap ass Volar chains 4k miles and its toast even with regular maintenance...

tinkerinWstuff · Dec 15, 2012

there is a piston mounted on your front left caliper. when you activate your front brake, torsion on the caliper activates the piston and pushes fluid to the rear caliper. Thus, rear braking is always proportional to the amount of front stopping power and not lever input.

duelly noted on the chain

Durk · Dec 16, 2012

czakky said: ↑

P.S. do not buy cheap ass Volar chains 4k miles and its toast even with regular maintenance...
Click to expand...

I did some thread whoring when I saw one on ebay for $45.
You aren't kidding, some people sounded like they were lucky to be alive.

zoom-zoom · Dec 16, 2012

tinkerinWstuff said: ↑

there is a piston mounted on your front left caliper. when you activate your front brake, torsion on the caliper activates the piston and pushes fluid to the rear caliper. Thus, rear braking is always proportional to the amount of front stopping power and not lever input.
Click to expand...

At the risk of sounding stupid, does the rear brake work the same way? From the service manual it shows a diagram depicting the rear brake lever actuating the middle pot on the front caliper. Does the rear caliper also modulate the braking pressure in a way similar to that of the front caliper?

stoshmonster · Dec 21, 2012

zoom-zoom said: ↑

At the risk of sounding stupid, does the rear brake work the same way? From the service manual it shows a diagram depicting the rear brake lever actuating the middle pot on the front caliper. Does the rear caliper also modulate the braking pressure in a way similar to that of the front caliper?
Click to expand...

Here's an edited old post of mine which explains the operation of the 5th and 6th gen. Linked Braking Systems for you Zoom-Zoom. Hopefully this should give you a better understanding of exactly how the LBS system works.

stoshmonster said: ↑

The Linked Braking Systems on the 5th and 6th gen. machines are two entirely different animals. They're fairly similar in layout,but they definitely are not the same.
The 5th gen. design has more parts,is bulkier,and is a lot more of a clusterf:censored:k.
The 6th gen. design is more streamlined and simplified.

When you squeeze the front brake lever on the 5th gen. bikes you're actuating the outer two pistons on both front brake calipers. When the left front brake pads squeeze against the rotor the entire left front brake caliper mount rotates up toward the fork leg (Obviously the front wheel MUST be rotating forward in order to accomplish this.) and actuates the secondary master cylinder which in turn sends flow to the proportional control valve.
The proportional control valve is used as a flow restricter to control the amount of flow in the rear brake system. By controlling the amount of flow you can regulate the amount of clamping force that the brake pads can apply to the rotor. That proportional control valve is very important because the front brake system is very powerful and when you squeeze the front brake lever you don't want it to lock-up the rear brakes.
Honda only wanted to apply "some" force to the rear brakes but not enough to lock them up entirely while applying the front brake. That's why that valve is installed in the system. Once the restricted flow leaves the proportional control valve it actuates the center piston in the rear brake caliper.

When you squeeze the front brake lever on the 6th gen. bikes you're actuating all three pistons in the right front brake caliper and the two outer pistons in the left front brake caliper. The left side brake pads squeeze against the rotor and the entire left front brake caliper mount rotates up toward the fork leg (Once again the front wheel MUST be rotating forward in order to accomplish this.) which actuates the secondary master cylinder,which sends flow to the proportional control valve,which then actuates the center piston in the rear brake caliper same as on the 5th gen. bikes.

As you can see the 5th and 6th gen. front brake systems are fairly similar in their layout,the rear brake systems however are where it all gets really interesting.

When you depress the rear brake pedal on the 5th gen. bikes you divide the flow from the rear master cylinder and half of it goes to actuate the outer two pistons in the rear brake caliper. (The flow to those two outer pistons is unrestricted,and that's VERY important I'll get to that in just a minute.) The other half of the flow goes to one end of the delay valve and then goes on to actuate the center piston in the left front brake caliper,which then starts the whole process again of actuating the center piston in the rear brake caliper.

The way I understand it the delay valve is pressure actuated,which means that when the pressure in the rear brake system builds to a specific preset point the delay valve will then open and allow flow to actuate the center piston in the right front brake caliper. The harder you press down on that rear brake pedal the sooner that's going to happen. This was done so that presumably when the rear brakes were applied the left front brake caliper would actuate and the front forks would dive gently,then after a short delay the right front brake caliper would actuate and the forks would again dive gently so as not to unsettle the rider or upset the handling of the machine.

The reason why that unrestricted flow to those two outer pistons in the rear brake caliper is so important is those two pistons can clamp the brake pads against the rotor with all the full output fury that the rear master cylinder can muster,whereas the inner piston (because it's regulated by the proportional control valve) can only provide just "some" small amount of clamping force.

When you depress the rear brake pedal on the 6th gen. bikes you once again divide the flow and half of it goes to actuate the outer two pistons in the rear brake caliper. HOWEVER,on the 6th gen. bikes that flow first must pass through a proportional control valve that restricts the amount of flow to those two pistons,which means that they will now provide less overall braking force than they ultimately could. (Once again that's VERY important,I'll get to why that is in just a minute.) The other half of the flow on the 6th gen. bikes goes directly to the center piston in left front brake caliper.
Unlike the 5th gen. bikes there is no delay valve in the 6th gen. Linked Braking System. Once again as the left side brake pads squeeze against the rotor you start the whole process of actuating the center piston in the rear brake caliper.

The reason why that proportional control valve that's inline with the outer two pistons in the rear brake caliper is important is that by doing this Honda has partially neutered the rear brake on the 6th gen. bikes. Since the flow paths for all three pistons in the rear brake caliper now run through proportional control valves those pistons will all provide less overall braking force than they could have if their flow paths were unrestricted. That was supposed to have been done on the 6th gen. bikes to make it "less easy" for the rider to lock up the rear brakes during heavy rear brake applications.

The 5th gen. bikes it would seem placed more emphasis on the front end of the bike while using the rear brakes. The flow to the outer two pistons at the rear was unrestricted providing good stopping power out back,but at the same time you brought two pistons into play at the front which would make the front end hunker-down and dive during heavier rear brake applications.

The 6th gen. bikes on the other hand seemed to place much less emphasis on the front end of the bike while using the rear brakes because only one piston at the front is brought into play. Curiously though it seems that Honda also placed less emphasis on the back end of the bike too while using the rear brakes. By partially neutering the rear brake you have less overall rear braking power at your command. That's a conundrum to say the least.
Click to expand...

zoom-zoom · Dec 22, 2012

Thanks for that Stosh. Your explanation goes a long way to helping understand mentally that which I can feel while riding.

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