Hope Brake Knowers – V4 or E4

Thinking of upgrading the eBike brakes, am just about settled on Hope, after discounting the various other options

But wondering on V4 or E4. Will be used with 2mm Galfer rotors, and stickign to standard hoses,  not changing those, so wondering if there’s any point to the V4?  I’m all for extra power, and weight not a factor, but some of what I read suggests not much actual power difference, and mostly just feel and the heat management of the vented rotors are the difference

Anyone used both?

The V4 feel amazing. With normal “thick” rotors.

Big thread on them here: https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/hope-brake-fanbois-you-wont-want-these/page/18/#post-13310537

I’ve just had the leaky piston issue myself on a V4. Hope..fully it was just 2 twisted seals when they have fit them but Hope were spot on when I got in contact. I only needed two seals but they sent out enough for both brakes with 2 sets of pads and weirdly 9 of those annoying pins ?

V4. You can boil an E4 with excessive weight. The vented rotors are the shizzle and I’ve never had them misbehave (100kg me + riding kit + 25kg of whyte e180). I’m running 220 up front and 203 out back.

Similar setup on the alpine but with a 203 up front as it’s just an older bike and that’s the biggest there was at the time. Was in the alps two weeks ago and they were perfect. Whereas a mate who is of similar build boiled his rear E4 every other day.

Galfer disks are also amazeballs, though they do sound like you’re being pursued by a Tesla.

i like my e4s, big improvement over the 3’s , 180 on rear just wasn’t enough, but felt great since going 200 both ends.

friends with v4s have had hassle

hot_fiat
V4. You can boil an E4 with excessive weight. The vented rotors are the shizzle and I’ve never had them misbehave (100kg me + riding kit + 25kg of whyte e180)

Interesting, I have also been blessed with gravity, so that might be the ecider

Tech 4 master cylinder is nice, I don’t see it as feeling that much different from the tech 3 though. If buying new you’ll get a number of pads (standard, green and ebike purple). I’d also pick up an official hope bleeding funnel as they can take a lot of fluid to bleed initially. Bike wheels direct were by far the cheapest I’d found for full sets.

E3 on full suss V4 on my hardtail.

The V3 is a bit better, but not good enough for me to spend 30min swaping the brakes round.

The E3 arrives first and were a better than the Shimano xt with wandering bite point they replaced.

The V3 replaced a different xt set that don’t wander and were also an improvement.

The full suss gets used at bike parks and the E4 do the job brilliantly.

The hardtail has never been uplifted but has 20kg of 4 year old on a shotgun seat on the front occasionally.

If I was buying again, I’d go V4 as they brake (a bit) better. They weigh a tiny bit more, they cost a bit more.

There was a thread on this recently

I have V4 front and E4 rear, V4 has a bit more modulation, I’m running 2.0mm Galfer discs, and keep the pistons clean, lubed and balanced and have no issues, if the pistons get a bit sticky and pads low, the V4 gets a bit shit.

@jimmy748 have you tried the new stainless pistons.  That’s the biggest difference between the newer V4s on my whyte and the old ones on the orange. The stainless pistons are silky smooth and seem never to attract dirt.

It’s important to make sure you identify between the old Tech3 E4s, and the new Tech4 E4s – new master cylinder/lever and new stainless pistons.

The old brakes were reliable, solid, rebuild able, look good etc.

The new ones do everything the old hopes did for decades but add in the final missing piece of the puzzle – finally they have the ultimate massive stopping power of some of the competitors.

Just back from a week in Morzine. One of the gang had V4’s on std rotors and had nothing but issues all week. Needed a brake bleed and a visit to a shop to sort where they reported back they needed to bleed it 4 times.

put me right off Hope brakes. Rest of the crew run Shimano and Magura with no issues apart from a lever bleed on my Zees

I’m running Tech3 V4 with standard floating rotors 203 F&R.
I’m not the narliest rider but I’m 100kg all up and the bike is 25kg. I find they work brilliantly for me, I do my own spannering and I’ve never had any issue bleeding them or changing the fluid

The Tech4 levers are supposed to be better again and AFAIK Hope recommend the V4 for ebikes not the E4

An interesting mix of experiences.

My riding friends are mostly Hope users and Hope only.

My experience was with some Hope Minis on an Orange Sub 5. Useless.

I replaced them with some of the dual pot Hope monos. Beautiful. When they worked they were great. Tweaking and bleeding was an irritation.

Then I bought new bikes. One came with SRAM Guides. Great! Except for that stupid reach pin that pops out of the piston lever. The other came with Shimano something or others. Shimano ones are less reliable than the SRAM IME.

Very interested in the thread as I’m considering a new ‘big trail’ FS (150/160) bike and I like the idea of Hopes. Seems I might be as well just taking pot luck.

Im running the following

Tech 4 V4 with the V4 vented 3.3mm rotor

Tech 3 V4 with Hope floating rotors

Tech 3 E4 with Hope floating rotors

The Tech 4 V4 are noticeably better than the other two

Never had any issues with any of them, both V4’s have been used on the e-mtb and have never failed me

The V4 caliper weighs a whole 10 grams more than the E4 caliper

Braided hoses are purely for looks, Hope say they are no stronger than the standard hose

Hope’s go for a good price 2nd hand so even you end up not liking them you will get a good chunk of your money back, or just buy them 2nd hand and see how you get on

Mine are Tech4 levers on non-stainless pistons, at some point I will fit the new stainless pistons.

