Oil Cooler

Thanks!

My answer to your question about is it good to run a cooler differs based on how you ride the bike and where you live...

In northern states, you don't need, nor do you want an oil cooler on a stock bike. Way too many negatives.

Your engine is designed to run without a cooler. Oil coolers can overcool the engine. In situations like this, the condensation in the engine does NOT get burned off, and the oil ends up going milky white. Rust will occur inside the engine.

Depending on how the cooler is fitted, many have the oil feeds at the bottom of the cooler - this allows all the oil to drain out of the cooler when the bike sits. When the bike is fired up, the pump has to push oil up to the cooler, then back down to the engine. Not ideal for sure.

Jeff.Saunders wrote:

My answer to your question about is it good to run a cooler differs based on how you ride the bike and where you live...

In northern states, you don't need, nor do you want an oil cooler on a stock bike. Way too many negatives.

Your engine is designed to run without a cooler. Oil coolers can overcool the engine. In situations like this, the condensation in the engine does NOT get burned off, and the oil ends up going milky white. Rust will occur inside the engine.

Depending on how the cooler is fitted, many have the oil feeds at the bottom of the cooler - this allows all the oil to drain out of the cooler when the bike sits. When the bike is fired up, the pump has to push oil up to the cooler, then back down to the engine. Not ideal for sure.

jeff,
with all the respect that is due someone with your experience and knowledge, i beg to differ ...
i live in a northern state and i ride when the ambient temp is 65 or above....i have in the past ridden at around 50, but my butt gets colder quicker now!!
the old kzs , as cold blooded as they are,will get up to temps as high as 175- 200 after 40 mins or so of riding in the summertime in a mix of cruising and stop and go....i have a temp guage that says so(accurate?).... a cooler is that extra bit of insurance.....yes , if you go for 20 minute jaunts in 50 degree weather, you are not doing your motor good , cooler or not...
but if you want to ride all day in 95 degree
heat...(i rode from lincoln, nh to quebeck (sp?) canada)...you might want a cooler for insurance..
there is a temp sweet spot for all motors, but once you get above it, excess wear and tear kick
in....i dont know if this is a decent analogy but, i think i read somewhere if you can put a tranny cooler on a car and drop the temp 30 degrees, you will double the life of the tranny...
like i said before, you undoubtedly know more than
i do, but i thought would add my .02....keith

Keith, the key is how you ride your bikes...

...the vast majority of these bikes ONLY get run for short rides... In northern states, if you take a 20 minute ride to work morning and home in the evening, the cooler is doing more harm than good. Your engine will be slower coming up to full operating temperature and this result in more wear, plus you fight condensation in the engine.

If you ride in 50 degree temperatures or cooler, you need to cover the cooler to stop it over cooling the oil (even if the cooler has a thermostat in it).

If someone is going to ride long distances it may make sense, but really only if you are riding in hot temperatures. Once you make performance modifications, the answer will change as some of the performance engines do run too hot.

Oil coolers also reduce the effective oil pressure in the engine. The oil pump has to push much more oil for it to reach the engine (this isn't a problem when the oil pump is new, but as the pump ages and wears, it can be a problem).

I remove every single cooler on all the stock engined bikes I've bought.

jeff
i was thinking of putting in a manual shut off valve because winters here on martha's vineyard are very cold yet summers are very hot not like the boring weather we have back home what do you think?
ever seen a valve in line going to the cooler?

kano wrote:

jeff
i was thinking of putting in a manual shut off valve because winters here on martha's vineyard are very cold yet summers are very hot not like the boring weather we have back home what do you think?
ever seen a valve in line going to the cooler?

I have seen these, and yes, I think it makes good sense. The key is it's really a diverter valve - you either go through the cooler, or loop directly back to the oil fitting/galleries. One of our Aussie customers has one sitting behind the engine under the carbs - barely visible, but there in the event the cooler needs bypassing.

Ill go down the plumber supply store see what i can find thanx jeff.

I don't know if their still available,but the old "Derail" or "Derale" oil coolers either came with a bypass valve or it was an option. Try E-bay for oil coolers.

