• Baggers Magazine - May, '08
• American Iron Retailer - March-April, '08 - Product Review
• American Iron Retailer - March-April, '08 - Showcase
• Drag Specialties – Magazine, Nov/Dec ‘07
• AMD - August, '07 - Out Braking the Competition
• Speed - July, '07 - Tech Feature
• American Bagger - August, '07 - Tech
• Barnett's - July, '07
• V-Twin - August, '07
• HOT ROD's Bike Works, February, '07
• HOT BIKE - JULY, '06
• V-TWIN - JUNE, '06
• THUNDER PRESS - JUNE, '06
• THUNDER PRESS - OCT, '05
• EASY RIDERS MAGAZINE - OCT, '04

Spotlight: Lyndall Racing Brakes

The Flip Side of Speed
Lyndall Racing Brakes Gets It Done

800.400.9490
www.lyndallracingbrakes.com

There’s a lot of talk in the Harley world about horsepower – how much you want, how to get it, and how much you’re willing to pay for it. But all the noise about going fast seems to ignore the fact that you have to stop sometimes, and the faster you go, the quicker you’re going to need to stop. And horsepower isn’t the only reason Harleys can benefit from better braking – just ride a heavily loaded touring bike and you’ll understand that weight puts a strain on brakes, too. So what’s the easiest way to improve braking, and also eliminate dust and squeal at the same time? Brake pads from Lyndall Racing Brakes.

Paul Kittrell began his education in friction materials when he worked for the largest West Coast supplier of friction materials for race car applications. “It started out as a warehouse position where I was ‘schlepping’ brakes around and helping the production department with special orders and cross-drilling rotors,” Kittrell says. “Then I graduated to working with them on the race cars.”

Working on race car brakes was an education for Kittrell, who was at the time a club-level motorcycle road-racer. He learned the ins and outs of friction materials, and why some work and some don’t. But the whole time he was working on four-wheelers, his heart was in two-wheelers. He took every nugget of information he learned about how each one could be applied to bikes.

 
“When we first got into the Harley market, the biggest thing was brake squeal,” Kittrell recalls, “but a lot of the independent shops were looking for an improvement in braking. One by one we switched them over to Lyndall because our pads had superior service life and better stopping power, and because they didn’t generate dust or scratch up the rotors.”

Lyndall Racing Brakes’ pads are made of a carbon/Kevlar compound. There are two basic types of brake-pad compounds, according to Kittrell, sintered metal-stock on Harleys-and organic. “Most of the organic pads are made of carbon/Kevlar, which is good,” he says. “But saying your pad is made of carbon/Kevlar is like saying your tires are made out of rubber – it doesn’t tell the whole story. What makes the difference in ours is that we use the most expensive aramids you can use in the manufacturing process.”

How they’re made sets Lyndall’s pads apart from the crowd as much as what they’re made of. “All our pads are hand-run,” Kittrell says. “The aramids are all measured in grams and hand-mixed. We have a couple of guys running the press, making sure the temperature and pressure and the cooling cycles are all correct. “

Heat is what brake pads are all about, but cooling is important in the manufacturing process. “After the pads cure, we put them through an extra heat cycle. The cooling is typically much slower on this second operation. This does two things. It burns off the residual phenolics used in the bonding process, and it softens the pad slightly, almost like annealing it. That’s why the pads don’t have to be put through another major heat cycle to be broken in. Just put them in, and within 20-50 miles you’ll have absolutely incredible brakes.”

Kittrell says his carbon/Kevlar pads are superior to the stock sintered-metal pads in Harleys both in terms of performance and service life. “Our compound lays down a material transfer right on the brake rotor, effectively making the rotor an 11.5 inch brake pad turning against two smaller brake pads. Sintered metal relies on a chemical reaction to provide stopping power, but it changes the pads so they’re not the same pads as they were new.”

Lyndall’s pads outlast the stock pads by a wide margin, too. “Our pad’s material transfer is very protective of the rotor and runs maybe 30 percent cooler than a sintered pad. And it has double the life expectancy. We guarantee our Z Plus pads will go 18,000 miles on the rear of a 2,000-and-later bagger – the stock pads typically last 5,000 – 7,000 miles.”

Whether it’s a hot-rod solo ride or a two-up touring rig, good brakes are important, and Lyndall Racing Brakes pads for Harleys are second to none. Talk to your Drag Specialties rep about stocking brake pads from Lyndall Racing Brakes, because even though every bike has to stop sometime, your parts sales don’t.