They stopped using that lame adapter method several years ago, and now the HD kits include an oil-pan adapter for installing the sender on the oil pan where it belongs. Back in '07 when I installed mine I just went over to Napa and bought the adapter for ~$1 and installed the sender in the pan. Those who placed it near the oil filter usually complained about false readings and slow response times--and besides, why clutter an already cluttered area with more paraphernalia when it doesn't work as well in that location? What's more, every OTG I've ever installed on a car or MC has had a pan-mounted sender, which like Jason said is the industry standard.

 

I shared this with Jason in an earlier PM, but I've done some tests on OTG accuracy and thereby formed some conclusions. When I installed my HD OTG in '07 I checked the oil temp with a meat thermometer and an IR-laser thermometer (ą4°F accuracy), and all measuring devices were very close.

A friend who installed an OTG on his '10 SG last year has consistently shown lower OT's than I have by about 20-25°. Last Saturday after a long ride in 85° weather I took IR readings of our oil pans and they were both roughly the same. After the engine is thoroughly heat-soaked the oil pan temp should closely reflect the OT, or has every time I've checked it. What's more, I changed my oil yesterday and ran the bike 'til the OT showed its normal summer state (205°). As the oil was draining I checked the temp with the IR thermometer and it showed 195-200°, and since I might expect marginal cooling in the 2-3 min. it took me to start draining, I maintain that this gauge is quite accurate.

OTOH my friend's is not, and Jason mentioned in another thread that he had tested an HD OTG and found it to be similarly inaccurate. Jason and I have a theory that HD is making them this way by design. Why? Well, I suspect that HD gets some grief from owners about OT when they can see what it actually is by looking at a gauge. Bikes without coolers can realize alarming OT's, and I can see owners flocking into their local service departments complaining about it. To mitigate this irritation, HD has simply fudged on the accuracy of the gauges. I'll stick to this reasoning until I see evidence to support another idea, and it would be interesting to hear the results from others who perform the same check.

As a side note to support this theory, my present car has a standard WTG in the dash. As most of you know modern cars use electric radiator fans and WT can fluctuate wildly, as the fans usually kick in well above 200°F and don't turn off until well below that temp. My older car of the same model had a gauge in the dash that showed real WT, but the newer car will warm up with the gauge never rising above above the one-half level. I suppose if WT exceeded the factory spec it might climb above the one-half level, but I've never seen it happen with this car in the 13 years I've owned it. I took it upon myself to install a separate VDO WTG--as well as voltmeter, boost, and oil-temp gauges--in the dash and it shows the full swing of temps as I would expect. Why did they re-engineer the guages to fudge like this? I was told by a dealer that they were getting too many warranty claims and complaints about the WT swings, so they wired the gauge through the ECM which "censors" (from lack of a better word) the gauge's readout. Perhaps HD has taken another route toward the same goal by simply making the gauges read lower than actual.

 

Well, that would greatly suck. I just got one of the HD Oil Temp guages and when I do my 1000 mile service I am going to put it in. I will check the gauge temp and then the pan temp and oil temp with an IR thermometer to see how close they are.

The gauges were on backorder and I just got mine a week or two ago, so it should be of very current manuf.

Are there other drop or bolt in Oil Temp. gauges out there that will go in the stock Air Temp gauge location with out a lot of custom modding?

Glenn

 

As I stated before I went Marlins OTG because they're made to replace your stock ambient temp gauge in either black or CVO silver.

 

In2It gave me info on this setup when I asked what everyone was using. I believe it's a direct drop-in gage.
http://www.marlins-motorcycles.com/i...tml?c19.html&1

 

Jason installed an Auto Meter that fits in place of a stock gauge. I believe he has his wired to a three-way switch that can toggle between OT, FCHT, and RCHT. If I were to do it over again today I'd probably go this route even though the Auto Meter doesn't match the stock gauges. If HD is fudging on accuracy that would be a red flag for me to look elsewhere.

 

The marlin looks very tempting seems like decent price point. I have been eyeballing the Dakota digital gauges.

 

Jason also told me he used the autometer gauge and the set he has for CHT readings.Was gonna go with that set up but decided I wanted to match my existing gauges and Marlins is a exact match,also they have the Cht sensors so you could purchase 2 one for front and rear. I just went with the single cht and switch set up that they sell,Marlins.I have boughten other items from them and they make quality products,and good service.

 

I need to clear up a mistake on my part. I had a set of slightly stronger fans to test, and I lost track of them, thought I sold them by accident to a local guy, but it turns out they have been on my bike for several weeks. I did make a quick comparision and I posted that they didn't make that much of a difference so I elected to stay with the lower power consumption fans. Well turns out it was accurate that the stronger fans don't make much difference in a static test situation, but in a dynamic, actual riding situation they make a pretty big difference. And my recent claim of cooling benefit up to 60 MPH was not with the same fans that the systems are being built with. I do appologize and it was absolutely unintentional. I'm going to switch to these fans but I just recieved a shipment so I may be stuck with the original fans for now, but according to everyones feedback they seem to be working pretty well. There may be some minor improvements to my system in the future but my goal was to bring you a great product from the start, I have no plans to try and upsell another "better" version next year. I learned my lesson with the oil cooler fan project about waiting to long to try to bring the perfect product to market, I had to get the FCS project moving, so it wasn't perfect at release, but its not far from it. Did I mention that with the low power fans I'm currently using in all of the sytems that have already shipped, the system cools better than the Love Jugs.
Jason

 

You are grounded young man!