captainchris13

When it is that hot you risk head damage. The metal near the exhaust valves is so hot the water is boiling locally there and preventing proper contact of coolant to the metal surface. Running a water wetting agent gains you the ability to get the heat out before it gets that hot. Running straight water gets you additional cooling power over coolant. Then you just need an anti corrosive to prevent it from rusting away. Doesn't work in freezing temps, I keep mine in the garage to solve that. I also popped the little metal bit out of the thermostat (the wobbly crimped pin) for a bit of constant flow improvement. This was all very easy to do (minus getting at the thermostat but I had to change coolant hoses in that area anyway), and has totally made this a non-issue for me. Best of luck.

Ya, after seeing a pic on an English forum of an air box FULL of acorns and laughing, I went and checked mine. Yep, acorns, poop, fur... It's happened several times now, I think I'm going to add some rabbit wire to the outside of the snorkel. My bike lives in my garage too, not outside. They also ate some of my tail light wiring insulation, I taped it, but it should probably be replaced.

Careful on that one, with the fan diabled and a tailwind ( happened to me in vegas) you get a zero airflow condition. I used to sell the JB stuff, i can still get it but they have agreements about you van only sell your assigned area. Mailing it out is a no no, but i dont work for them anymore. They are popular in hot rod stuff, and thats theyre main market. Hot rod magazine has done a bunch of heads up testing on a dyno and it always wins. Redline Water Wetter is similiar, but you still need an anti corrosive and lubricant to go with it. Getting rid of the antifreeze alone gives you more cooling power, adding a proper surfactant like the redline or jb cool is even better. Do worry about freezing though, you lose that protection. If i remeber right, a 50/50 mix of ethelyne glycol is like 80% of the cooling power of straight water, propalyne glycol is a bit worse again. I used to fix check engine lights in GM cars with it when they couldnt figure out the problem. Short version, your coolant goes acidic eventually and the dissimiliar metals in your cooling system turn into a slight battery. Stick your multimeter to ground and in your radiator fluid and see if you read dc voltage. The anti corrosive turns it to neutral PH, no voltage generated, and your sensors on your engine stop reading false voltages. http://justicebrothers.com/pages/products/products_carcare_radiator_additives.htm All their stuff is really better than 99% of everything else out there, they had a genius chemist years ago who formulated everything they have. Is there room on the second radiator to run a fan blowing opposite the first? Then therenis always airflow over a radiator under any condition... I dont remember how much room is in there, ,its been a while since i unwrapped the plastics off it.

Your exactly right, im not argueing that thats whats happening, and you dd a really nice job of explaining and documenting it as well. To simplify it, you have a reduced dumping of thermal energy at low forward speeds due to the fan 'fighting' the air moving across the bike. So the coolant has to be at a higher temp to dump heat. It does dump some heat or the engine would go into runaway overheat, just not enough. When the coolant gets that extra bit hot though is when you start getting hot spots in the head. So it does still cool the motor under that condition but not enough. My answer is simply to add a bit of increased efficiency to the whole cooling system ( maybe 10%?) and then it has sufficient capacity to deal with the condition of reduced air flow. I can ride slow speeds up steep hills for long periods of tme now in the dead of summer. I live on a mountain served by a 2 lane road that ALSO leads to a damn tourist destination, so i encounter this a lot. Answers like more air fliw over the radiator increases its efficiency, a higher pressure cap raises the boiling point and the higher delta temp relative to ambiant also increases its efficiency in dumping btu's. I just thought about tbe problem in a lazy way as i wanted to be riding and not reinventing my fan ( i did think about it, it was my next option if the chemicals weren enough of an increase) as in " whats the easiest way to get a bit more efficiency in the cooling system" Its just a much cheaper easier mod. The runaway head temp thing i used to get at idle too. It ould get to about 195f, then spike to 225 and not come down untill i rode 5 min over 30 mph or shut the bike down for 2 minutes. Both were annoying. When i finally get my torocharger, ill probably do the fan mod too... Now no longer need to worry about my cooling system, it just works like it should have from the factory.

