Castrol SRF+Vesrah+GSXR braking evaluation/experience

[Speedballer347]

Test/Eval of Castrol SRF and Vesrah RJL on 06/GSXR1000


Stock pads, SS lines, BelRay Dot-4, correctly bled.
Nesba Trackday at Putnam.  Crusing at 21-22's.....Not very hard on brakes anywhere on track.
Braking 7-8/10th into Bus-stop (T6).
Not a lot of "bite" and once semi-hard braking (5/10th) was used, lots of fade, spongy-ness, and lever travel, which continued to increase.  Not only lever problems, but also squeezing harder and getting less stoppage. No matter how hard you pulled the lever, bike wouldn't stop as fast.
Not acceptable performance.

Drained Belray, added SRF, rode on street 10 miles, re-flushed SRF and reloaded fresh SRF.
MCRA/Trackaddix pre-race Trackday at Gateway.  Cruising at 13's......Not very hard on brakes anywhere on track.
SRF seemed to help a lot.  No fade, lever stayed stiff.
Right before GTO, installed Vesrah RJL's (standard, not Supers).  No bedding/breaking-in, raced GTO, UN-GP, UN-SB.  Laps-times down to mid 1:09's.
Braking (semi-soft) 7/10th into T2 and T7.
Brakes worked great...perfect!  Never even thought about them.  Seemed perfect.


Cycle-Ops Trackday at Putnam.
First session; handlebar came loose and rotated into gas-tank on first lap...., second session just feeling the track surface (25's +), third session Crusing at 19-20's.....Not very hard on brakes anywhere on track.
Braking 8/10th into Bus-stop (T6).
Brakes were working perfectly....100% .... Until midway through third session ... was overtaking a rider going into bus-stop, used 10/10th's of brakes, fishtailing side-to-side.  Next time around, brakes were smoked and stayed smoked till end of session.....as bad as they were without SRF/RJL's.
Bled lines, lots of air (???)... topped off MS-cup w/ fresh SRF.....regained solid lever pressure.
Went out for fourth and final session (20's).  Brakes felt good again.  Second lap had to brake 10/10th's into bus-stop again, brakes faded out towards end of braking zone...and were smoked til I pitted with mechanicals a few laps later.

Fluid has Trackaddix trackday, GTO, (no Sunday practice...skipped) UN-GP, UN-SB, two good sessions at Putnam.
Vesrahs have same, save for Trackaddix Sat trackday.
What my experience has seemed to be is at 7-8/10th's the SRF/RJL combo is perfect.
If you have to max 10/10th's the brakes, they instantly fade out.


I am going to completely flush the SRF and try them at MAM (CCS), and report back.
If that doesn't cure all brake-fade issues I will install Brembo MS and try at STT Barber in October, and report back.

[r1owner]

How often do people change out their brake fluid.  I've gone all season on mine so far.

[Speedballer347]

I guess I'll be doing it 6 times a weekend 

It has to be a fluid issue, as it worked perfectly until I actually did max braking.
Strange that all of a sudden the lever was mush and there was air in the lines.....and I am anal about getting ALL air out of lines when I bleed them.
Re-bled (zero air in system), stiff lever, first time max (rear fish-tailing) brakes go mush again.

Something else I noticed that was VERY strange.
As soon as I originally installed the SRF, all three of the bleed-valves started weeping dramatically.  They actually started leaking/weeping during the first fill/bleed process, as I went from one valve to the other (multiple times).
At normal torque values, the fluid comes out pretty dramatically (runs down side of calipers).  Severe over-tightening slows it down to a small weep, but leakage must be wiped off valve-area on calipers, by end of each day.

Never leaked before SRF.  O-rings couldn't have been chemically distressed by fluid as problem has not increased as time has gone on.  Problem was immediate.....  As soon as there was pressure in the system, it started leaking out.
I am thinking it is a viscosity issue.
This weeping/leak may have something to do with air/mushiness when hammering the brakes at max.   Perhaps sucking air in to lines.
I don't know.

Brembo is next.