I been reading reviews on the oil bud and it looks like a quality part that will really help keep my bike cool in the hot florida days. I need a little convincing to buy or not to buy this cooler. I know there are other ones out there that are cheaper but I like how this one tucks under the bike out of site. due to price I imagine it is not a common cooler so anyone who has it please step forward and give me your HONEST opinion

 

Your bike, your money.

At the end of the day, that is what it all comes down to.

 

Lets take money out of my question. I really want to know about how it fit and how it performed. Is a oil cooler a good investment in the first place? I have 12k miles on my bike without one. Do my legs get hot in stand still traffic, yes and I dont expect a oil coller to change that 100%. Do oil coolers bring engine heat down enough to be worth having.

 

Do oil coolers do bring down oil temps-enough to be beneficial?I say yes because even oil cooled a bit would help a hot engine.I have a Jagg 6 row cooler mounted to a front down tube and that sucker gets hot.So on a hot day stuck in traffic the cooler is still doing some good by radiating heat and if there is a breeze all the better.
Oil Bud pros Quality piece,mounts under the bike where the air is cooler and won't be seen,large radiating area.
Cons Must be expensive,possible restriction(all those small passages)the radiator part below the bike is gonna get dirty and you will lose a good part of cooling capacity.
If you do it let us know how it works out.

 

I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with me on this but...

If you are sitting still in traffic, an oil cooler isn't going to do much unless it has fans moving air through the radiator and blowing heat away from the motor, not back onto it.

Also, how is the radiator suppose to catch air when it is lying flat under the engine?

 

I wouldn't put something that extensive in the pressurized oil circuit of my bike. My guess is it has the potential to change oil pressure. At the very least it possesses the potential for leaks (at every juncture and the cooling fins) and given its in the pressurized circuit that leak could be catastrophic. It's basically in front of the rear wheel and I wouldn't be too crazy about that either. Heat rises and it's right below the engine and the pan. It certainly looks good but my guess is it doesn't cool as much as a cooler mounted conventionally, IE facing the wind.

If I was worried about heat I'd start where the heat starts, the cylinder heads. Get yourself a Wards Fan or some other type and call it good.

 

The Oil Bud appears to be a very high quality piece and due its design and construction it will give up some of its heat via radiation as opposed to convection, meaning there will indeed be some benefit at slow speeds or stopped.

As for pressure concerns, you needn't worry about it. The Gerotor type oil pump in our bikes is what is known as a "positive displacement" type pump. This means that unless that pump is physically broken it is going to pump x amount of oil with every revolution. When the oil passes through small passages or orifices it simply speeds up, slowing back down when it reaches the larger passages or storage tank. The oil does this in several places throughout the circuit already and is of no concern.

Technically speaking, where there is flow there must also be pressure drop, so a longer circuit of flow means more pressure drop. That's technically speaking. With a positive displacement pump, and the small added length to the circuit, this difference is so small as to be immeasurable for all practical purposes.

 

Seems to me for an oil cooler to work it needs air to flow through it. I don't see this type of cooler catching much air to be beneficial. Also see a bigger chance of catching a rock and damaging the cooler and dumping oil in the path of the rear wheel. Just my opinion.

 

Not all coolers require a lot of air flow (some don't require any air flow at all for that matter). Heat is given up via conduction (hot item touching cooler item), convection (air flow across the hot item), or radiation (heat radiates out of the hot item in the same manner as light radiates). Think about radiant heat in a building. There is no fan blowing across the radiators, yet this is the most effective method of comfort heating.

The reason we don't see a lot of radiant oil coolers is that they have to be much larger than their convective counterparts to achieve the same level of cooling effect. The Oil Bud unit appears to be somewhat of a hybrid design. It's constructed much like a traditional tube and fin cooler, but the tubes are finned extrusions. The added surface area of the fins allows for more radiation of heat than is provided by plain round tubes.

I can't say for sure how much more effective it is when sitting still than is a standard tube and fin design, but I can say for sure that it simply must be at least somewhat more effective due to the principles of heat transfer involved.

Again, I have nothing to do with Oil Bud whatsoever and have never even met the guy. I just have a long and extensive background in fluid handling and heat transfer so I understand the dynamics of it all pretty well.

 

The oil bud does not seem to be popular and I can understand peoples concern about where it is located. The thing that cought my eye for this unit is the thermostat. This cooler regulates temperature rather than blind cooling which helps during the cold winter months.