chinese disc brakes, 2 pot and 4 pot.

I’ve been watching for the release of these for a little while.

Onirii (these sold as ZRace too) have a good reputation for their cable actuated hydraulic calipers for those who like to try out imported stuff.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004315008249.html
are the 2 pot

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004314866410.html
are the 4 pot

look to have reasonable levers, not the normal overly long and shallow sort, take shimano pads, mineral oil and look OK too.

rotors also look nice..

bit more expensive than the Meroca M4/Clarks set, but y’know, moar CNC…

Im not sure I like the look of those cut out sections on the blades. Recipe for flex ergo cracking 😕

I was an early adopter of the Clarks M4 and have to say these look much nicer.

I’m not in the market for brakes at the moment but when I next need some I’d consider these. Are they rebuildable and are spares available?

looks like you can buy the levers and calipers separately, advertised as working with shimano stuff. lever has a small cartridge bearing in it, at a guess you can buy the seals too. Onirii have taken a bit of time to develop these, having teased them around a year ago. you can contact them directly through either aliexpress or alibaba, or via the website, so I imagine spares would either be relatively straight forward to get, or non proprietary.

wouldn’t say the same for ZRace though. They are rebranders.

Im not sure I like the look of those cut out sections on the blades. Recipe for flex ergo cracking 😕

If you’re going to copy somoens brakes, they seem to have picked some good ones.

If you’re going to copy someones brakes, they seem to have picked some good ones.

Oh right, so those are as good as trickstuff ?.

If you’re going to copy someone’s brakes, they seems to have picked some good ones

ThEy’Re AlL mAdE iN tHe SaMe FaCtOrY!!1!

Oh right, so those are as good as trickstuff ?.

Or as bad as some armchair engineers’ opinion.

Schrodingers components.

Interesting.

What’s the difference between the CD01, CD02 & CD03 rotors compared to 6 bolt?

Looks like CD01 is splined, CD03 is floating 6 bolt and CD02 is floating splined

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003850308231.html

Check these cheap ones out

Check these cheap ones out

I nearly bought some of those. The lever shape put me off.

I have a set of the onirri X2 coming my way…. eventually

If you’re going to copy somoens brakes, they seem to have picked some good ones.

Yep, and

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Not blatant at all, nooooo

ZTTO MTB Full Meatal Pads CNC Tech Mineral Oil Brake 4 Piston Hydraulic Disc Brake M840 with Cooling for AM enduro E4 ZEE M8120

Anything for veggies or vegans?

Yeah I thought Trickstuff + Hope E4 when I saw it. Even looks like it uses E4 pads.

Those 4 pot brakes…have they got 4 pistons in them? Looking at the pics, 1 side looks very narrow to have pistons in. The other side looks twice as wide.

Yes. Both pistons are fitted from the same side so one side has the piston and the plug that fills the hole. The hopes pictured above are the same

Ok, thanks for the clarification.

I can’t help but feel that brakes are not the area to be skimping on with cheap random Chinese knockoffs.

PinkBike tried some out and we’re less than impressed (not these exact ones though). Just because they look similar doesn’t mean they perform anywhere near as good.

I can’t help but feel that brakes are not the area to be skimping on with cheap random Chinese knockoffs.

Some are very poor, but some are good. Funnily enough just like Sram, Shimano, etc.

@lovewookie – please post a review once ridden.

Over at Pinkbike they did a series of videos (budget vs Baller) with two presenters building identical frames with the most expensive components and the cheapest. Ep.7 is about brakes. It may be worth a watch. The first 10 seconds is probably enough. Bear in mind the guy riding the bike used to be a World Cup mechanic, so I reckon he probably knows how to install brakes.

The pinkbike budget Vs baller series was pretty good but the brake one, while fun to watch, was not very revealing. They could have got branded brakes cheaper or far better Chinese ones. Not sure if they bought bad ones deliberately for entertainment or more likely just bad luck

I can’t help but feel that brakes are not the area to be skimping on with cheap random Chinese knockoffs.

Normally I’d agree, but a bit of trawling through internet forums helps. The chinertown and chinese parts mtbr forums are pretty good at whittling out what’s rubbish and what’s not as rubbish.

