Initial lever travel?

[Owl]

Awesome brakes, solid feel- but I'd personally like the initial lever travel to be much shorter before the brakes bite and take effect.

How is this adjusted or modified?

I get the same deal with my S3, though I stay on top of it. Try cleaning and freeing up the caliper pistons to get them working evenly. I do mine about every 5000-7000km to improve lever travel. Used to be about 3000km when my calipers contained the original un-coated pistons.

[Deano]

Free travel could be reduced by making sure the brakes are well bled. And seeing as you don't know the answer either, who the hell are you to poke your nose in. Are you his mate ?

In any case, telling people to 'go back and read the post' when they are offering a genuine suggestion is not doing yourselves any favours IMO.

[racefactory]

Keep on digging my friend, keep on doing that digging!

It's not air softening that squeeze, it's free lever travel. The amount of spring back you get when you release the lever. Some bikes have heaps, others have next to nothing. You probably don't have any on your bike or have not ridden enough bikes to realize this difference and I apologize for my tone but you clearly don't know what the issue at hand is here. When you bleed brakes successfully in my experience you make that grabbing of the brakes much more solid but you still have to press the lever some way to even initiate the slightest of that grabbing.

Again, my apologies Deano.

[bogan]

I get the same deal with my S3, though I stay on top of it. Try cleaning and freeing up the caliper pistons to get them working evenly. I do mine about every 5000-7000km to improve lever travel. Used to be about 3000km when my calipers contained the original un-coated pistons.

what coating and where do you get em from?

[Deano]

Keep on digging my friend, keep on doing that digging!

It's not air, it's free lever travel. The amount of spring back you get when you release the lever. Some bikes have heaps, others have next to nothing. You probably don't have any on your bike and I apologize for my tone but you clearly don't know what the issue at hand is here. When you bleed brakes successfully in my experience you make that grabbing of the brakes much more solid but you still have to press the lever to even initiate that.

Again, my apologies Deano.

I'm no mechanic - I simply made a friendly suggestion that was rebuked. Maybe he should have stated how much free travel was there to clarify his query.

Whether it is incorrect or not, it deserves a better response than was given.

Have a nice day.

[racefactory]

I agree but there's no need to start the whole get fucked thing in the first place.

I wish you a nice day too.

Back to topic: I remember the only other thing that has changed this for me in the past was when I got a new master cylinder for an old CBR250RR. I don't mind some initial travel at all as long as the grabbing is solid but each to their own.

[Juzz976]

Try a Master cylinder off another bike with same or close piston diameter,
its not the amount of fluid or pressure thats the problem its the lever geometry.

Taken as a ratio of lever angular movement to piston displacement:
some levers will move the piston quicker initially then progressivly slow down some the other way around (the latter is my preference, however I will not be judging you at this point).

You need to have a look at where the pivot points are to see how relative travel speed is at flection and extension.

Good luck

Edit: also a combination of how far past the feed/air relief hole the piston returns to as DEATH_INC said.
Some bikes have adjusters for this EG FZR250 and others just wear and get worse.
This could be the case for you, mine has a pin on a swivel, therefore no adjustment just replace when worn.

[Owl]

what coating and where do you get em from?

No idea what the coating is and the pistons were from a later model (07) S3.

[imdying]

Meh, I've a massive box of master cylinder shims of all sizes, but fucked if I'm going to give those to anybody without figuring out what the actual problem is first... that's just asking for hurt. Mind you...