Something you need to know about radial brakes

In many of the YouTube videos, I've seen many where they replace their already present axially mounted master cylinder by the radial master cylinder in the name of modification. What they all know is the performance of the brakes and the braking action will improve by adding this radial mounted calipers and master cylinders. But it is more than that and in this post, let's dive into these stuffs.


Axial mounted master cylinder
Today, the anchoring jobs of the every entry level commuters to the sports machine are done by the disc brake system. In this conventional disc brake system, axially mounted master cylinders are used. Generally when we pull the brake lever, brake fluid gets pressurized and sent to the caliper via the brake hose and in the caliper, it forces the piston to make the brake pads to come contact with the disc thereby helping the vehicle to decelerate. The action which we give in the brake lever is converted into the pressure in the master cylinder only. In axially mounted master cylinder, the master cylinder's bore is perpendicular to the brake lever travel. In this type, the brake lever applies force to the piston in a swiveling motion from where the brake lever is fixed and it make use of more components to complete the braking action.


Radial mounted master cylinder
As we know in axially mounted master cylinder, the master cylinder's axis is fitted perpendicular to the brake lever travel. But here in the case of radially mounted master cylinder, the master cylinder's bore is fixed parallel to the lever travel. Yeah... Only the position differs here but also changes some of the properties of the braking action. So, when the rider pulls the brake lever, the force is applied onto the piston inside the master cylinder directly on the same direction without more friction losses caused by the implementation of more components. Simply saying, this setup directly applies the force on the piston thereby increasing the overall braking performance of the motorbike slightly.

Standard brake caliper


Often, axially mounted master cylinder is paired with this standard mounted brake calipers. The mounting bolts of the caliper is parallel to the wheel axle in which the caliper is mounted into the cast of the lower fork tubes. We can able to see this type of calipers almost in all motorbikes including cruisers, commuters and also in the entry level sports motorbikes. Due to this arrangement, the brake calipers will be subjected to torsional flex which affects the braking action.


Radially mounted brake caliper
As we know in standard brake caliper, the mounting bolts are present parallel to the wheel axle. But, here in the case of radial mounted calipers, the caliper's mounting bolts are fixed in such a way perpendicular to the wheel axle. Here also, the calipers are mounted on the similar mounting cast seen in the lower part of the fork tube. In this arrangement, the braking force transmitted is also in the direction of the wheel rotation and there's no chance for the deflection as the braking forces are in the exact same plane as the rotational forces. By adding this radially mounted setup, there'll be no big change in the braking action but due to the absence of torsional flex, sharper braking action will be felt.

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