fake Chinese Brembo copies

[NorthWestern]

Curiosity got the better of me...


The reason I bought this were two fold really. I wanted to see what they were like and also, my std master cylinder (and lever) is scuffed up following a crash by the previous owner. If this turned out ok then its win/win, if not its £20, no biggy. Everyone is so quick to call them shit without seeing them, same happened with the pazzo levers years ago.


I have used the Chinese Pazzo copies before, had a few sets.  They are cheap, well made and easy to get hold of.  I got the first pair because my garage used to have a split front, back with a std door between.  I was risking breaking my OEM levers so got the cheap ones to avoid damage.  I was impressed with them so got a few.


I have seen the master cylinders before on alibaba etc but never really found any decent write ups about them.  Forum guys all tell you that they are death traps made of cheese and all have a "mate" who almost died just ordering them.  I did find a few articles but they were the older (2006 ish) copies of the earlier brembo units.  They found that they couldn't get any pressure in them, fluid leaking past the nipple threads, seals not sealing, return circuits being blocked by the seals etc which isn't great, but 10 years on things must be better right?


For £20 I took a punt just to see really, whats the worst that can happen?


We are talking about these:





This is a copy of the Brembo 19 RCS 18x20 master cylinder.  The sites say they are CNC billet but they are in fact just cast.  The real Brembo (I have one for direct comparison) isn't CNCd either, its forged but does have some CNC surfaces on it.


It comes with 1 line banjo bolt, bleed nipple with dust cap, reservoir, pipe and clips.


The real Brembo has two holes on the underside to accept a microswitch for the brake light, the copy also has these in the same position so the std microswitch should fit fine.


The lever is cnc'd and isn't too bad at first inspection.  It's a fold up type like the original but for some reason the copy uses a bolt and a pin to stop it folding up in normal use.  The real one uses a bolt and nut to simply clamp the two halves together.


The dust cap on the piston doesn't fit in any way and was supplied just flapping about on the piston actuator pin.  Not really confidence inspiring.  A few pulls on the lever and it has a somewhat rough action but it's dry so lets not be hasty.





Here you can see the lever "hinge".  It's exactly the same setup as the original but has an extra pin and the bolt is flush at the back.  The real Brembo has a longer bolt with a nut on the back and no pin.


The print etc is nice and clean.





It uses a bushed (steel) pivot which was nice to see, I was expecting it just to be plain...







The copies main pivot is a large gold aluminium pin with a flange at the top and c-clip on the bottom. The real Brembo has a black hollow steel pin that is flush at the top in a recess and has a nut on the bottom.  I did wonder why they would go to the trouble of using the oversized gold pin on the copy but a look at the Brembo catalogue shows the MotoGP/top end ones use a gold pin like this (although that is sunk into the body rather than sat on top).  Presumably those are TiNi coated.


So, whats it like inside


Removing the lever is easy enough, C-Clip off and pull the pin out.





The surfaces are nice and smooth with decent edges etc.  The piston is behind the stop plate and a cir clip.  The "cup" protruding out is the socket that accepts the actuator pin from the lever (that allows the 18x20 ratio adjustment).  The surface is proper rough (thats clean there, no grease etc) and when pressing the lever you can feel the actuator pin snagging on these machining ridges.


On the bench out of focus is the actuator pin and dust seal (which wont actually fit anywhere).  On the real one this presses in on top of the cir clip but you can clearly see on the copy there is just not enough room for it.


Lets pull it apart:







This is the piston, seals, stop plate and return spring.  The piston looks ok, not a brilliant finish but ok.  It has some scratches on the large diameter sections.  The seals just don't fit it though.  It's not like a bad tolerance either, they are probably 1mm too big for the shaft diam and they also move back/forth!  The stop plate is a standard stamped washer, about 2mm thick.


The bore is actually very good apart from one little detail.










The reason for the scratchy feel when pulling the lever, and the scratches on the piston is here:





The large hole for the reservoir line is simply drilled from the outside and then thats it.... its burs are in tact!.  In fact all the drilled holes leading to the main chamber are bured.  I cleaned them up and the piston scratches.  Feels much better, but not great.  The piston+seals are not that brilliant fit wise.


Measuring the seal lips and return/res circuit holes it looked ok, nothing alarming.. So nothing left but to bleed it up.


I had a set of calipers/lines to use so I can do this off the bike as I didn't fancy fitting it only to have to refit my std one if they were crap.


So, here it is on my "bench rig":





I have to say, with the master cylinder having a bleed nipple these have to be the easiest I have ever done.  Baring in mind the master cylinder, lines (full length - the std ones of my fazer in fact) and callipers were empty of oil, it all came up in a few mins.


