August 26, 2004
Pat is a friend made through the internet r/c bike forum RCGroups.com. He decided to do his own brakes for the 1/5 bikes, be them NF or TT and the brakes proved to be a masterpiece of art!
I test fitted the brakes on my TT, just to see how they look on the bike. Of course you need a front wheel with a hexagon to fit them, but still they fill the gap of the stock front wheel, making the bike look very realistic for the first time! Now, with the brakes on, I realized I need a new and unscratched fairing as well... Probably a dark red/grey as it is being featured on the '04 real R1... And of course Shaun's idea for dual exhaust tailpipes would make the perfect bike... In the end I see me getting another TT to have to thrash around and keep this one as a shelf non-runner! (Shame!)
I got the full set of two front brakes and one rear, but I'm going to use one front and the rear brake, and give the other front to my friend Ayrton for his own TT.
The brake sets came complete with cables (thanks to Shaun, again!) and all the paraphernalia needed to do a quick and complete installation.
(Photos above courtesy of CNR site)
What's needed besides the brakes are a front wheel with a hexagon, a double stack servo tray and (possibly/probably) a y-wire for the second servo. Most of these have been already ordered at crazynutracing.com. Using my trusty (and not rusty!) 1990 Futaba FF3 radio, I plan at first to use its 3rd channel for braking, for the first time in the radio's long life! This would be mixed with the throttle channel (2nd) so the servo is activated when I hit the brakes on the ESC. If this doesn't work, I will use a y-harness to connect both the ESC and the brake servo on the 2nd channel, again using some of the mix features of the FF3.
We will see on this, when the parts arrive!
The rear brake is being complemented by the carbon rear hugger that another friend, Richard -aka Kneeslider at RCGroups.com forum made for me! How did I get to have this carbon fender is pictured here, in my recent trip to Holland!
Update September 10, 2004: Brakes, wheels, double servo plates installed and ... working! Amazing!
Further update: Sept. 11, 2004: Some finishing touches...