oil cooling

spiney · Oct 19, 2005

just an idea to sink or swim

how about oil cooling rather than water cooling? I know the heat capacity of water is greater than oil, but suzuki have used it to good effect on early gixers, bandits and the DR800 much beloved of singles racers :wink:

so, could a berg swap it's water for oil, thereby doubling it's capacity, and be integrated into the oil circuit? I know it's not as simple as suggested, but DISCUSS

brookester · Oct 19, 2005

:tool:

brookester

Taffy · Oct 20, 2005

my first thought is that a puncture of a water jacket ain't in itself going to munch the engine but with an oil cooler you can kiss it good bye!

next, oil coolers used to appear on bikes with fins and they clog up on the dirt-which isn't nice!

that is all i can think of....

unless someone else knows better!

regards

Taffy

BM36 · Oct 20, 2005

Why not?

The benefit of integrating the cooling system with the oil system must be that approx. 1.5 litres of oil will be added with decreased weight of the bike (not much but the density of oil is less than water).
More oil will increase service intervals, makes the bike less sensitive of leakage, the bike will warm up faster because of the lower heat capacity, no anti-freeze needed. Perhaps there is even more to gain.
One problem might be that a check valve is needed in order to prevent oil to overfill the crankcase at standstill.

spiney · Oct 20, 2005

brookester said:
:tool:

brookester

knob

spiney · Oct 20, 2005

Taffy said:
my first thought is that a puncture of a water jacket ain't in itself going to munch the engine but with an oil cooler you can kiss it good bye!

next, oil coolers used to appear on bikes with fins and they clog up on the dirt-which isn't nice!

that is all i can think of....

unless someone else knows better!

regards

Taffy

the fins on oil cooled suzukis are very shallow so clogging up isn't really an issue. Anyway, many moons ago, Suzuki used to run oil cooled DR750/800s in the Paris-Dakar to good effect and the oil cooler on my old DR800 was very small. Obviously the rad on a berg has a large surface area, but it is designed to pass water so perhaps the passages won't pass cold viscous oil.

I know this is not an easy proposition as the water pump is a low pressure circulating pump and there would be issues about where all the oil goes on shutdown. 2.5 litres in the sump would not be good 8O

I posted this more to do with exploring the basic concept of oil cooling and the benefits of a larger oil capacity that that would deliver.

rtevis · Nov 15, 2005

I would suggest trying some Two2cool oil additive. Have been running it in woods bikes for years and see a minimum of 20 degrees F temp drop. Also run it in my sons's ktm50 w/ autoclutch and see closer to 35 degree drop.

Yes, I too was an oil additive skeptic.

Give Norman a call or drop him a line. He'll be glad to talk to you.

www.two2cool.com

Rick

foxe · Nov 27, 2005

The first generation Suzuki GSXRs ('85-'92) utilized oil cooling with mixed results. If you could keep the oil cool it worked great. But as soon as the oil heated up power dropped off and it was hard to cool them back down. I remember the high hp bikes would run three oil coolers (one in the stock location, the second in the nose where the headlights used to be, and a third one under the rear cowl section) just to try and keep it cool.
I think in an offroad bike that didn't see high speeds to keep the oil cool it would heat up real quick and stay hot and cook the motor.
Ed

doctorcorey · Nov 27, 2005

Oil is a rather poor heat exchanger; if it wasn't slippery we wouldn't use it at all. :roll:

LeFrog · Nov 27, 2005

I own a DRZ 250 which I used to ride and it is oil and air cooled. It has a tiny little radiator and it works fine, but it is small displacement bike.

Note that I rode it way hard, pinning it most of the time to get all of the "power" out and ended up busting the top gaskets, but it still runs fine, which is very ackward.

It is when I cross a river up to the tank that I realize how hot it actually runs, because of all the vapor.

Oh and of course it's the same oil for the motor, the gears and the radiator.

spiney · Nov 29, 2005

foxe said:
I think in an offroad bike that didn't see high speeds to keep the oil cool it would heat up real quick and stay hot and cook the motor.
Ed

I don't disagree with some of your points, but the DR800/BIG was used in the Paris/Dakar to good effect which is a tough, hot environment.

Suzuki still persist with oil cooling in the 600/1200 Bandit range and other ranges including new to market bikes.

I don't know, it just seems to me that a weakness of the 'big dirt bike based single' is low oil capacity and cooling. Doubling the oil capacity and using it to cool using oil coolers of the larger than average surface area that exists on the current berg range has some merit perhaps?

dsducati · Nov 29, 2005

Lets hope Husaberg doesn't revert to oil cooling. Oil is for lubrication and cooling of localized internal hot spots. It (the oil) then need cooled. The mass of heat is best removed the way it is i.e. water cooling. Every time I do 2 hard runs up Comp hill at Buttercup with my wifes lovely EX 400 Honda I have to let it cool off to ward off preignition.
dan

foxe · Nov 29, 2005

I had to do a quick search to find out about this suzuki you mention. Several observations. Prior to 1991 it is listed as air/oil cooled. I take this to mean that the cylinder had cooling fins to facilitate cooling and the oil was used only for the head and bottom end cooling. When oil cooling was mentioned in this thread it was the intent to replace water and rely solely on the oil to cool the motor (ala the GSXR). To convert to a DR800-type air/oil cooling system, you would have to remove the water jacket, add cooling fins to the cylinder liner, and seal the head/cam chain area (Don't laugh, at the shop I used to work at a guy that had a Suzuki Intruder wanted to do just that to make it look like a Harley-Davidson and he was real serious). I don't totally discount the idea of an air/oil cooled motor, in fact I believe that about 50% of the offroad riders would be perfectly happy with an air cooled, twin shock, conventional forked bike. But that is another topic for another thread.

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