I run Lockhart oil thermostats which start opening when oil temperature hits 160 degrees F and fully opens when oil temp hits 180 degrees F.

So on startup when the engine is cold, the oil does not go to the oil cooler at all.

I've run an oil temp gauge on both my Zs and can agree with Jeff regarding riding in cold weather even with an oil thermostat.

Yesterday I took a 100+ mile ride with some pals. The high temperature was 64 degrees F here in east Central Florida. Oil temperature for most of the ride was 155 degrees. Fortunately, the last leg of the ride was on the interstate so I had no trouble getting the oil temp up to 180.

But during the summers around here, it takes only 10-15 minutes of city riding to get the oil temp to 180-210+ degrees F. But I've been stuck on Main Street in Daytona Beach in March with the air temperature at 45 degrees F and had oil temps of 210+ degrees F. So an oil cooler can be a great thing to have depending on where you live and how you ride and also, of course, on the state of tune of your bike's motor.

Rather than start a new thread, I'll continue on this same subject.

I recently bought a Daytona Temperature Gauge, because on my '85 GPz550 that has a factory oil cooler, I have to know what the temps are, being oil-cooled only. Here's few pictures of my set-up and what I'm using.


This unit also has a clock, and reads Degrees F and Degrees C. Clock is on military 24 hour time, as wish I could change it to 12 hour time, but I'm not sure I can. Bought it used, and have no instructions.


Nice back lighting, and very visible numbers.


There's a threaded plug fitting in the oil galley, that the probe and adapter(3/8" NPT to 1/8" NPT) fit nicely into, without retapping for anything.




Mock up oil pan useage only.


Sending Unit, 3/8" to 1/8" Adapter, and stock threaded plug.

Installed it works great, without any runs, drips, or errors. The ride home was a cloudy cool day(in San Francisco, it's always like this), and the gauge readings were 240-247 Degrees F at a constant 85 mph, engine revving at about 7,000 rpms. It was about a 20 minute stretch of frewway without any traffic I take daily. I'm currently using Spectra 10w-40 non-synthetic motorcycle-specific oil, factory recommended 3 litres, or 3 quarts.

When I ride in the summer months where I'll see 80's to 100's on the east bay, I know the oil temperature will be higher, and even so, the temperature at the head will be much more than the gauge is reading sitting in the oil. I'll run 20w-50 then, but with the temps I'm getting now, running 20w-50 should be in there now.

I rode in to work this morning, and the gauge's initial temperature was 57 Degrees F cold, before starting it up. Going the same way I always do to work, opposite of the way home), without any traffic, the highest reading was no more than 215 Degrees F. The outside temperature was 53 Degrees F when I arrived at work, and I rode 70 mph during that time, and I figure it's at about 6,000 rpms. as the tach I know is off.

I'd rather have a larger oil cooler, and have to block off part of it on colder days, then not have enough cooling going on.

Don't get me wrong, I ride my bike hard, bcause it's so damn fun. Who doesn't? I also have a track bike of the same year, with the same stock size oil cooler, that I think after testing this gauge, isn't cooling the oil enough out on a track, where rpms are constantly above 7,000.

If I was just riding this bike around town, on short grocery trips(where the hell you gonna put all the groceries?), or just on weekends when the weather was nice, and maybe seeing about 2,000-3,000 miles a year, then I wouldn't worry about the oil temperatures.

I'm guessing good oil temps from 210 Degrees F and keeping them under 290 Degrees is recommended??? Anyone care to set me straight with this?

Remember this was not intended to be one of them-thar, "What oil should I use?" threads.

Thanks.

Well I went to have a look to see just how close the exhaust is to the sensor, and I found out the exhaust is touching that corner of the oil pan, and that's what's heating the oil up like that on these cool days.





Looks like I'll be investing in some header wrap, doing the full underside engine length of the exhaust system.

Wrapped the header around the sending unit, so I'll have to see if it makes a difference in the temps, or I'll be wrapping the system from the collector area to where it is now. The parts store was out of the good metal ties, so for now I have to use hose clamps.