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The heat is on.
With temps getting higher and that monster 1200 Trophy engine making enough BTUs to heat Alaska I believe that the stock radiator/oil cooler isn't enough to keep things from cooking in some of the slow and go riding.
I thought of adding another fan or putting an on-demand fan on to keep the engine less hot but I figure there has to be a more complex way to accomplishing that feat. I mean, a fan wiring job is simple and who likes simple?
I'm looking at where and how to use convection as a cooling mechanizim. Convection requires no moving parts unless you want temperature controlled louvers or something like that, won't wear out and should be installable and removable without modifying the existing body work.
Notice the side air vents in the fairing lowers? First, the vents are shaped wrong. They are thicker toward the engine and thinner outside so exiting air hits more surface area than if the vents were thinner. I said no mods to the body work so that is out. I thought about fans mounted to pull air from the engine and exhaust that out of the vents but we're back to wiring and probably modifying things.
Looking through one vent to the other side provides the solution. Heated air rises from the engine and gets trapped by the fuel tank. We all know that heated fuel is sooooooooo much better for engine performance right? Eventually, the heated air will escape but without anything pulling or pushing it, it relies on convection to remove it from under the tank. Where does it go? It flows up around the tank, it flows up through the headstem and from the rear of the engine it pours onto your thighs. When you are riding faster than 35 mph the movement of air around the bike is enough to suck the heated air out with some efficiency. Below that and in slow and go riding, the air is going nowhere.
What about a shrouded venting system using that same convection? How simple could this be? As simple as a piece of thin wall aluminum pipe cut in half lengthwise. You end up with a gutter. Invert that so the gutter is upside down (opposite of what it would be to hold fluid for example) and put that over the engine with the ends neatly running to each vent. Guess where all that super heated air from the engine goes? Yup, out of the vents. You could just leave it at that but then it would be simple. Why not mount a temp sensor in the middle of the heat gutter with a gauge on the console so you know the temp under there?
So this weekend I'll finish up the design and fab work and my Trophy's engine will run cooler, hopefully. I'm going to see if I can measure the fuel temperature as well to see if this design will provide some benefits there as well.
It looks like the total inventment other than time will be about $5.00 US. Not much.
I'm sure you could use some square channel stock or if you want, a number of small diameter gutters held together to form a multi-channel heat gutter.
I'll post some pics as soon as I'm done. As usual, the pics probably won't be ready as soon as I think but then sometimes it is more fun fiddling and riding than taking pictures.
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