Different oil cooler?

[Darkstar]

Hi guys,
Basicly the oil cooler on my L3 has had it, it practicticly crumbles in your hand and has also got an oil leak now. :smt013
Ive been looking around, they seem hard to find second hand and very expensive new.
(also the quality of the originals doesnt seem great)

does anyone know of any other coolers that is a close match that could maybe fit with a couple of cutsom brackets?
Either that or Ive read people running without them all together? is that only an option for racing?

Thanks for the help.

[stevezx7r]

You can run the bike without the oil cooler but you'll need to replace the original rad with a larger one. Any oil cooler will do, so long as it's roughly the same size and you can make it fit

[cargo]

Good grief ANOTHER ONE


And best thing to do with the oil cooler is to put the weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee into it

[Mori Man]

Can pick you up a used one quick enough.

With having my dual temp guage I'm not convinced about totally removing

Today temp: 23'c

1st shakedown on mountain road , although not bumbling along certainly not on pace.
Average Temp's:
Rad' temp 80'c
Thermostat temp' 86'c
Oil temp at pulsar 103'c

City cruising Average temps:
Rad 78'c
Thermo 82'c
Oil 94'c

I will not be removing mine any time soon.

MM!

[Darkstar]

lol posted this a long time ago..
anyway since its been dug up, I never got a new cooler.
I removed it and its been running without one since, no problems as of yet.

Mori man, how did you get a temp for the oil at the pulsar? id like to see how hot this thing is really running
as the rad temp never gets over half way up.

and how hot is too hot on this engine?

[Mori Man]

Mori man, how did you get a temp for the oil at the pulsar? id like to see how hot this thing is really running
as the rad temp never gets over half way up.

Where you can fit an oil pressure guage you can fit an oil temp sensor too

Think you need to know at what temp the oil you are using breaks down , looses viscosity and the power to lube rather than just being wet.

Going to start making a chart of running temps with day time temps along side use ie. Thrashing it or poodling along.

I would assume racers change oil every other meeting so all this may be of no concern , I change my oil well before schedule so I'm covered but a bike used daily I would be warey of - remember a race bike is thrashed for two days maybe a 3rd then sits till the next meet. How many race bikes on the board are used daily ? I covered 80 miles today doing nothing much , typical track 2.4 miles @ 24 laps iys not a lot of abuse for the oil to take - race engines are counted in hours not miles

Be good to hear from a user with no oil cooler doing heavy daily/weekly miles constant.

MM!

[Tirpitz]

Got to say I'm with MM here. These bikes were built at the time with an eye to the 400 racing market, so they have not got clutter on which is not needed and is just bling (sorry MM ). If Mr Kwak (who is a very good engineer) fitted an oil cooler he did it for an engineering reason. You say you haven't had any problems - so you measured the wear on the engine internals when stripping it out and you've recently remeasured all the clearances? If you mean by 'no problems' that it hasn't wrecked itself yet that isn't exactly a scientific approach. You are probably going to severely increase the wear on your engine.

As MM says, the racers are less bothered about this as they are forever stripping down and rebuilding anyway. Arguably their right hand does more damage to their engines. Unless you want to rebuilding your engine annually I'd say stick another cooler on it, you should easily be able to source something about the right size and get a workshop to make you some brackets to fit. Make some templates in plywood, take the templates down and get 'em made up.

[Darkstar]

I never said I had stripped and mesured anything, Im not claiming to be anything but a novice here.
and thats the exact reason i just asked mori man about the temp sensor so I can see if it does make a noticeable differance.

Sometimes you just have to experiment.

[Tirpitz]

Agreed. But the point is that whilst the sensor will show you how hot the oil is getting that's not really going to tell you anything useful unless you know the maximum operating temperature of the oil you are using. Quite how you'd find that out I don't know. And clearly Mr Kwak DOES know that the temperature any acceptable oil will reach in his engine is way above what is acceptable during ordinary riding, which is why he added an oil cooler to the bike to keep it within temperature. So you really don't need to reinvent the wheel by doing all Kwak's research all over again with an oil temp sensor, just take it that the designer has already established that an oil cooler is needed and replace it. Otherwise you are going to damage your bike, no doubt about it.