Onirii do have a pretty good reputation for their stuff. there is a lot of other guff, like those zoom brakes, perhaps don’t. One key bit of advice has been not to use the pads. change them for branded pads to get the most out of the brakes. Mine will be getting a fresh set of shimano pads.
Probably good advice for any cheap brakes. I have a clarks M2 on my hack bike and with the stock pads, they bite, but rapidly fade to nothing once they get hot.

 while fun to watch

I think that was entirely the point. It’s just entertainment It’s not a scientific study and doesn’t claim to be But it highlights the fact that there are any number of manufacturers ready to take your cash for parts that are at best; of dubious quality.

Personally I love a bargain, but I’d agree brakes are not the part I want to take a risk on.

They’re difficult for even the big brands to get right, in terms of reliability, power and modulation.

Perhaps fine for bimbling, but having good brakes is the most confidence inspiring thing on a bike so I wouldn’t want to be throwing myself down steep trails on the word of some internet ransoms.

They arrived. 22 days to the door from purchase.

They came in a air pocket pack, no box, but all fine and no damage.

Front came fully bled and set up, rear came with the caliper attached to the hose, and the lever separate, plus a bag of gubbins.

Finally got round to fitting them a few days ago, after a bout of illness has stopped me going out.

So not used in anger yet, but I thought I’d give a few details on how it’s gone.

Firstly, they come set up front left hand, so first thing to do was swap the levers.

This was as easy as it is with any brake. 8mm spanner at the lever, undo, pull out hose, swap round and luckily no need for a new olive.

The hose is fairly flexible, but doesn’t seem to need, nor come with, a barbed end reinforcing thingamy.

The front comes fully bled, the rear filled with fluid ala shimano, but not connected to the lever. The lever has a screw in cap in the end with 10mm spanner flats. the hose has a small screw with a rubber seal to seal the end. fitting is a doddle. cut to length, remove caps and screw, fit lever rubber cap, screw thread compression bit and olive. pop it all together and nip it up.

in theory you shouldn’t need to bleed it. however I will. I say will, as the bleed nipples are not a size I’ve got. the caliper end is M3 (I think), the lever end is M5. I have a multi size kit coming, so I’ll update on ease of bleed and exact sizes.

Fitting the calipers to the bike is easy, as you’d expect. The levers are easy enough, it’s a similar type setup as avid/sram used, a wrap around clamp with a bolt that runs through the lever but it’s worth noting that the edges of the clamp are quite sharp, so watch those carbon bars and make sure the bolt is undone more than normal when adjusting the angle of the lever.
The lever fixing bolt is a torx, couldn’t say exactly which size, a T20 sort of fits, but is slack. T25 doesn’t fit. it’s like a t23, if that was even a size. fairly typical for chinese bolts to be a more vague size than expected. it is steel though, and you do need to give it a bit more effort to close the clamp. I’m going to look for replacements fairly quickly.

Back to the calipers, the pads on the X2 are shimano G04/G03 size. The stock pads look cheaper than anything I’ve seen before. I swapped them out with a set of used pads from my SLX/XT brakes to give them a try.

Aligning the calipers is easy, but for my bike needed a little fine tuning as the pads run close to the rotor.

first ‘up and down the road’ brake test was a little underwhelming. modulation was good, but ultimate power seemed to taper off a little. Now, I’m 90kg (give or take a few portions of cheesecake) and run a 180 rotor up front and 160 at the back, so figured maybe that was it. Then they started to squeal…and squeal.

so, back to the workshop to remove the glazing from the pads and clean them up.

decided to go with new pads instead of the well used ones, just to give the brakes a fair trial.

bought new resin pads, didn’t want to risk the additional heat build up from sintered, even though they are my preferred in shimano brakes. Cleaned up the rotors with brake cleaner, cleaned up the caliper pistons, just to make sure there was no oil in there too, a light sanding of the new pads prior to fitting and out I go for a couple of road hill reps to bed the pads in.

immediately different from the near outset.

Modulation is on par with my shimano’s, albeit the final bite comes a little longer in, but ultimate power had me endoing down the hill, even with my butt hanging off the back of the saddle. All pretty controllable too, had a couple of nice nose rollers balanced, to my surprise.

