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Long story short, I've got a pair of Tech4 V4's on my eBike and have been a bit underwhelmed by their performance (220F 200R rotors) with the stock green pads... Which according to Hope, are their most powerful brake pad!
I have the red and purple pads spare, but reluctant to try them if, as Hope claim, the Green's are already the most powerful...
Anyone any real world experience to compare/contrast the actual performance as experienced from the different Hope brake pad compounds?
Don't get me wrong, these brakes have fantastic modulation and feel, it's just with 120kg of bike and rider combined, the outright stopping performance is somewhat underwhelming so far even compared to some quite run of the mill brakes, which is absolutely at odds with what all the reviews claim...
Green on the front, red on the rear. All the brakes you could ever need. Have you done the “overfilling” to allow for thinner discs?
eBike users I know use purple front and rear. Don’t know what’s different about them to deal with bigger system weight, but apparently the difference is noticeable.
Have you done the “overfilling” to allow for thinner discs?
Yes... Levers pulled into the bar until I did this. Now they feel great, just don't stop me as quickly as I want.
eBike users I know use purple front and rear. Don’t know what’s different about them to deal with bigger system weight, but apparently the difference is noticeable.
Yet Hope say on their website that Green pads are a 5/5 for stopping power, and Purple eBike pads are only a 4/5... Hence my questions!
The Enduromag review https://enduro-mtb.com/en/best-mtb-disc-brake-can-buy/ was conducted using the Hope Green pads as well as a Sinter Green reference pad, and showed minimal difference between the two, where other manufacturers OEM pads came up short apparently...
So where is my missing braking power?!?!
I'm sure you've gone through a lot of this and casting no aspersions on your spannering, but my experience of the tech 4 V4s is that they are quite sensitive to setup. Most issues I've had can be sorted by correcting caliper alignment and balancing the pistons and that includes lower power. Might be worth a go? My pet theory is that if the pads arent hitting square and in sync its robbing your braking effort.
My one critisism of the brakes is that they're not fit and forget. loads of tips on trouble shooting and tinkering in the Hope tech documents.
Oh and the greens are by far the best pads. I savagely glazed some purples on the eeb in the Alps last year, swapped them for greens and never looked back. I've also found them too wear ok but I'm only a wee 70kg
Edit: I said green are "by far" the best however I happily run reds in the back and they're grand. Sintered feel nice but are noisy
Pad wise, I find ebc red excellent with TRP R1 2.3mm rotors on the 916, not quite as good on the KSL with AliExpress Galfer Shark copies, but that could be down to the extra mass of the e-bike.
The Hope/Galfer pads are marginally better... Green front, purple rear. Then the Hope/Galfer red. After I've used these up I'll be on the ebc. Less than half the price, close to the same performance.
This is with T4V4 on both bikes, and 203x2.3mm rotors all round on both. Only went with the AliExpress copies as I ran out of the cheap R1s Merlin were doing for £9 - wish I'd bought more
I've been using the green hope pads in my tech4 v4 brakes and they're really good, so much power.
Took a few attempts at bleeding to get them feeling good though.
d. Have you done the “overfilling” to allow for thinner discs?
link/explanation?
Greens are definitely the right pads.
at 220/200 are big rotors - are you sure they are getting hot enough to bed in properly (chemically) and work properly?
Too big is just as bad as too small?
Failing that - make sure your calipers, (and not just the pads), are correctly centred. This makes a big difference. When set incorrectly, half the effort yor feeling in your fingers is being used to bend the rotor over.
Tech 4 v4 user here
I've found power similar between the green and sintered pads.
The biggest difference in feel and power is from ensuring the caliper is aligned and that all 4 pistons are working evenly.
I find with my brakes I have to squirt water on them and do the flat blade screwdriver to the back of the pads technique to get all the pistons working evenly. The slightest bit of flexing of the disc reduces the power.
