Cooling issue

[cycleguy55]

An engine that's running too cold will suffer increased engine wear, deposits and emissions. In addition, oil is also thicker when it's cool, so it needs to warm up to provide proper lubrication. Oil also needs to get hot enough to vapourize any moisture it collects. Here's a good article, including a chart of engine wear vs. temperature, that may have people yanking their 160 deg. thermostats in favour of 180 deg. ones: HOTRODSRJ’s COOLING TIPS Operating temperature vs power and longevity!

If you're running EFI, you absolutely need to run the appropriate thermostat, or the temperature sensor(s) will read a cool engine and adjust the fuel/air mixture to compensate. It may even adjust timing - but I don't know.

Even if you're running a carburetor, the engine will take longer to get to proper operating temperature w/o a thermostat - if it gets there at all. Before I put the thermostat in mine (180 degree F high flow thermostat) I found the engine was slow to warm up. Worse, when the temperatures dipped this fall the coolant temperature was peaking around 160-165 deg. F on the highway.

I don't know what my oil temperature is, but my coolant temperature seems to be running in the correct range. I may be swapping out my oil pan for a Canton pan (15-766), and it has provision for an oil temperature sensor. That would be an easy add, but finding a space on the dash for the gauge will be the challenge.

[Xack]

Kitcarbp has an oil cooler, which is actually an oil heater/temperature stabilizer. Its from an explorer which had this system to warm up the oil with the temperature of the cooling water. At this point I'm going to remove my oil cooler and if I do anything at all it'll be something like this which will boost oil temps up to the water temperatures as soon as they can climb. This needs to have a working thermostat to work well. Otherwise, you'll get the colder non performing oil.

Any thoughts on this. Please respond

Xack

[frankym]

cycleguy, i may have missed this, but when your fan(s) come on, does it reduce the temperature? I agree with others that the 210-215 is not an issue. Guessing you are into motorcycles as well (cycleguy), as am I. 2 of my bikes are sport bikes, bmw s1000rr and honda vtr 996. Both are sport bikes, s1000rr is the highest horsepower (193) production bike in the world, although someone might argue that the highest HP claim goes to a bmw hp4 or or a ducati panigale r course. but anyways, both my bikes idling in the driveway at today's 15 degree F temperatures, the bikes get to about 218 degrees of water temp before the fans come on. The fans stay on until the water temp taken is around 195 if i recall correctly. If your water temp is getting to 210 to 220 and your fan comes on to cool it doesn some, then your engine is running and cooling properly.

If you are boiling over and the excess heat is causing electrical malfunction, then perhaps there is a problem, but from what i read, there is nothing to be worried about.

[cycleguy55]

The fan definitely reduces the temperature when it kicks in. No boiling over. No problems there.

While I have owned a murdercycle, I gave that up years ago. My nickname comes from my many years of cycling for recreation and fitness. There's a link between that and my Cobra affectation - I started tearing down and re-building bicycles when I was still 8 or 9 years old, and that certainly gave me an early start on how mechanical things work.

[RICK LAKE]

Zack Any contact point will make heat. Really the worst thing is the valve springs. You open and close at over 60 per second and you make heat. I only speaking for my motor builds and believe in keeping oil in the heads to help cool the springs. The splashing around helps the rest of the moving parts too. I have about a 13 quart system with oil pan, cooler lines 3 quart accusump and what doesn't drain back into the pan.
Some motors have spray bars in the valve covers for extra cooling and because of running very high valve spring rates of 700+ pounds. I think Nascar also uses them. It's like turbo diesels have oilers that spray the under side of the pistons to help control heat and lube the pin, rod end and piston.
A thermostat is a better idea to run than just a cooler. heats the oil quicker, also cools it off too. My only concern to amount of flow through this housing and pressure limit. Cold my motor is in the 125-128psi range. Once it heats up the psi drops the the 70-85 psi range. A normal street motor doesn't need a lot of extra cooling. Track cars need this alot more. Rick L.