Oil cooler test

I wanted to see how the temps were looking with the oil cooler plumbed into the overhead oil line. I did tilt my fan a little to provide good airflow through the coolers in the fairing.

The last time I checked this I was seeing oil temps in the spring pocket around 20 degrees higher than I did this time. That was when the oil cooler was plumbed into the sump return line.

The total run time for the bike was around 55 minutes. [but the video is not that long] The dyno load was set to mimic a level road and the speed was run between 60 and 70 mph.

I am happy with the results.

[video]http://youtu.be/X3p5uU0rdXE[/video]

Here is the temp sticker that was on the outlet tank of the oil cooler -IE, the oil that was going to the head.

Neato allowing us to sense the invisible. So Cooled head oil significantly helped oil stay in its design tolerance under 400'sF fry pan hot, cool. Did ya run head oil through both your large coolers?

hobot said:

. Did ya run head oil through both your large coolers?

Click to expand...

Yes, the coolers are in series.

Ugh, ya got like 2 floor tiles of cooler area + forced air so wondering how little a cooler might still be worthwhile up there. Hm. Peel could use the center down tubes as extra volume slow flow cooking area, but will take me more cogitation to balance out the mass simplicity factors vs cooler or finned tubes. Ugh would need a check valve in tube or may take too long to fill to feed head, never mind... I'm sure mine will be laughable though.

For a long time, the oil feed to the head was run through a metal pipe oil line.
Wonder how much that helped cool the oil going to the head. ?

For a long time before that, the oil feed going to the head was scavenge fed,
thus the oil was already hot (from the sump) before being fed to the head.
Metal oil line too, so again some cooling benefit there ?

A bit prone to cracking on the soldered joints though, so maybe why the Commando went to that plastic tubing oil line.
Anyone know precisely when that was introduced ?

P11's still had steel head tubes in '68 bit engine solid mounted. Going by what is seen in cooler sizes plain steel head tube not gonna cool very much to matter but in right direction. Oil just don't grab or release heat very fast.
Low power low temp engines only need a spriz of oil every 10-20 miles. Which appears/appeals best of these?

https://www.google.com/search?q=heat+tu ... ube+images

Rohan said:

For a long time, the oil feed to the head was run through a metal pipe oil line.
Wonder how much that helped cool the oil going to the head. ?

For a long time before that, the oil feed going to the head was scavenge fed,
thus the oil was already hot (from the sump) before being fed to the head.
Metal oil line too, so again some cooling benefit there ?

A bit prone to cracking on the soldered joints though, so maybe why the Commando went to that plastic tubing oil line.
Anyone know precisely when that was introduced ?

Click to expand...

My '63-'70 parts books shows 060394 metal rocker oil feed pipe for the Commando so likely the plastic pipe started with '71. The theory may not be the same for the Atlas as P/N 25192 rocker feed pipe was connected with a rubber hose P/N 22167.

I would suspect that the plastic oil feed line with it's larger surface area would dissipate as much heat as the steel line. IE almost nothing. Jim

Plastic has a much lower heat conductivity than metal,
so the metal pipe would radiate more of that nothing than the plastic one.

In some years of factory manx nortons, the oil being fed into the head (cambox) was via a little oil cooler
mounted on the front (featherbed) frame downtube, out in the breeze.

Jim,

Very valuable information. What was the ambient temperature in your shop when you ran this test? I am wondering how much higher it would be in summer time temperatures.
Have you run this test on a Norton without oil coolers? Thanks in advance.

pujadas said:

Jim,

Very valuable information. What was the ambient temperature in your shop when you ran this test? I am wondering how much higher it would be in summer time temperatures.
Have you run this test on a Norton without oil coolers? Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

The temp in my shop was around 70 degrees F with a strong cooling fan.

In the past I have run the test without oil coolers. The tank oil temp was a little higher and the oil in the head temp was at least 20 degrees higher.

On a hot day on the road after an hour the oil temp usually levels off around 50 degrees higher in the tank. I have not monitored head oil temps on the road. Jim