Having the Harley Fan Kit on my FLHTK has been real nice. I have it set up as installed from the dealership with the automatic thermostat. I want to change it to a manual over ride ability. They work, other brands may work as well or better. But at least with the Harley Fan you can buy replacement parts as needed. It's expensive for a fan, but it does help.

 

I agree with the comments that a fan designed to cool the engine is more effective in keeping the engine cool in traffic than an oil cooler, even one with a fan. I do believe that an oil cooler is beneficial and that one with a fan is better still.

I have both the HD parade fan and the fan assisted Jagg oil cooler on my bike. At various points in my ownership of this bike, I've had the HD oil cooler, the HD oil cooler with the HD parade fan, and the Jagg fan assisted oil cooler with the HD parade fan.

I also have the Dynojet Power Vision which allows me to monitor cylinder head temperature, intake air temperature, and other parameters.

I have not done a formal, documented study but have done some observations on the effect of various changes on my bike. Below are some summary comments.

Please keep in mind that these results are from my one bike and your results may vary. Also, I have not ridden in conditions that put high strain on the engines ability to keep cool, such as high speed riding in very high temperatures, riding up a long grade, or pulling a trailer.

I installed the HD oil cooler and oil temp gauge at the same time so I do not have oil temps without the oil cooler.

1. With the HD oil cooler, I ran around 180° going down the road on warm (85°+) days. In town in stop and go traffic, I saw the oil temp rise and the longer I was stuck in traffic, the higher the temp got. The highest I recall seeing was around 280°. As soon as I started moving again, the oil temperature started coming down.

2. With the HD cooler and parade fan, in town oil temp rose much more slowly and the highest I remember seeing was around 260° or so.

3. When I added the Jagg fan assisted oil cooler (keeping the HD parade fan), the highway oil temp dropped from around 180° to around 170°. Oil temp in town rose much more slowly and the highest I remember seeing was around 230°. The oil temp seemed to stabilize around 230° but so far I have not been stuck in traffic for any extended periods of time such as 60 minutes or more.

4. In regards to cylinder head and intake air temperatures, I purchased the Power Vision after installing the Jagg cooler and the parade fan so I only have readings in that configuration. Cylinder head temperatures (as best as I can recall) ran about 230° or so going down the road. When stopped in traffic, they went up to about 250° or so and then seemed to stabilize. As soon as I started moving, the cylinder head temperature started dropping.

5. I also monitored intake air temperature going down the road and stuck in traffic with and without the fan running. I also took the football cover off to see if that made any difference. As far as I could tell, the cover made no difference in intake air temperature either at idle or going down the road. Normal intake air temp going down the road seemed to be around 100° and it went up to around 130° stopped in traffic with or without the fan running and with or without the football cover. All readings were with the lower fairings installed.

In regards to turning the parade fan on manually, I installed HD's accessory switch and housing on the clutch clamp (you can find it on HD's web site). I was already using the accessory switch in the dash for something else. I wired the switch to override the thermal switch shorting the two wires going to the thermal sensor. After using the switch for a while, I decided that the thermal switch worked fine and I found no real advantage in using the manual switch. Both the oil cooler fan and the parade fan go on and off automatically so I do not have to remember to turn them on or off and that is a much easier way to use them.

Hope this helps.

 

I have had my Lenale fan for most of 1 season. Call it 5000 plus miles. The Lenale fan is a definite winner in my book. Easy to install and works great. hardest part was figuring out where to remount the horn.
Used it a Sturgis this summer and I never worried for one second about whether or not the bike might over heat.
I consider it $200 well spent!

 

While none of it is absolutely necessary, I have concluded that a fan assist oil cooler and cylinder fans are necessary to optimize cooling, heres why. I have observed that there is a rather narrow band of RPM and speed where the bike sheds as much heat as it makes and that is somewhere around 50-65 MPH. The bike has two different high heat conditions; one is when you are moving slowly or sitting still when the heads don't have enough air moving to naturally dissipate heat, the other is when you are moving too fast or rather turning high RPMs and the bike is actually making more heat than the heads can naturally disperse even with air moving. Both systems together will get you as cool as you can get, cylinder fans to help when moving slow or sitting still, and the oil cooler to help when pushing it hard. I'm running this type of dual system set up now and in 70 degree ambient temp the oil was still up around 195-200 with my stock type tune. A lot of variables impact your oil temps, thats why so many people have such different experiences. If your bike gets too hot for your liking the way you "normally" ride it then do something about it, there are a lot of options.

 

Good info Morris9982. I think the automatic on and off is a nice feature. I don't have that on my set-up. I don't have to worry about turning the fan on, that never seems to be an issue. But I have found myself an hour down the road (figuratively speaking) with the fan still running as I have forgot to turn it back off once I got rolling on more than one occasion.

 

You are pretty electronics savvy, JayCar sells a frequency switch for about 50.00 that you assemble. It would give you the automatic function based on vehicle speed.

 

Actually, I'm pretty much of an idiot when it comes to electronics.

Funny story. If I look back to my formative years (1970s), electronics never really interested me. A wire harness or starter motor never had the same appeal to me as say a camshaft or a set of pistons. Who would have known back then, that today, just about everything mechanical is controlled by sophisticated electronics.

Everything in life has a learning curve associated with it. For me, if that "everything" has anything to do with electronics, the learning curve is steeper.