No leaks at all so I left it tie wrapped on all night to see if it leaked in the morning.  It didn't.  They feel ok, a bit like the std ones but you need to pull the lever about an inch before anything happens, the piston isn't being held in the right position, it needs to move back about 2mm or so.


The reservoir is tiny however, its like a small rear one off a pit bike.


So, I fit them to the bike and went for a spin.  I have no micro-switch for this so had to remember to simultaneously use the back brake to get the light on.


First off they are massively more powerful than std.  The first inch movement aside, when they are on the feel is really good, adjusting power is very nice, buttery smooth and one finger is enough (I need two on std).


The hinged lever, I mentioned it has a pin to stop it rotating.  This worked out, I had to keep pushing it back in, confidence inspiring.  I found if I slowly pulse the lever while its applying force to the disks I can get it to come back to the bars (takes about 15 slow small pumps to do this) indicating the seals are not sealing (or maybe they are moving on the piston as they are sloppy).


To tale this to the Nth degree, I went to my dads and we made a new piston.  This was machined correctly and the correct diam for the seals and its held in the right place to eliminate the inch of lever travel before it does anything.  So, the seals now seat properly and can't move fore/aft.  Straight away just fitting the standard seals you can see its better, the lips stand up proud for a start.  A test in the bore and yeah, silky smooth.


The dust seal that doesn't fit anywhere, we corrected this by replacing the 2mm washer stop plate with a thinner steel shim and used a slightly thinner but larger (and better made) cir clip.  This allowed us to fit the dust seal under the cir-clip so the whole lot is held firmly in place.

The hinged lever, I removed the pin and replicated the original Brembo setup of simply having a longer bolt with a nut at the back and clamping it up.  Works very well, like a proper Brembo and doesn't require the extra hole drilling and pin inserting.  Odd that they do that.


Remember the bushed pivot on the lever?  Measuring it and its 8.25mm bore at the bottom, 7.9mm at the top.... Impressive.  The gold alloy pivot pin is 7.9mm so is sloppy at one end.  The holes on the master cylinder are both 8.25mm so its pretty sloppy.  So we are maknig a new pin and bush, boring out the master cylinder holes to get a decent, slop free action.


With these mods it now feels just like the real Brembo RCS I had to compare to, very impressive really.


It's odd that the Chinese seem to get 90% the way there then just seem to not bother.  It wouldn't take anything on their part to correct the issues, its much more work to correct them after the fact.  If they did that then they would be a very good product.


I have seen that they are now doing replicas of the latest MotoGP ones with the recessed TiNi pivot pin that does look like it is CNC'd but they are £60 or so.  Too rich for my blood.  Might see what Santa brings.


Would I recommend one?


No.  Not unless you can sort them out like this.

[celticdog]

What a fantastic post NorthWestern! It's got everything, product analysis, reverse engineering and remanufacturing!    You really know your onions 

[noggythenog]

I know jack shit about nothing practically and i read that all the way through......excellent write up............if we ever go to war with them ill be hoping they continue to only do 90% of the job and that includes the weapons

[fazersharp]

......if we ever go to war with them ill be hoping they continue to only do 90% of the job

Yes we have even invited them to build us a nuclear power station 

[mtread]

Yes we have even invited them to build us a nuclear power station 

Just round the corner to me 

[NorthWestern]

That's a big onion!


The manufacturing of the products is baffling really.  My dad rebuilds shocks and forks for race teams etc and has had a few Chinese "pit bike" shocks apart.  They will have a lot of CNC machined components and look the business, like they are off some Moriwaki Suzuka 8hr bike, but take them apart and they will have a seal or part that looks like it came out of a childs Nerf Gun or water pistol and the whole thing is junk because of it.

[Fazer Forever]

I've worked in China on and off for the last few years, with sub-contractors and our own factory over there. Their main problem is that they're over-enthusiastic.
They'll ignore every written procedure that they have and just get on with it, not always with the best results. Also, there's a lot of un-skilled labour, so instead
of using a technical solution with one man, they'll throw ten at it.
One other issue is wages and staff retention. They will travel thousands of miles to work, so expect to work twelve hours a day, seven days a week and send their
money home. If where they're working can't provide this, they'll just go somewhere else, so the staff turnover is horrendous.
You can get good items from there, but you need to be careful. Have a look at most of the items around you and you might be surprised.

