[Closed] Hope E4 vs V4

E4's have been great for me, 203/183 rotors, big enduro bike, hadled everything well so far including full day on the lift in whistler

Every time this question gets asked on the forums the consensus appears to be that the E4's are awesome / perfect for the UK and odd trip to the Alps. I purchased with this in mind, in addition to taking E4's for a quick car park spin.

I found them to be great / reliable but slightly lacking in power for the front for technical downs after some more thorough testing. The feel / modulation was great but I wanted to start trying endo turns and even more technical downs so I moved from a 180 to 203 rotor on the front. This still didn't quite do it for me so upgraded the calliper at the front to a V4 which is now perfect. Great power without needing to squeeze too hard when riding all day and enough feel to stop you throwing yourself over the bars. E4's on the back. I'm a bit picky, for most I'm sure an E4 is fine and to be fair I gave it a real kicking in the Alps / UK enduro race with no fade / issues before I felt the need to upgrade so it's still recommended by me.

I have the V4 and wouldn't want any less power (200mm F+R, 29er enduro bike and I weigh about 85kg). The price difference wasn't much when I bought them, so it was an easy decision. The modulation is so good that I can't imagine anyone would buy the V4 and think they were too powerful...

I've got e4's with 200/180 rotors on my trail bike and i so impressed with them, not as powerful as the code rsc's I've got my big bike but defo on par with xt's/guides. never tried v4's though.

I did the same. Got fed up with 3 XT warranties in a year.

Bought E4s. They are nice, but a noticeable drop in power over the XTs. I also can't seem to get them to bite early enough, they have quite a bit of dead throw on the lever.

If I was doing it again I'd get the V4s to try and match the power of the XTs a bit more.

Bought E4s. They are nice, but a noticeable drop in power over the XTs. I also can’t seem to get them to bite early enough, they have quite a bit of dead throw on the lever.

Not sure on the year but I went from 2/3 year old XT's (so probably 2014/15's) and they felt poor on old rotors but once I had some new hope ones on I soon spotted how worn the old ones were and how much more power I had out of the brakes. Certainly on par overall but very different power.

I have M8000 XTs with 180/160 rotos on the Trance and E4s on the Enduro with 200/180, I'd say the XTs are as powerful as the E4s (even with smaller rotors) and bite more initially.

The E4s feel nicer overall though for modulation and being able to feather the brakes much easier than just on/off raw power.

Got to agree with most of above, I have e4s with 203/183 rotors, the Guide RE on my new ebike with 200/200 are a chunk stronger. The v4 front caliper sounds ideal though to get the power and still have the hope build quality, reliability and parts support . And the bling, obvs

Cheers guys that's all helpful stuff. Apologies if it gets covered frequently, Google was only showing stuff from 2013 etc.

V4 front, E4 rear would be my choice.

Have both which I rotate depending on what I'm up to. Both first rate.  203 both ends.  Only stick the v4s on for trips to the Alps.  Never felt the need on any UK decent or race.  Uplifted stuff out in Nava or Finale can lead to tired hands by the end of the week so useful to bring out the big boys!

Thanks! Now the more important decision... which colour.

Pica of the bike cbr9, we can help you with the colours 🙂

Haha cheers, unfortunately can't get a photo at the moment however it's a Cotic Rocket in orange. I'm thinking orange would be too orangey and blue runs the risk of looking like an Irn Bru colour scheme. Black is safest with black hubs/seatclamp etc. To be honest I'm not too fussed about the bling aspect anyway!

Yeah, 😀 although an Irn Bru scheme would be a laugh.

Silver

Yeah I'm not too much into the loads of stuff being one colour, i.e. matching hubs/headset/brakes/cranks/stem etc, reminds me to much of the 90's/00's trend of having loads of matching anodised parts...

With one strong colour having another strong colour will just clash, either go black to match the black hubs/forks or orange. Loads of coloured hope bits only work on a neutral coloured frame IMO.

My thinking with hope stuff is always go black. You dint know what colour your next bike will be but the hubs and brakes will still be going strong when you next swap.

Great point, black it is!

I don't subscribe to the 'drop in power' thing. I've ridden XT's on demo bikes and liken them to cars with over-servo'd brakes, which I don't like. Sure with E4's you need to pull harder on the lever,  but they are capable of providing as much power as you need - you just might have to pull a bit harder.  I like that and the upside is better modulation and feel. If you pull hard enough on the lever you have all the power you want....pull on lever, increase pressure  in fluid, pressure acts on caliper pistons to increase press of pads on rotors. You can apply as much force to the pads and rotor as you like. 'Power' is just a perception based on how light the action is.

E4  work fine for me, totally reliable and consistent. I used them in last years Mega and they were faultless even when caught behind brake draggers that weigh a lot less than my 100kg.

Agree with Wobbliscott on XTs.

I have E4's on my Mega and my hardtail V4's on my downhill bike. What I didnt know at the time of buying the V4's that to get the best out of them you should run the V4 rotors with them as their thicker than standard rotors so the pistons dont have to travel as far to the bite point but they cost £90 each. I overcame this by changing my pads when they went down to 50% wear.

I'm told the big Enduro mag group test found nothing to choose between E4 and V4 in terms of power, not read it myself yet

E4's with 203/183 rotors. No issues on steep (Italy) or fast trails (france). Plenty of power, great modulation and been incredibly reliable.

I have E4’s on my Mega and my hardtail V4’s on my downhill bike. What I didnt know at the time of buying the V4’s that to get the best out of them you should run the V4 rotors with them as their thicker than standard rotors so the pistons dont have to travel as far to the bite point but they cost £90 each. I overcame this by changing my pads when they went down to 50% wear.

