Front brake

[nickst4]

I got out again on the Dart yesterday after finishing the carb adjustments. I don't know why I thought there was insufficient cable adjustment available because the (only) adjustor below the twistgrip had plenty to share with the individual adjustors on the carb tops.

I must say I'm rather stunned by this bike now! The carburation and general engine manners are simply perfect without any glitches or hanging revs, and I never dreamed that an old pushrod vee-twin would sound so happy playing at 8K! Normally, I go for low revs and torque but this bike is totally different, and with handling that is so intuitive you aren't aware of making moves at all, I even started wondering about the Morini Track Day! Believe me, that's a paradigm-shift and a half.

The only disappointment is in the brakes. Effortless cruising at 80mph (converter fitted after suitable modification to fit the Morini cable) demands better stopping power than the newly refurbished calipers and fresh GoldFren pads are currently delivering. They should still improve, but I wondered if there are options for fitting a 4-pot Brembo upfront? The disc track is probably a bit narrow but I guess the pads could be shaved. A bike as light as this should stand on its head with a touch of the front brake....

Nick (Glad to be here!)

[mantaray]

I'll try to contact Olaf and ask him about his brakes
He changed the frontwheel to 17", other rear and fork too
http://www.daroz.de/5501.html

[EVguru]

I always thought the Dart brakes were fine and I think most owners do.

Perhaps you're used to modern brakes which are overly light in my opinion. I want lockup to occur at maximum comfortable effort so that I can modulate the brakes easily in between.

They're only damper rod forks, you'll probably be complaining about extreme dive if you makes the brakes sharp.

[morini_tom]

I'm pretty sure Olaf's bike has aprilia RS125 forks, wheel and brakes.

If you want an easy upgrade to 17 inch wheel then with some spacers turned up you can fit a cagiva mito front wheel into the dart forks, retaining the dart disc and calliper and mating the mito speedo drive to the dart speedo. Easy mod which will give you access to better tyres but isn't going to help much on the brakes (shallower sidewalls on the 17" though which will help)

In truith I've never had a problem with brakes. I used to run a wavy disc on the front (talon engineering STX 15D from memory but check first incase I remembered the part number wrong). The wavy disc was marginally better than standard but used to eat through pads like you wouldn't believe.

As Paul says, the dart forks are soft and I think this is the root cause of the front brake feel. In fact the reason I changed to mk1 mito forks was not for the bigger disc (all of about 10mm!) but because I found I was flexing the forks too much under heavy braking...

Braided front brake line will of course help, and at 25 years a master cylinder rebuild (if you can get the bits) wouldn't do any harm.

[nickst4]

Thanks for the replies, Guys. I only wanted to sound you out in case everyone had upgraded already. I'm not one for super-sharp brakes, but my other single-disc bikes of the same age have much more braking-power, especially my MZ Skorpion single and even the sliding-caliper Cagiva Canyon single. The Dart feels lighter than any of them, hence my expectations of better braking. I've no suspicions of m/cylinder or caliper function, and the hose is stainless already. Perhaps the pads have yet to bed in, or I'm just riding the Dart faster than the other bikes!

Nick

[mantaray]

I'm pretty sure Olaf's bike has aprilia RS125 forks, wheel and brakes.

.

Correct, i mailed Olaf and he confirmed
Also told me it was ok for the road but on the track he had to change the disc after every 2 trackdays ( getting too hot)