Installing brake & clutch upgrades to my Suzuki Hayabusa

One has to be clear on what final setup one plans to achieve as the braided lines are generally designed to fit the stock setup and any upgrades need to be informed at the time of placing the order.

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With monsoons over, it's time for the bike and this thread to come out of hibernation. The bike didn’t leave the garage since the end of March this year and I just kept starting and warming the bike once every three to four weeks. Luckily the bike doesn’t need any riding to keep the battery healthy and just letting the bike idle till the radiator fan comes on is the routine I have been following.

Now, it has been two years since the brake and clutch fluids were bled and replaced and the front brake lever was showing signs of brake fade and the rear had absolutely no bite at all. Plus I was constantly battling with the thought of upgrading the front brakes with a Brembo MC, braided lines and upgraded calipers. My friend in the US was planning to come down in March but cancelled due to the second covid wave and then he planned to come down in October. Once he confirmed his travel plans I got about looking out for the best options to do the brake upgrade. I already had the EBC HH replacement front pads which I had purchased in 2017. So, now I had to finalise whether to upgrade the calipers and what branded braided lines to go for.

Since my bike is equipped with ABS that is one issue that robs you of the actual performance the upgraded braking mod has to offer as the braking won’t be as precise and will have to delete the ABS completely to get the best results. Since I was not comfortable taking that approach I decided to go for the regular Brembo 19 RCS MC and not the premium Corsa Corta version and for the braided lines I decided to go with Core Moto USA.

I ordered the Brembo premium MC kit from a website called Capri Moto and came along with a smoked oil reservoir kit.

The braided lines were manufactured to fit the Brembo 19 RCS MC and the stock Brembo calipers. I ordered a set of 5 brake lines, which included three lines for the front and two for the rear brake. Also, I ordered a separate clutch line as Suzuki recommends changing the pipes after four years of usage. One has to be clear on what final setup one plans to achieve as the braided lines are generally designed to fit the stock setup and any upgrades need to be informed at the time of placing the order for them to design and manufacture for your custom preference. They also had the option of choosing the line length with colour options for the brake lines, banjos and logo tag. I decided to go with black colour for the lines and translucent blue for the banjos and sky blue for the logo tag to match the bike.

The lines were manufactured in the US itself and the MC kit came in from Italy to my friend's place in the US.

When my friend arrived in India he had opened the Brembo packaging as it seems the custom guys tend to identify expensive parcels which are sealed packs. Once the kit arrived in my hand I rode the bike to my friends place with the stuff to go about fitting all of it. Now as the brake oil was old and needed replacement we needed to flush out the old oil before replacing the lines and MC. Since the oil goes through the ABS unit it had to be flushed out with new oil and the procedure was repeated after replacing the lines and MC.

Some pictures...

Complications with working on an ABS system

How the Busa ABS system works and the 5 different lines with routing for both front and rear brakes.

When the stuff arrived at my friend's place in the US.

The 5 brake line set.

The beautiful Brembo MC

The custom bracket to hold the reservoir was made and painted as the one which came with the kit broke while bending to fit it properly.

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