Rad Guard vs Braces?

[twitch13]

Hey looking for some feedback on rad guards. I had the Emperor racing guard (just a one piece which is grated in front and wraps around the side of the rad) on my old bike and I was thinking of switching out to a rad brace. My initial look at the Emperor brace is that it is a lot beefer but it is also very heavy. I had pretty good luck with the lighter rad guards but I am worried that it is only luck! Does anyone have an opinion on the heavier braces? Is it worth the extra money and weight?

[Grimlock]

I have used both the guards and braces from Emperor as well as the billet units from BPD. The one piece wrap around guards work well for everything I have encountered (and I have a PhD in puncturing radiators), but I have yet to subject them to a bad side impact. The only downside I can see with the wrap around types is the lack of side impact protection compared to the actual braces. They also may require some plastic trimming to fit and may or may not work with an oversize fuel tank (which is the case on my Kawasaki).

Compare those to the billet guards from BPD and the BPD's are much stronger in grille strength and offer good side impact protection as well. Big bonus is the fact that they rarely, if ever, require plastic trimming, and in the case of my Beta, will work with an oversize tank. My only concern is the lack of bracing when it comes to hard frontal impacts and bending backwards.

Now, the Emperor plate style side braces combined with the optional grille inserts are a bit heavier than the two above, but I can assure you from experience that they take a beating. I have had several hard frontal impacts on both radiators on my GasGas and suffered no radiator damage (ripped the rad shrouds off though). I have also dropped it hard in the rocks and the side plates kept the cores from being crushed. I highly recommend this setup if you are as terrible of rider as I am.

[malcolmzilla]

I was only going to run mx style side braces to save some weight relative to previous full billet or sheet press brake wrap arounds. Had the wrap arounds in hand, so on they went.

Well, no later than the next ride following installation, an unseen pungee took out my wiring harness after deflecting OFF the rad guard.

Having had to bypass and "amputate" a rad previously, plug one side of with trail side carved spruce dowels, and use the last bit of hydration pack water, in the one remaining rad, and a bit of pee to top it off , then limp out 30km, my humbled opinion is rad guards are not a place to save weight.

[RJHenry]

I have much experience crashing - I had billet Mohard racing guards with braces on a 450X and they were good but not perfect. The braces were not bullet and were the commonly bent item.

The emperor "box" guards were decent on my 2013, but things still ended up bent and tweaked, though never holed.

At a fraction of the weight, the BRP guards have protected my 2014 for 110 hours and there has been remarkably little tweaking. I did have a jillpoke up into the bottom of the left tank that caused a coolant loss, but none of the guards I have used would have saved that particular day.

Overall, I am sold on the BRPs

[takethebounce]

I have managed to "tweak" the Emperor braces over a 3 year period although they still maintained there almost original shape the rad actually still received some damage in a hard fall. Nothing is failsafe but I was able to get them back to their original shape. At the end of the day my bike takes a tumble here and there, on a rock or over a log and the braces even with a minor weight gain have likely saved a rad from catastrophic failure.

For my bike it doesn't get anything less than the braces, either Emperor or the Enduro Engineering braces are a nice product as well. The MX style are fine if you rarely see your bike on its side.