Does any body have a high heat problem running down the road? I don't. The problem is when in slow city traffic or when stopped idling, so IMO an oil cooler is a waste. It aint gona do didly when your stoped because no air is flowing through it. Maybe I'm off base(which is known to happen) but I just don't see the advantage. The real adevantage is getting away from the lean (EPA mandated) factory settings. Like I said just my .02 cents.
Probably need to do both; tune and oil cooler. If the basic engine had sufficient area to dissipate heat (cylinder, head, and oil pan surface area and fins, for instance), perhaps an oil cooler wouldn't be needed. However, H-D has made the engine significantly bigger from when it was originally designed, the emission regulations are much more stringent, and due to styling considerations they didn't see fit to drastically increase the finning of the cylinders and heads. Consider if you will H-D's own decision to add oil coolers to the Touring 103 and 110. They wouldn't have done that, along with a change to synthetic oil, if they didn't think it was absolutely necessary to protect the engine (at least while it's under warranty). For years they told us oil coolers weren't needed, and they refused to "bless" the use of synthetic oil. Do you really think they backtracked on both of those items without darned good reasons to do so? I don't.
Very true, unless you add a fan an oil cooler doesn't do squat when you're sitting around idling in traffic. But once you get moving that oil cooler will help to more rapidly stabilize the oil at the desired temperature rather than just let it continue to cook. And when the outside temps get ridiculous, as in 90 plus degrees, even if you don't sit in traffic the cooler will make a difference. The real shame of the situation is that H-D once again chose style over function and buried the cooler down behind the front fender and wheel instead of putting it up in the direct air flow, used a fairly restrictive design, and then reduced effectiveness even more with a chrome cover.
My opinion, get a good tune
and add a cooler to those bikes that don't have one. If you have a Touring model with the H-D cooler and you ride in extreme heat, it would also be a good idea to look at upgrading the cooler to a better aftermarket setup. JMHO, of course.
Jerry
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Topic: Oil cooler (Read 2195 times)