I'm not sure if my pistons are a big scratched but it's a bit of a pain and has had me considering changing brakes.
Btw how ropey is this forum software now? Had to type this reply in another window cos the stupid 'You can't upload files' text completely blocks the reply window on my phone (Opera browser).
I use Opera and yeah the edit window is tiny small.
Sorry can't help on the brakes.
Btw the green pads require almost no bedding in time compared to others the Blister podcast interview with a designer at Hope went into a lot of detail about this.
Only criticism of V4's is careful with the rear. skidding is definitely a concern.
Been running Tech 4 E4 for a year now. When I first got them I stuck some thickish 220/200 rotors on in preparation for a big alpine holiday and genuinely found them a bit OTT for UK use (although great for hand and arm fatigue not having to pull the lever very hard at the back end of a 45 minute descent!) That was green front/red back.
I'm running normal 200/180 for UK use now with reds both ends and thats still all the stopping power I can use for Lakes tech or Golfy-length Enduro trails.
...but then my full system weight, inc bike is close to 2/3 yours, so go figure..!
Been using Hope brakes for years and all sorts of pads (albeit galfer ones are some of the best) and it's nearly always down to centralising the piston in order to get the max power (assuming the bleed is good and the pistons are all lubed and moving freely). See Hope for the video on how to do this - very simple 5 min job.
Overfilling won't really address lack of power, you're just removing any space in the diaphram for heat expansion. There may be a small change to earlier bite point/engagement (which is not the same as more power btw), but as long as you bleed with the bite point adjust wound out and don't underfill that should be all good and adjustable anyway.
Currently on tech E4 with galfer greens and 90+kg all up and all the power I'll ever need.
Hope that helps.
Do you ride with anyone else with Hope brakes? A quick go on each others bike will quickly confirm if it's just something up with yours or not.
I've got Tech 4 E4's on one bike and new Maven's on the other. The Maven's are regarded as a powerful brake, and my well used E4's don't feel too far behind on absolute power.
If it's dry the green's are as good as you're going to get power-wise from the Hope brake pad range in my opinion.
I have fallen out of love with Hope brakes. 3 sets in and I won't be buying any more, constant faff with alignment, bleeding, squealing pads. The amount of times I have jumped on the bike only to find, that the brake that was working fine last time out, is now pulling to the bars grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. As for pads, I have tried them all. I like green and purple, the purple don't seem to squeal as much.
@johnjn2000 wow, complete opposite to my ~20 yrs experience with them whilst having issues with forays into other brands. Fit and forget apart from occasional pad replacement/bleed/piston centralising. Sent one very well used set off to Hope for their good-value seal service (you get a bleed and new pads included) as I couldn't be bothered and they came back working as good as new. Maybe consider that?
@pedlad, the set of Tech 3 V3 i had were so bad they went back to Hope 3 times for the calipers and once for warped rotors. The rear is still an utter pain. I have 2 sets of Tech 4 on the other bikes, one set is OK and the other lasts a few rides and then needs bleeding.
Cheers for the feedback guys. Gonna have another play with the setup I think, fitted them brand new not even 3 months ago and the bike has done maybe 300 miles now, so they haven't had a hard life as yet.
One thing I should also have stated is that I like to run my levers quite close to the bars... Having wound the levers out a bit and tried that, there's definitely more power there if I run the levers further out... The downside is increased arm pump because of how far out the levers sit!
You can buy an alignment tool for not too much that helps with getting the best out of them
If they were new then its quite plausible that a couple of the seals have got a bit sticky as they will have been sat on a shelf a while - this is why its not centralising properly and you have long lever travel and low power. Get them properly centralised as per the hope video and revel in the difference
My combined riding weight - me plus bike is about 130-132kgs these days.
My T4V4s are the strongest brakes I've ever owned and I don't struggle for stopping power. Green pads, 220Fr, 200Rr. 2.2mm hope discs.
I feel something is off with yours.