Transalp Brakes

Stock

The US-spec 1989 through 1992 Honda Transalps use a rigid rotor which is 276mm in diameter. The brake caliper is a floating, twin-piston unit.

Upgrades

Kits

Lenac

• This thread (transalp.org) discusses the Lenac Big Brake Kit.

DIY

Rotors for Transalps

No upgraded rotors appear to be available for US Transalps. Rotors intended for some other bikes may work, however. In Europe, various brake upgrade kits have been sold.

NT650 Hawk

The Honda NT650 Hawk uses the same bolt pattern as the Transalp. The stock rotor is a solid (non-floating) 316mm rotor (this page has excellent Hawk information), and this is probably the most common braking upgrade performed on Transalps.

Several companies produce stock-size Hawk rotors:

• EBC MD1021LS

  

  • Listed in the EBC catalog as an 'S/F' type, meaning floating conversion for solid rotors.
  • Same as 1991-2003 CB750 Nighthawk, 1994-2003 VF750C Magna, 1991-2002 ST1100, 1995 ST1100A.
• Braking HO26FLD ('wave' or 'petal' style rotor)

  

Since the diameter of the rotor is larger, a new brake caliper spacer is needed. This can be custom machined, or presumably the "Lenac" spacer can be obtained.

MAP Engineering

MAP Engineering used to produce an oversized rotor and caliper spacer kit for the Transalp. This has been discontinued. When contacted, they replied that they may be able to provide the oversize rotor (which is likely a Hawk rotor), but without the caliper spacer this isn't useful.

XR650L

The XR650L uses a different bolt pattern (four bolt instead of five, I believe), so aftermarket rotors for it cannot be used on the Transalp.

Caliper Spacer

With the larger diameter disc, a new spacer must be used to move the Transalp's brake caliper outward.

This thread (advrider.com) mentions a guy making a spacer so you can use a stock Hawk rotor (316mm) on the TA (276mm stock).

Anyway- potential very good news- I asked the guy who built a brake 
kit for Honda Hawks (a 6 piston caliper and GSXr rotor- works great- 
I have one on my Hawk) to look at a potential TA solution. He designed 
and built a bracket that relocates the stock TA caliper so that you 
can use a stock Hawk rotor which is larger (and I think a little 
thicker) than the stock TA rotor. Combined with steel braided lines 
and HH pads (which he thinks might not even be necessary) this should 
provide a relatively inexpensive upgrade to the TA.

I should be doing this in the next month or so and will let you all 
know how it works. Keep fingers crossed

This thread (advrider.com) mentions the Hawk rotor again.

Stainless brake line is a good investment. Speigler, and Galfer both offer
one. Maybe others. The trick brake upgrade is get a used rotor from 88-91
NT650 Hawk. Same bolt pattern but 40mm bigger diameter. Then you have to
machine an adapter to offset the caliper. I'm working on this now.

Also:

Steve (Fast By Big Boy) Lenac (bigboy11@sigmaweb.net) has (or will
shortly have) the full kits for this. I have one on mine (shown in 
the "show me" thread) and it makes a difference.

Sources and Prices

EBC MD1021LS
$168.95	MAW
$174	Ron Ayers
$179	AZ Motorsports
Braking (wave) HO26FLD (that's ho, not h-zero)
$186.95 ($200.36 w/S/H)	Streetbike Accessory Warehouse
$203.88	Motorcycleproshop
$212	Cyclepages
$214.95	AZ Motorsports
Galfer (stainless) DF022 (022)
$185.35	AZ Motorsports