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Oil cooler and lines upgrades?


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Hi everyone.

 

So i have removed the bike's sump, oil cooler and lines and they are rusty as hell!

 

What options are out there for an upgrade? The stock gen 6 cooler is TINY- what other coolers fit?

 

Thanks

 

Luke.

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Curious about this, too, as the last time I looked into this I didn't find many options.  

 

The OEM oil cooler lines exit the engine case via small, one-bolt flanges.  The A&A supercharger kit on my yellow bike replaced these with AN-threaded replacements, but these flanges are no longer available.  The cooler elements themselves are difficult to upgrade, due to their being small and not having AN-threaded connections.  Best bet there is to find a larger one on a different Honda, which would use the same connections.

 

It shouldn't be too hard to machine the right parts to fit different oil lines, but when it comes to small batches of machined parts, it's always easier said than done...

 

Ciao,

 

JZH

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Lots of examples on the forum where people have made different solutions.  Stainless steel flex hose using the original fittings, or retapping the sump and cooler for standard fittings seems popular.

 

I ordered new OEM lines from Honda last year and just waited for them to come in.  They are still out there, or were last year.  

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Came across this

https://www.twtex.com/forums/threads/honda-vfr-oil-cooler-swap.49827/

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Good write up by Mohawk some time back on this subject.  Click on the links in the thread for photos.

 

 

This thread used to be on VFRD, not sure what happened to it - maybe it began on this website.  Regardless, it gives direct comparisons between 5 & 6 G coolers as well as RC51.  Also  shows a Hyabusa cooler. For a G6 nothing  will be plug and play, space and mounting options are limited. 

 

https://www.twtex.com/forums/threads/honda-vfr-oil-cooler-swap.49827/

 

 

 

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Is there any resulting data from this mod? I like the idea...but it seems like coolant is the heater, not oil, right? Or is he trying to extend oil life? 

 

While the 5th gen runs warmer than some of my other bikes, it still seems well in the realm of AOK as long as there's no air bubbles in there. 

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Not really required. I added temp sensors to the cooler lines & the VFR does not get that hot to worry about. The cooling system can get warm, but not too hot if everything works as it should. A simple tip for anyone in a warm

environment is to reduce the anti-freeze percentage, as it is a poor coolant & distilled water is an excellent one ! In UK summer temps 20-35c mine runs @ 75-84c when moving. 

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1 hour ago, Mohawk said:

Not really required. I added temp sensors to the cooler lines & the VFR does not get that hot to worry about. The cooling system can get warm, but not too hot if everything works as it should. A simple tip for anyone in a warm

environment is to reduce the anti-freeze percentage, as it is a poor coolant & distilled water is an excellent one ! In UK summer temps 20-35c mine runs @ 75-84c when moving. 

While I agree with the comment in principle (which I would restate as the specific heat of ethylene glycol is half that of water, hence it takes less energy to raise a water-glycol mixture by a degree than pure water) there are other beneficial effects from the presence of glycol, namely it reduces the freezing point of the mixture so makes it less likely for the liquid to freeze (and expand and cause mechanical damage) while the bike is parked up, and it increases the boiling point so the cooling system can still operate at higher temperatures without spewing steam and coolant out of the breather. The mixed coolants also provide corrosion resistance.

 

I stick to the recommended 50:50 mixture recommend by Big H. My '99 also runs happily through a New Zealand summer at around 78°C under all throttle conditions as long as there is good radiator airflow. My opinion is that the limitation of the VFR cooling system is more likely to be the rate of heat transfer from the hot surface of the radiator to the air than the rate of heat absorption from the hot engine to the coolant, hence the coolant used won't actually affect the running temperature of the bike. Using pure water will increase the heat-up time from cold, and will slow the rate of rise when the bike is stuck in traffic, but won't actually change the peak temperature that is ultimately reached. YMMV.

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Water Wetter in the mix? 🙂

 

image.thumb.png.0b025889a1c1fd3e130dc66286b08705.png

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That looks like a label that belongs on any coolant concentrate based primarily on ethylene glycol.

 

Did you know that water will boil at 102C even with a decent working radiator cap that holds 1.1 Bar? That is awfully close to the fan cycling temperature, so it seems extremely likely that you could start boiling the coolant as soon as you get slowed in traffic, if you used pure water. Boiling creates steam and that blows gas through the coolant reservoir and pukes out the contents. I don't think I would ever use straight water in my bike. 

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Some good info here!

 

I have got a VTR1000 4 row oil cooler on it's way from Japan.

 

It comes with all the fittings so i can play around with them and still have my original ones spare if it goes wrong.

 

I'm going to try braided rubber lines and clamps attached to the oem fitting on the sump.

 

20240110_152550.jpg

20240110_215117.jpg

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