The lever feels firm to use, little flex in the lever and only a bit in the lever body on the bar. It has enough shape not to be too narrow and not to wide. it reminds me of the feel of my old Hope Mono Mini’s, but with more bite.

ultimate proof will be in the longer riding though and how they perform when used and warm (if the seals give up and dump the fluid) but so far, I’m hopeful (no pun intended)

🙂

I saw these too the other day.

I run a set of meroca m4 4 pistons (clarks) with no problems except they are a real PITA to bleed. £40 the set! I think they are pretty good (with kingstop pads)

The meroca’s were on the list if I needed some, but then Onirii released these and going by their previous reputation for pretty reliable brakes I thought it’s worth a go.

what’s the bleed problem with the meroca brakes?

God review, thus far. Interested to know how they measure up once you’ve got some heat into them.

They certainly look nice enough, and its not like its 50 intricate parts so how simple should it be to make a brake these days.

what’s the bleed problem with the meroca brakes?

I just struggle to get the air out of them

I use a shimano style funnel on the lever, then squirt oil in via the caliper.

then unscrew the caliper end syringe and quickly bung the plug in.

They don’t have a bleed nipple.

These appear to be the same brakes as the OP

But with a pressed lever rather than CNC

￡6.57 35%OFF | IIIPRO EO MTB Bicycle Brake Hydraulic Oil Disc Brake A B Pillar Caliper 800mm 1400mm Rotor 160mm 180mm 203mm Bike Brake Set
https://a.aliexpress.com/_uXCGJu

If you’re looking at cheap Chinese made floating rotors for your front end I wholeheartedly give a thumbs down to these.

203mm 6bolt used with a Shimano MT420 system, with both resin and semi-sintered pads, cleaned, roughed up, bedded in.

Power isn’t there. You can feel every cutout on the braking surface (that i don’t actually think now is a braking surface!) If gravity usage is the order of the day (pointing downhill, mountain roads, trying to bleed off speed at anything over 20kph, etc), something goes horribly wrong and with each pull of the lever, the lever gets closer and closer to the bars.

I’ve just bought a replacement Shimano RT66 203mm 6bolt rotor (made in China) and can now lock the front wheel up. Big eye opener after a while thinking I’d done something wrong, the rotor is definitely at fault used in the front.

Is this a fair report?

https://insanityofgravity-blogspot-com.translate.goog/2022/07/1-scrap-or-not-zrace-br-m1onirii-cnc.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

“Our CCP sponsored riders in China, who never complain because they’ll be removed from from the team (with their families) relocated to a hillside in nong territory to grow cabbages, and stricken from the history books, say there is nothing wrong with the brakes. Long live Xi!”

mrdestructo
Full Member

If gravity usage is the order of the day (pointing downhill, mountain roads, trying to bleed off speed at anything over 20kph, etc), something goes horribly wrong and with each pull of the lever, the lever gets closer and closer to the bars.

Not really sure how a disc could cause that tbh?

Is this a fair report?

Seems pretty damming 😬

Annoying because good engineering is relatively cheap. It doesn’t cost you any more to manufacture something good as something badly designed. And sounds like a nip and a tuck in CAD would have made them better brakes.

Is this a fair report?

sortof. the comments about sharp edges is right, could really have done with the odd chamfer here an there.
inside the caliper is more ‘machined’ so not cleanly finished, but the pistons are smooth and leak free so far.
In use they’re not bad brakes. They don’t deliver power in oodles, like shimano do, but non stock pads help. But they don’t have the sharp bite, they remind me of old Mono mini brakes. fine for XC, maybe not great if your forearms have lost muscle mass cos you’ve been using good brakes for a time..

I’m going to swap out the hose to something a bit more suitable, as the stock is very very soft. that should help make them feel a bit more direct, or it wont.

I’ve not noticed the caliper flex that is mentioned, but will keep an eye on them anyway.

Not really sure how a disc could cause that tbh?

Could be warping and pushing the pistons back further as the warp gets worse?

I gave up on cheap rotors a long while ago. I think decent rotors make at least as much difference as decent brakes do. Although it depends whether you’re looking at £300 hopes or £50 Deore whether you’d consider £30-£50 an end rotors to be a good value upgrade on your brakes.

How are you getting on with the 2 pots?

And anyone bought the 4s yet?!