Braided hoses are purely for looks, Hope say they are no stronger than the standard hose

This is what I had thought. Regular hoses work well. Braided hoses look pretty. Reminds me of HiFi cables. Buying after market brakes I’d probably go for braided. Though I’d up my frame protection to reduce the abrasion!

The Tech 4 V4 are noticeably better than the other two

…

The V4 caliper weighs a whole 10 grams more than the E4 caliper

and costs ~£15 more RRP.

From the Hopetech website it’s hard to see the difference. I’d be inclined to go Tech 4 E4 as that fits with the fatness/awesomeness zone. NB ‘awesomeness’ may be imagined.

The updated E4 caliper utilises hybrid style Stainless steel pistons with a phenolic insert allowing for smoother movement and less maintenance, while still able to manage high temperatures without heat transfer during extreme use.

The updated V4 caliper utilises hybrid style Stainless steel pistons with a phenolic insert allowing for smoother movement and less maintenance, while still able to manage high temperatures without heat transfer during extreme use.

Reading the guff is there any difference for that £15?

Asymmetric pistons. The v4 has two big and two little pistons.

Asymmetric pistons. The v4 has two big and two little pistons.

Thanks. I must have missed that information on the Hope website. What difference does that make? Or is it that the V4 has 2 big and 2 small pistons and the E4 has 4 small pistons? What is the area difference between the big and small?

Despite my interest in ‘what is the difference’, for £15 in over £200 for a brake it’s a bit ‘whatever’. If folks are buying into Hope’s vibe and [excellent] support why bother making so many options? I’m no longer a believer in cost + margin pricing so why not just have gravel/XC, enduro, and downhill caliper options with ‘simple’, ‘tuneable’, and ‘tweaky’ lever options?

m just using a T4V4 on the front, and the rear, a shimano m520 has a leak so is pretty much useless.

So im running one brake and on a heavy ebike and im ,85kg+24kg bike which is a lot for one brake to cope with and it is doing it fine. I’ve had zero issues on stopping when i want.

I’ll have to be careful when eventually fit the rear or im going to get horsed over the front.

200mm Hope 2.3 solid rotor

Small piston provides initial bite and the bigger one the ultimate power.

if only some sort of publication existed that could assess these things.  

Reading the guff is there any difference for that £15?

As well as what has already been said you also get 3 sets of pads per caliper, E4 only comes with one set of pads per caliper

I have recently been using:

Shimano Zees 203mm

SRAM code RS 200mm

Hayes Dominion 203mm

Hope T4V4 at 203mm and 220mm

I’m presently 94 kg. I have  T4V4s on a regular FS and on a 24kg ebike. Haven’t owned a hope brake since the original black/orange mono minis in what? 2004. They’ve all been lacking in absolute top end since IMO.

Obviously, the bigger disc makes a difference, but even at 203mm,  the Hope T4V4 is notably better than the others.

So much so, I only have the Hayes Dominions remaining after swapping the others out for Hope Tech4V4. Power and modulation are superb and completely useable. They are certainly the best brakes I’ve ever used. Reasonable pad prices to boot.

The only gripe I have is the close tolerance on disc rotor/pad. Certainly harder to get running without rub, but not insurmountable.

Hope do have a useful chart to help you make the decision.  I’d had E4s until a few years back and was expecting to be on the same again but I’m definitely in V4 territory according to this.

I suspect few male riders are going to be in the green category on here for rider plus bike (under 80kg).  So really I think it comes down to E4 for UK use but V4 if you’re doing anything on Euro mountains with uplift.  But Hope themselves say go for the bigger option if uncertain.

However, also see the notes on disc size.  The difference in weight between calipers and larger discs is going to be very similar so V4 and smaller discs in UK, put on larger discs for big descent trips seems a smart option.

https://www.hopetech.com/products/brakes/brake-selection-guide/

(The lowest line of that chart makes little sense – surely the V4 should start with a 180 disc at the lower end of the range where it’s crossing over with the E4 with a 180 rear)

@escrs

As well as what has already been said you also get 3 sets of pads per caliper, E4 only comes with one set of pads per caliper

Two sets with E4s, Red and Green.

Small piston provides initial bite and the bigger one the ultimate power.

My understanding is that the leading edge wears more quickly on a long pad than the trailing edge – so the different size pistons is to even this out

Disc brakes in the bicycle world are something that it seems to me are very poorly understood and lots of myths arise

@escrs like snotrag, the 3 sets of E4s in our house came with two sets per brake.

Cheers for the correction

Didnt know  they have started shipping E4’s with two sets now, when i bought my last set of Tech 3 E4’s they only came with one set (unless someone at CRC removed a set before posting)

I had Tech 3 E4s a couple of years back, 200mm front rotor and 180mm rear rotor.

I could never get them to feel right – i was about 88kg kitted up at the time and they would always seem to drag, even when following the Hope set-up guide. They just didn’t seem to have the power (had some very scary moments at revs!) that i needed.

The other thing that bugged me was when riding the gloveless, the levers were horrible to use – especially when anchoring on the brakes…i guess that’s just personal to me though.

Had Code RSCs after, much better power/modulation but still struggled to set them up with no rub.

I gave up on 4-pot brakes after that and started using Formula Cura 2s, they are brilliant – powerful, good modulation and if you add in sintered pads they get even better! for reference i’m about 95kg now and have had no issues with them at all.

My understanding is that the leading edge wears more quickly on a long pad than the trailing edge – so the different size pistons is to even this out

Thats interesting – I always seem to have uneven wear on my pads but had assumed it was imperfect mounts. but on reflection it probably is leading edge (but also one side more than the other from unbalanced pistons)