Does the bite point adjuster not allow you to take up the slack as the pads wear? I think it adjusts the master cylinder which in turn moves the pads closer to the disc.

Also is anyone running the X2 as a rear caliper? I quite fancy the X2 great and E4 front on a hardtail as you're not gonna have the grip most of the time to use all the power on the rear of a hardtail.

Thanks again.

Am I right in saying I'll be able to put them into the current rotors and mounts (shimano, 180mm) without any problems? Think I'll wait and upgrade the rotors later when I've more cash.

I needed Hope mounts for my E4s. Shimano or Sram ones didn't like the caliper shape.

The mind boggles when people say E4s are underpowered especially with 203mm rotors. I have 203mm rotors and and they are insanely powerful and very reliable. They are are a pain to setup and have to be done very carefully and they can be noisy but they are very powerful.

Yes they will adjust the bite point but but once your pads get below 50% the pistons are starting to be rather far out,you will yave to get the Hope adaptors because of the shape of the caliper. In my opinion stick with the E4's as they are plenty powerfull and thats coming from someone that weights 17st  rides lots of steep stuff

E4's are not underpowered but if you want to pull endo turns or do technical downs all day during a week in the Alps the extra squeeze required can become a tad frustrating and can contribute to pump.

I think sillysilly nails it

For those saying they feel underpowered / have too much play then two things:

Hope callipers are very sensitive to being centralised correctly. Line them up with the disk using the central line, not through the loosen and squeeze method. Then centralise the pistons with the callipers locked in position.

Don't take the BPA and reach names for the tech lever adjustments literally. Reach actually makes a big difference to where the lever travel starts to bite, as it pumps more fluid into the system. So fiddle with the two until you get the feel you want (I only discovered this after years of being slightly miffed how close to the bars the brakes bit with he BPA wound fully on).

For those saying they feel underpowered / have too much play then two things:

I've lined them up twice which didn't seem to make much difference.

So fiddle with the two until you get the feel you want

Annoyingly, I think I just have small hands (and I like the lever close to the bar) so I have to have both of them wound pretty much all the way in, and it's still not as close as I'd like or as close as I could have the XT's.

My main frustration is I have around 50% dead throw with the Hopes, where as it was maybe 10% with the XT's. When I pull the lever I want to brake as soon as possible 🙂

Brand new rotors too when I got them. I might try bleeding them again with the pads out and pump the levers a few times to try and reduce the dead throw.

Been running E4s for guiding in the Alps for several years now, had V4's before (and V2's before that!).

Have never felt the need to do any kind of "setup" whatsoever. Bolt on, adjust reach and BPA to suit hand-size / preference and go ride. They're plenty powerful enough, although the V4's did have a smidge more.

There's some innaccurate info above about what the 2 adjusters do.

The reach adjuster is just that. It moves the lever position without affecting the master cylinder in any way. If you move the reach out, the lever will both start further out and bite further out from the bars.

The BPA screw pushes against the lever body and effectively starts to move the lever blade, i.e. it starts to push on the master cylinder. This will take up some of the "dead stroke" at the start of the lever pull. Moving the BPA will also move the lever blade, so it's best to set the BPA first to get the feel you want, then adjust the reach screw to get the hand position you want.

So fiddle with the two until you get the feel you want

Was chatting to someone with V4s last night and he said the same thing. Played around with them both a bit and you're right. Winding the BPA all the way in doesn't give the fastest bite, you need to wind the reach in a bit then wind the BPA out a bit. Doing this has reduced the dead travel a bit.

Yeah, I've noticed the same quirk. Although the reach screw only moves the lever, and has no effect on the static master cylinder, it does change the effective length of the lever blade. I had noticed that changed the feel of the brake, rather than the free throw, but it could be altering both.

Not sure how well I explained that. It would be easy with a diagram..

enduro mag did a big group test where they did a load of lad tests on the dyno at hope, not real world, but for the argument over what is strongest the only way to do it...

the magura MT7 came out really "well" if strength is what your after...

Braking Torque

XT = 78.4Nm

E4 = 73.1

V4 = 74.8

MT7 = 99.3

30-15KM/H deceleration

Xt = 3.4s

E4 = 2.8s

V4 = 3.3s

MT7 = 1.6s

45-0 deceleration

XT = 9.3s

E4 = 9.8s

V4 = 12.7s

MT7 = 5.2s

so, my take is, not much between the XT/E4/V4

Ok so my description inferring Reach adjustment effects the master cylinder may not be correct, but as stevomcd concedes it does alter the effective bite point.

Which is what you'd imagine BPA would do alone, but reach does change the feel of the brakes to use.

Some people may not have tried this as when I did it massively helped get the brakes to feel how I wanted them too i.e. bite further away from the bars. Before that I just thought I was a bit crap at bleeding them.

My main frustration is I have around 50% dead throw with the Hopes, where as it was maybe 10% with the XT’s. When I pull the lever I want to brake as soon as possible

???

Shimano are famous for large lever throw, the Hopes are miles better you can set them to be close to the bars and have little lever throw before bite. I suggest you need to have another fiddle with the setup.

Either I'm not doing it right or something but I've not found the BPC to give night and day feel on the bite point.

I agree the XTs on my other bike engage before the E4s do. Both bled properly and calipers centred.

Don't get me wrong I still love the e4s for overall feel.

Update for anyone interested..

Ended up with the V4's and had a few rides with them. For an extra £20 or so I thought why not!

In short, I have no plans to return to Shimano. They felt good from the start, but brilliant after I trimmed the hoses and gave them a bleed. Followed the Hope process for this as well as the calliper set up and all is well.

Thanks again for all the advice.