The only problem with that Ken is that it only cools down the rear cylinder, and the front has to actually work harder to keep the bike running so I'd bet the temp actually goes up on the front. A smarter idea would have been to alternate the cylinders, but that wouldn't have reduced the heat felt by the rider as much.
I agree that a better tune and gutting the emissions system helps, but there will likely come a time when those options won't be available. Then Harley will have to finally learn how to make their bikes emissions friendly and not melt either the engine or the rider, all at the same time. It can be done, even without water cooling, if they really wanted to spend the effort and money to do it. So far they prefer to let the customers do it for them, at the customers expense and the MoCo's profit.
Jerry
Amen, Brother Jerry! And we are all gullible enough to spend a lot of money buying these bikes, and then spend even more money making them run like they can and should! We're lucky the EPA Overlord hasn't yet cracked down on the entire Harley aftermarket, and like you I'm sure they will eventually.
I would welcome liquid-cooled Harleys, if it helped with the heat and didn't need to run so lean to meet emissions. Other manufacturers have done liquid-cooled V-Twins for years, and they sell. The MoCo needs to understand that the Harley-buying public will accept liquid cooling if it makes the bikes run better. Perhaps the Softail and Dyna folks might have a problem with the looks of a big radiator out front, but those us in the bagger crowd probably wouldn't even notice it.
Now that Willie G. is gone, perhaps the MoCo will step into the 21st century of engine technology and not be so overburdened with the traditions of the big air-cooled V-Twin. Heck, my 1985 Kawasaki Eliminator 900 was liquid cooled, and would turn a sub-11 QM, and go from 0-60 in 2.7 seconds... BONE STOCK. And that was 28 years ago!
The new-Harley-buying public is no longer made up of the "biker gang" types, and hasn't been for a long time. I dare say that most Harley buyers would very much like a motorcycle that performs well, is reliable, and doesn't cook them or go into EITMS mode constantly. Liquid cooling would probably be the easiest way to make that happen, as all of the metric manufacturers adopted long ago.
There are not many big air-cooled manufacturers left... Indian's new 111 is air cooled, and it will probably run as hot as fire, too. There's a reason the auto industry dispensed with air cooling decades ago... Water is 3600 times as dense as air, and is much more effective at heat transfer.
When I was with IBM in the 80s and we still made big, expensive, water-cooled mainframe computers... And our competitors like Hitachi and Amdahl were all air-cooled... We used to ask customers "If you were on fire, which would rather I do... throw water on you, or BLOW on you?" That generally ended the debate!
Ken
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Topic: 2013 SEUC rear cylinder shut off in cool weather (Read 3794 times)