The fact that the coolant radiator temperature doesn't go over half way is irrelevant, that's because it's doing its work. Would you take that off to see if it was really needed? If not, why do you feel it is ok to experiment with the lack of oil cooler? The coolant keeps the top end of the engine cool but does nothing for the bottom end, gearbox, clutch etc. The oil is the only thing keeping that within temperature. So you can assume that if the oil gets hotter, so will these components, clearances will tighten up and wear will increase. Add to that the fact that the oil may lose its lubricating properties, may start to burn and carbonise.

I really don't see the logic of experimenting with such a seriously important and potentially hugely expensive component. Not to mention the possibility of a high speed seizure.....

Just my opinion but it's your bike and your neck.

[cargo]

It's an old chestnut this one.


I ran two bikes at the Manx last year and not an oil cooler in sight......................both bikes performed as expected one did run a little hotter than I would have thought normal but when I swapped radiator the problem moved with the radiator.

In the race my ZXR ran flat out or at least as flat out as my swingers would allow for over 150 miles at both sea level and at over the mountain it was also a warm day

No issues whatsoever to report none.............................


I reckon Mr Kawasaki added the little cooler for bling just like the hoover pipes


And lets not forget that oil that is in the cylinder head is boing cooled by the cooling system and the removal of the oil cooler allows cool air to get to the engine instead of warm air from the cooler ? ? ? ? ? bit tounge in cheek that one

[Mori Man]

I am certainly not going to argue with anyone removing one - that is their choice entirely

But bling value I don't think so , most HRC motors go to the extent of adding extra cooling to the oil filter along with the cooler and 3 tier rad's

If you look at the FIII KRT bike not only does it still have it's oil cooler it too has a 3 tier rad.

At the track I will see bikes that were never fitted with an oil cooler as standard having one fitted, granted most race bikes don't put them low down at the sump as they generally move them up to the front cowl to keep the rider warm

Most modern builders now put the cooler in front of the rad where the engine is being exposed to wind blast heat anyways.

Now a bike they could have added bling value too with one is my ZRX400 - this was the original "Lawson Replica " and not the mistaken 11/1200's Indeed the sump has the castings where an oil cooler should go and the original S1 racer used one so for authenticity it should have had one too just like the Zephyrs. But alas it's not there, with further research this sump fits no other bike that has an oil cooler which can only lead you to believe that it had been destined for one but maybe over cooled the protypes so was scraped prior to production. Rather than making new moulds all they done was removed the machining of the sump pan from the production line

What we can all agree on so far is that on a race ZXR400 there seems to be no detromental effect to removing it and gains of weight saving.

On a road bike there still isn't enough feedback to determine if it is worth while or not but you can base your descision of removing by what's been said by those who have - it would be fair to say that 99% of them are track bikes.



If you haven't already gathered , mine is staying I also have an Earls for a Zephyr 750 sitting for extra bling value

[Robbie]

My theory would be
Road bike=sitting in stationary traffic running at slow speeds alot more hence more heat build up.

Race bike= flat out mostly so good cooling from airflow.

My race bike had the cooler removed with no issues btw.

[AFM327]

My bikes never see the road, only the race track. I still have the oil cooler but it's probably coming off with the next rebuild. Unless it's over 100 degree fahrenheit/38C outside I need to tape up most of my radiator to get it up to the correct operating temp.

[cargo]

My bikes never see the road, only the race track. I still have the oil cooler but it's probably coming off with the next rebuild. Unless it's over 100 degree fahrenheit/38C outside I need to tape up most of my radiator to get it up to the correct operating temp.

So far this year I've only been running the one bike and it's got a kit raditor from a 1997 CBR600 on it works a treat and needs tape to get warm.
Certainly solved the hot running I noticed at the Manx

[Tirpitz]

Deffo think there is some difference between a bike with no oil cooler travelling at ballistic speeds around a race track with a gale force wind being forced over the engine, and a road bike getting stuck in slowish trafiic in town after a A road blast on a scorching day. Race bike may well not need the cooler, road bike circumstances are somewhat different.

Add to that, how many racers leave their oil change to 6000 miles, as recommended for the road service schedule? None that aren't 6-foot under owing to a siezed engine I'd guess. If the oil starts deteriorating owing to excess heat in a race engine it will be changed soon anyway - not so on a road bike. And the engine in a race bike will be refreshed a sight more frequently than a road bike gets stripped.

Road / Race - not valid comparisons methinks