How long till engine overheats?
1st Gear
Joined: Aug 2019
Posts: 5
Likes: 1
From: Deltona, FL
Its also worth noting for you that the your motor is designed to be thermally emissive. It was designed to emit that heat you are feeling while stopped. The more heat it emits the less it is retaining. If you are really that worried about the amount of heat your bike is retaining there are companies that make fans that mount to the bike to move air. The systems work, moving air across seems like a rudimentary solution but if you heat up a hot plate to 250*F and blow a constant volume of air across at 10mph you will be able to cool the hot plate down enough to touch without it feeling hot without ever turning the hot plate off. Moving air is an extremely effective way to cool a surface.
I do IR imaging as part of my job, and as a rule, if the wind speed goes to 10+ mph for even short gusts I cannot perform an accurate test due to the convection cooling effect the wind has on the equipment.
I do IR imaging as part of my job, and as a rule, if the wind speed goes to 10+ mph for even short gusts I cannot perform an accurate test due to the convection cooling effect the wind has on the equipment.
Last edited by RabbitB89; Aug 5, 2019 at 01:39 PM.
HDF Community Team
Joined: Dec 2011
Posts: 8,601
Likes: 4,038
From: San Diego, CA
Its also worth noting for you that the your motor is designed to be thermally emissive. It was designed to emit that heat you are feeling while stopped. The more heat it emits the less it is retaining. If you are really that worried about the amount of heat your bike is retaining there are companies that make fans that mount to the bike to move air. The systems work, moving air across seems like a rudimentary solution but if you heat up a hot plate to 250*F and blow a constant volume of air across at 10mph you will be able to cool the hot plate down enough to touch without it feeling hot without ever turning the hot plate off. Moving air is an extremely effective way to cool a surface.
I do IR imaging as part of my job, and as a rule, if the wind speed goes to 10+ mph for even short gusts I cannot perform an accurate test due to the convection cooling effect the wind has on the equipment.
I do IR imaging as part of my job, and as a rule, if the wind speed goes to 10+ mph for even short gusts I cannot perform an accurate test due to the convection cooling effect the wind has on the equipment.
John
Road Warrior
Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,508
Likes: 303
From: N. Tx.
If you're going to ride in stop & go traffic during these hot months just make sure your oil is good. that's what keeps the engine cool. not the hot air.
your engine is designed to get hot. fresh oil helps.
your engine is designed to get hot. fresh oil helps.
Tourer
Joined: May 2019
Posts: 278
Likes: 98
From: Berwyn Il
Yeah...
And 15-45 minute rides aren't even enough to boil and vent the water built up in the oil from condensation.
Recommended at least hour or longer rides.
So these 15 minute commutes ain't no good!
Let alone turning the thing off every light.
If you haven't let your bike get hot enough, you haven't even experienced it yet.
My commute was 45-50 and that would just get her really turned on, everything starts working and feeling better.
If I had to stop riding after 15 minutes I'd leave an hour early for work every day. And take the scenic route home. Or, stab myself in the left eye.
You are going to make her cry rusty tears.
Burn that water off!
Sorce
And 15-45 minute rides aren't even enough to boil and vent the water built up in the oil from condensation.
Recommended at least hour or longer rides.
So these 15 minute commutes ain't no good!
Let alone turning the thing off every light.
If you haven't let your bike get hot enough, you haven't even experienced it yet.
My commute was 45-50 and that would just get her really turned on, everything starts working and feeling better.
If I had to stop riding after 15 minutes I'd leave an hour early for work every day. And take the scenic route home. Or, stab myself in the left eye.
You are going to make her cry rusty tears.
Burn that water off!
Sorce
Road Captain
Joined: Apr 2018
Posts: 627
Likes: 324
From: Covington, VA
Another thing that cools the engine is the valves.They pull heat off the heads and they are more efficient when they are moving fast. Think of it as walking barefoot over hot coals or running across them in short steps. Letting an engine idle will raise the temperature of any engine because the oil (or oil and coolant) are not circulating fast enough, the engine is not getting enough air for heat dissipation and the valves aren't pulling the heat off the heads fast enough. One remedy that will help is to raise the idle speed while sitting by just holding the throttle and raising the rpm's to about 2000. Another remedy is to stay in a lower gear than necessary if moving very slowly; for example, if you are traveling at a slow second gear speed, try staying in first gear.
When I had a Corvair (air cooled engine), the owner's manual said that if the fan belt broke, the engine would overheat and to turn on the heater immediately to pull the heat off the engine until you could get to a safe spot to pull over and stop.
Years ago, my sister-in-law was sitting in a parking lot in the summer with her engine running so that she could have her AC running. The high temp light came on and she turned off the engine. I told her to turn the engine back on, turn off the AC, roll down the windows and drive around the parking lot in first gear (5-speed tranny). The high temp light went out immediately and then she turned the AC back on while she did laps around the parking lot in first gear.
When I had a Corvair (air cooled engine), the owner's manual said that if the fan belt broke, the engine would overheat and to turn on the heater immediately to pull the heat off the engine until you could get to a safe spot to pull over and stop.
Years ago, my sister-in-law was sitting in a parking lot in the summer with her engine running so that she could have her AC running. The high temp light came on and she turned off the engine. I told her to turn the engine back on, turn off the AC, roll down the windows and drive around the parking lot in first gear (5-speed tranny). The high temp light went out immediately and then she turned the AC back on while she did laps around the parking lot in first gear.
Last edited by boomerguy; Aug 5, 2019 at 09:44 PM.
Road Warrior
Joined: Jul 2013
Posts: 1,649
Likes: 443
From: Indianapolis
This is a graph of my Sportster stopping for about 60 to 90 seconds at a stoplight.
Data is from a log file from my PowerVision.
You can see the temp was about 360-370 F while running, and cools down to 334 F at the blue mark, (red is engine temp(rear head) 334F, yellow is speed 0 and the green RPM is 1014 Idle speed, 14.6 is the set AFR (closed loop) ).
Last edited by shanneba; Aug 6, 2019 at 05:35 AM.
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Joe Kucinski
Grand HDF Member
Joined: Nov 2018
Posts: 4,607
Likes: 3,312
From: Virginia
This is a graph of my Sportster stopping for about 60 to 90 seconds at a stoplight.
Data is from a log file from my PowerVision.
You can see the temp was about 360-370 F while running, and cools down to 334 F at the blue mark, (red is engine temp(rear head) 334F, yellow is speed 0 and the green RPM is 1014 Idle speed, 14.6 is the set AFR (closed loop) ).
And I would love to see someone with a ton of money take a Sportster on a hot day with some thermal cameras monitoring it, maybe some temperature probes and just let it sit and idle till it dies. I'm sure the MoCo does that sort of testing occasionally but they don't share the information.
Last edited by VAFish; Aug 6, 2019 at 09:52 AM.