[lew600fazer]

I spent 18 months in Shanghai, Hudong-Zhonghua ship building company Standing by the construction of 4 LNG Gas carriers. I did the sea trials and gas trials for all 4 ships. Each ship I commissioned into service I can honestly say were not fit for purpose, they bordered on being dangerous. The Chinese quality control was a joke. It was down to individuals like me (commissioning cargo machinery) to sign off and accept the installed plant. I would work alongside with the Lloyds surveyor(Classification society). More often than not we would fail the plant for varying reasons until a defect was corrected. These ships were running way behind on delivery dates. The company that the ships were being built for was a joint venture between BP & Clsco(Chinese partners)because Lloyds do have high standards it was decided that the vessels would no longer go on the Lloyds Register so they ended up going on the American Bureau of Shipping register were shall we say standards are not as stringent.
I took the first ship down to Australia to load, thankfully the Australians told the company they would not load her as they deemed it unsafe.
That vessel spent another 6 months having all the defects sorted out. Thankfully they did learn from that and the remaining  ships entered service , but the build quality was still atrocious.
If I lived down south of England and the Chinese were to be building a Nuclear Power station in my area I would diffo have my house on then market and GTF out of the area.
They should never be allowed to have any involvement in our nuclear sector, leave it to those who are good at it , as in the French they lead the world in that industry.

Still for all that like everyone we buy Chinese goods , not because they are top quality but because they not all bad , but they are cheap

[Gnasher]

I've seen a few of these and other brake parts fitted to large sports bikes, a few owners were planning to tack day them 


They're are as you've found out "crap" even the parts that look ok e.g. the master cylinder bore wont last the materials used are way below correct specification.  Most start weeping within a few 100 miles  It's like most things in life you get what you pay for if it's cheap it's either nicked or crap!


The real danger is when these crap parts find their way into the supply line.....anyone remember the DID chain issues some years back even importers and stealers got caught out or the aircraft parts being used by contractors to increase profit margins!!!!!


       

[HarryHornby]

That is one hell of a review, it made great reading, I'm very jealous that there are people out there with the skills to do stuff like this.  I can't even bleed my brakes without focing it up! 


Just goes to show, they are cheap for a reason!

[limax2]

The real danger is when these crap parts find their way into the supply line.....anyone remember the DID chain issues some years back even importers and stealers got caught out       

I didn't get caught out but I do remember it and of course they weren't always any cheaper than the proper stuff. The thing is how do you know even now if you are buying genuine chain or well disguised rubbish??? Till you've done a few hundred miles of course 

[Gnasher]

The thing is how do you know even now if you are buying genuine chain or well disguised rubbish??? Till you've done a few hundred miles of course 

It's not easy while in the box but if you looked carefully there were differences colours, quality of print, quality of the box etc.  Once out of the box it was easy finish on the chain, thickness of the links and last but not least how much the chain flexed

There're fakes of just about anything today.  Most importers/manufactures have woken up to it now big style mainly as it cost them money, the chances of a DID scam getting by importers now is much lower.  Most fakes are I think your find on flee bay and the golden rule if it cheap, it's cheap for a reason!!!

[Fazerider]

Fascinating write-up NorthWestern. 
Reckon you should submit it to Ride magazine.

[NorthWestern]

Ha, I doubt Ride would look at it.


Just to sort of round up, these are pics of the latest copies of the current MotoGP Brembo.  I don't remember seeing these when I ordered mine so they could well be fresh on the market, they are more expensive liek I said previously, around £60.








They have clearly moved on a fair bit from a compare the pics standpoint.  It now uses a recessed pivot pin with a nut on the underside like the real ones although it isn't a locking nut (replacing the cheap feeling/looking pin with c-clip mine has).  The lever seems to have a much better setup for span adjustment, closer to the real Brembo if not a full replication.  On my older model fake it is more of an approximation than a direct copy.  Still use the same captive bolt + pin for the folding lever hinge though.


This is the real one:





I would have liked to see this version to be honest, it seems with each iteration they get better.  The only downside is that these master cylinders are intended for racing so you can't fit a brake switch to them, I am sure you could lash up something or use a hydraulic pressure switch.


If the insides are the same they would be just as naff though, that's the problem, you just can't tell until you take them apart.


The other thing is, even my modified one which does now seem very usable - and I will probably use it for a month to see how it wears (that would be 2k miles), the reservoir is tiny.  For everyday use the pad wear alone would suck all the fluid out of it so you would need to keep a close eye on the level or buy a larger one.  It also needs a micro switch for the brake light.  So that's £20 for the lever (although looking today they are £35), £20 for the Ducati microswitch (others could be found maybe but the Ducati one is designed for the 19RCS mine is a copy of), £10 for a reservoir.  At this point your at £70-85 and could probably have got a radial R1/R6/GSXR master cylinder that you can just fit and trust from the outset.

[NorthWestern]

Well, these have now been on for just shy of three thousand miles.  I was replacing the hydraulic banjo light switch with a proper microswitch so while I was there I checked the bore etc.   No wear whatsoever, looks like new which I was pleased with.