Cool deal on the Fan mods, but its not the problem. The stock fan is adequate, but the coolant isnt. The problem you it is the temp suddenly surges p and won come down till you get some serious air and water moving in there. Ok, so what you really have ( and there is an old thread around here somewhere we hashed it out)is a localized boiling issue in the head area. Whe the water boils on the metal it stops cooln well as the forming steam insulates it from the water. Think of a really hot fry pan, drop water on, the drop just glides around for a long time. If the pan is a bit less hot, the drop of water sticks, tansfers heat efficiently andnthen evaporates. My last landlord is an old indy racer and sells automotive chemicals. Red line, justice brothers, etc... I tell him about it and he hands me two bottles. One was a cooling system protectant, so no corrosion issues. The other was a wetting agent, calld JB Cool. I added them into an empty coolin sys with bottled water. Solved. The 99% water mix is better than with coolant, the protectant you just need, the cool helps increase the heatbtransfer from metal to liquid and does a good enough job thathe meal never gets critical hot in there. If anybody wants some (their fuel injection cleaner is the bestnive ever used as well) you can look for a local JB guy or if nothing else i could help in shipping some out to you. I can sit at idle now in the summer and the stock fan keeps it cool. Im sure the lack of a weird hot spot in the head has got to help the head in the long run.

well, on my 5th gen, removing it made more noise, less low end responsiveness, possibly a touch more at high rpm. the lack of low end responsiveness and smoothness made me put it back in. i am runnig a custom exhaust, slightly highe than stock fuel pressure. dyno numbers dont show it because what you lose is at part throttle at low rpm and off idle. Switch it back and forth a few times and see if you agree. chris

stop riding it. NOW. take a Voltage meter to it, if it goes high (it will spike up over 15 if its bad) its already blown. get the 6th gen one and follow the instructions elsewhere on this site to replace it. you can damage the computer other things by running overvoltage.

well, i use a adhesive rubber product that i found at the track that adds a massive amount of control by being able to stick a knee into it and have it stick like glue mid corner. i had a mag knight, it sucks. its a slippery bastard on the knees, gets dirt stuck around the edges and causes wear marks on the tank, and is easily stealable. i cut mine up and just use the center 4" as a crotch rub protector. http://www.techspec-usa.com/gs/tank_protector.html i got the original stuff they made which was a laser etched micro pattern, they stopped making it and went with molded ones. :-( i think it cost too much to produce. ill never let mine go though. they are a strong adhesive, but leave it in the sun and you can peel it off and re-use it, so not permanant. but not stealable eitehr, someone did try once, didnt realize it may take 5-10 min.... \oh, get the generic panel and cut your own as big as will fit for best protection. pics in my gallery i think.

hmmm... the voltage is all in the RR or the wires too it if is too high. its not clipping the volts which could be the main pos lead overheating and increasing resistance or its overloaded. 14.3 is great. how old is the battery? could the battery have issues internally like broken plates? for 45$ i got an agm from batteries plus, love it. i used a 6th gen unit, works great!

uh, move? do you love the city or the bike more? choose. i say this because of the stress you put yourself through will shorten your life and make you old before you years.

Ya ok. i guess i missed it. in other news, the search function with my browser seems to never find much. other times, pages and pages...

so here is the triangle. 1999 5th gen rear susp link i had flipped it to the other side of the mount before when i had the rear end apart since it had groove marks on it. Now i look at it again, and it is stamped FR for front i take it, but when i measure it, it is not a symmetrical part. it is also stamped FR on both sides, pointing the same way. so what would happen if i were to flip it around on the same side and make it point not front? The top 60 mm dimension of swingarm to shock (to the inside edge of holes, add a hole dia for accurate dimension) would not change so it wouldnt stress out the shock mounts. the 54 and 58 mm dimensions would flip. Would it just lower the rear of the bike? Oh, the new spring just went in, why i had it apart. 1100lbs. WOW. :unsure: the stock is 15.3kg per mm or 850lbs (mine was tested at 14.9, erion edition old 929 shock and was 830lbs) that and .90 fronts and it feels pretty good, wants to stand up in corners though. tomorrow is futz with damping and day! might also drop the front end a scoche to get it neutral again. or i have a low tire...

So they seem faster and turn in better, but how much of that is the different tires and how much of that is just mounting a NEW set of tires since the old ones are worn out of profile and the carcass has softened and the rubber has hardened? I know every time i mount a new set of tires (regardless of brand) the bike feels waaay better and more nimble than it did before. my .02 chris

ya, i was about to ask the same thing. i think the weak link might be the aluminum stubs where they attach to the engine bolt. Why not just have a special hardened bolt made that is longer? that way you could bolt tthe sliders straight to it. aluminum tends to bend and crack and alum threads tend to give up in an impact situation. just a thought.