Actually 230-250 is normal on a very hot day even with a cooler.

 

Thought of an oil cooler, even posted on here. Friend in easrern AL who has been a wrench for 30 years sent me his take gonna post it again
I've said it before and I'll say it again...
A Harley engine is air cooled, not oil cooled.
#1-Huge amounts of oil does not circulate thru the engine cooloing it like water does in a car engine. Any significant amount of oil is in the lower end where it lubricates the crank and cam and this only amounts to about a cupful at any given time. Heat is generated in the cylinder & head; very little oil is circulating in that area. There's a oil passage tube about the size of a pencil running thru the cylinder jug that carries a small amount of oil to the rocker box. This is not a solid stream of oil but rather droplets & vapor and does little to cool the engine. If you want to cool the engine with oil you should pump oil thru the sparkplug because that's where the heat comes from.
#2-Hot oil is good oil! Oil needs to be hot to evaporate the moisture that will corrode the bearings & bushings. For each amount of gas you use, the engine produces an almost equal amount of water, smoe of which goes past the rings and into the crankcase. Cool oil doesn't evaporate the water.
Riding 2-up in the South in the summer doesn't require an oil cooler. I rode across OK, TX, AZ & CA last summer when it was 115*, my 200+lbs self and enough gear on the back to equal the weight of a passanger. Bike did just fine.
Waste of money.

And yeah he has like 14 bikes, all but 2 are harleys of all ages shapes and sizes. No oil cooler for me gonna save the money for a road trip

 

Yes, it is "normal" for a stock, EPA-certified bike, which we all know run very hot. I'm familiar with the 230° you quote, but it is not optimal for best engine life or oil longevity. In the reading I've done and discussions I've had with oil engineers, optimal temperatures for oil in a running environment is around 180°, and above that oxidation begins to increase exponentially. A good synthetic oil can probably handle consistent 230° temps for the duration of a typical oil change (5k miles), but it'll oxidize much slower and viscosity will change less when running at a lower temp. If you run that high consistently I would definitely run synthetic oil, as it will combat oxidation much better than fossil products. There is an ideal range for oil, hot enough to burn-off the impurities (water and acid) yet cool enough to stave-off rapid oxidation--and from what I've read over the past 20 years of researching this topic 180-200° is a good temp to strive for.

If you're comfortable with HD's statements on oil temps that's fine, but I would like my oil to run cooler, which it does. I see 230° only rarely, like summertime in heavy traffic, but it typically stays at 180-205° while I'm moving, where on that scale depending on air temp. I think this is acceptable.

 

This might be more applicable to older designs like Evos and Shovels, but the TC engines have a piston-cooling spray feature that absorbs lots of engine heat. This is one reason the oil in our Twinkies runs much hotter than our old Evos did, as while the Evos could've been hot, the oil wasn't absorbing as much of the heat. With TC's the oil does a much better job of absorbing engine heat than older designs. If you run a cooler, that engine heat is dissipated and engine temps go down. I monitor my front head temp through the J1850 port on the ECM, and I saw a big difference in head temp with a cooler installed. A friend with an '09 bike with no cooler constantly complains about EITMS kicking-in too quickly, which happens at 285-290° front-head temp, but my bike gets in that territory far less-often than his. He runs a richer PCV map than I do, too, which should make his engine run cooler. My AFR's are set to 14.6 in the cruise range, which isn't good for engine cooling but improves mileage. Since I've taken steps to reduce heat, e.g. an oil cooler, I can run AFR's higher than most desire to.

There is no magical temp where water is dissipated from the oil. Water in oil will evaporate at any temperature, just will do so faster as temp increases. Take a pan of water and heat it to 150° on your stove and time the rate of evaporation. At 212° it will evaporate faster, but it will still evaporate at lower temps, even ambient. Modern oils have additives that absorb water and acids, which also helps, and how well your oil does in this regard can be seen by doing a lab test and referring to the TBN (Total Base Number) value. The oil in my old Evo almost never exceeded 160° (measured in the pan) even in summer, and 180° is about as high as I ever saw it climb. I did two oil tests at 5k drain intervals, one in summer and another in winter, and for both the oil's TBN was within an acceptable range. The lab told me the winter drain was good for about 8k miles and 10k for summer. If the oil's TBN can stay within an acceptable range under the relatively cool temps that bike ran, my TC can do it better. I didn't run an oil cooler on the Evo because it didn't need it, as the oil didn't do as good a job of absorbing heat as in a TC.

Did you monitor either oil or head temps? How do you know the temps were within an acceptable range? I'm not talking about temps that will allow the bike to just run, as they're quite resilient in the heat they can tolerate without poor performance, but I'm concerned with what is ideal for getting the most longevity for the motor and oil.

 

it sure did went from running 240-250 to 210-220, believe it or not i dont give a ****

 

Consider that the back cylinder cut out on the late model touring bikes does not kick in until 278 degrees. That is your signal to start thinking about getting your bike moving again. Unless air is moving across your fins, you are building up heat. This is an air cooled engine so it needs to be moving. I have seen lots and lots of oil temps reaching 325 or even 350 degrees and no harm was caused, if it was for brief periods of time and you got the bike moving again. Synthetic oils are not any more "slippery" than dino oils. Their main claim to fame is that they tolerate extreme heat better and as such provide better protection than conventional oils. When an air cooled Harley gets to the point where it is too hot to run it will become very sluggish, very quickly. If allowed to overheat the first signs might be extreme pinging or preignition. I have seen a very few that were so hot they started to smell and the jugs and gaskets will start to smoke. But that is extreme. One time it occurred when a friend started up his bike in his garage in the hot summer. He got a phone call and forgot about the bike idling away in his garage. After thirty minutes of this he came into the garage and he thought it was on fire because of all the white smoke pouring off the engine. He quickly shut it off and let it cool down for 30 minutes before riding. No problems, and that was 2 years ago. The other time I saw it happen was at a parts swap meet. A guy had a portable dyno in an enclosed trailer and was dynoing bikes for $50.00 a pop. He would put them on the dyno, strap em down and do about 5 or 6 full throttle runs before he shut them down. He did not have any fans blowing on the engines and some of the bikes were literally smoking when they were backed up out of the trailer. A few minutes sitting in the parking lot and all were rode off. Both times it was extreme situations and both times the bikes were not moving...so they got hot. Harley engineers design the engines as air cooled engines, so all that is taken into consideration. These modern engines will take a lot of heat, especially since the 2007 EPA regulations came in. Each year they get a little hotter. Water jackets are next.

 

That's a pretty bold statement, sure about that? Ever hear of friction modifiers?

 

I can believe your oil temps dropping that much, but I can't believe they could drop that much from simply changing brands of oil.

There has to be some other variables influencing a change of that magnitude.

Not to argue... I'll believe what I do... And you certainly have the right to believe what you do.

Peace!

 

************************************************** ******
From what I have read and seen, Most temperature gauges from HD VARRY from one extreme to another... I would check your oil temp. with a different gauge...

As far as oil, SIN3 is a SIN(.)
It IS NOT a full synthetic as read in another post here... It is a Blend..

I use 20/50 Redline in my motor
MTL Redline in the primary
Shockproof Heavy Redline in the tranny.

signed....REDHEAD

 

Yes, I am familiar with friction modifiers. Perhaps the word "slippery" was not the best choice of a word. Let us say that synthetic oils cling to parts better as they have higher film strength than mineral oils. At low temperatures synthetics also flow better. Since most wear occurs when engines are started up the fact that synthetics provide better flow than mineral oils is another big plus in my book.