Oil Cooler Pros and cons

[fredintoon]

Hi Fred,
I believe the Venturer was the only model to have the cooler fitted as standard. See Motoman comment for reasoning.
Mine is still original with no leaks to report. Another advantage of a cooler is the extra volume of oil in the system.
To answer the question Where; it is bolted to the front of the frame high up/ just below the triple tree. The mounting holes are on all standard frames I think.
Temp to day in Toronto 35 C going to 37 C to morrow
Phil

Hi Phil,
and with nasty TO humidity too, eh? And the Special has those mounting holes too; I use them to hold my sidecar on.
OTOH, posts from the UK and Australia imply that most if not all of their XS11s come with oil coolers from the factory.

[Jamie]

I will throw my .02 in here on the subject. With working with many different size bikes/motors and living in Oklahoma, hot temps are something we deal with all too often. Recently, I purchased an Earl's cooler and am getting ready to install. With my experience with coolers, they will lower oil temps by as much as 20 degrees but most of the time between 10-15 degrees which is significant in my eyes.

I use braided lines and good solid AN connections and never had any leaks and also have one of the spin-on oil filter plates from our very own T.C. Hopefully there won't be any issues with this application and I will be glad to pass on pics once it's installed in the next couple of weeks.

HTH
Jamie

[Douglas Money]

"I believe the Venturer was the only model to have the cooler fitted as standard."

How can you tell if you have a Venturer? By serial number? Thanks.

[natemoen]

"I believe the Venturer was the only model to have the cooler fitted as standard."

How can you tell if you have a Venturer? By serial number? Thanks.

81 standards are the veturer. Only one that was.

[petejw]

all the aussie bikes came stock with oil coolers,
no idea why, it seems to get just as hot in the us
as it does here,
the only other thing i havent seen mentioned is that some
aftermarket exhausts (mac come to mind) wont fit with a
stock oil cooler.

[Pat Kelly]

Pros and Cons

I'm tired so I will ramble a bit.
Stock XS1100 with no oil cooler....
Air flows over the head and through/around the cylinders to dissapate the heat. As long as air is flowing then the engine is cooling properly as designed.
Adding an oil cooler puts a small radiator in front (and slightly above) the front of the engine. Hot oil is routed through this radiator and air flowing through the cooler dissapates the heat from the oil before the oil returns to the engine.
This will cool the oil but can this overheat the engine? The oil cooler blocks/restricts some of the airflow past the engine. The air that passes through the cooler is now heated by the hot oil so hotter air is now blowing over the engine.
Seems to me to be a personal call as to if an oil cooler is a benefit or not. In normal, everyday, real-world transportation it probably makes no dicernable difference.
That said, my stock E with the touring gear has a cooler on it. My LG with the 1200 big bore kit dosen't have one.

[James England]

All the European Xs1100's come with an oil cooler. There's no way that having an oil cooler interferes with engine cooling by disrupting airflow. Quite the reverse. I've never once had a leak from one. IMO, there are no cons whatsoever to having an oil cooler.

[kevxs]

Most oils can withstand temps of up to 230 degrees without breakdown, synthetics can go up to 250 degrees.

how the heck do you know what temp your oil is? can i get a guage?

being stuck in downtown toronto traffic when its 98F makes me nervous.
maybe i'm better off not knowing how hot my engine is getting

also i'm running 10w40 should I have 20w50 in it for these hot temps?

i do have an oil cooler BTW.

[James England]

how the heck do you know what temp your oil is? can i get a guage?

being stuck in downtown toronto traffic when its 98F makes me nervous.
maybe i'm better off not knowing how hot my engine is getting

also i'm running 10w40 should I have 20w50 in it for these hot temps?

i do have an oil cooler BTW.

I'd use 20/50 1005 mineral oil. You can buy oil temp gauges but what's the point of them, I ask? You find out how hot your oil is and can't do anything about it other than stop riding. I wouldn't worry about oil temperature personally..

[natemoen]

I'd use 20/50 1005 mineral oil. You can buy oil temp gauges but what's the point of them, I ask? You find out how hot your oil is and can't do anything about it other than stop riding. I wouldn't worry about oil temperature personally..

Personally I like to know. The more info you have the earlier you can spot and correct problems. As I go I plan on installing an oil temp, oil pressure, and a volt meter. Gotta think of a 4th just to round out the cluster.

[kevxs]

anyone know of a good guage for our bikes?

i found this one

http://www.getgeared.co.uk/MOTO-DETAIL_Motorcycle_Oil_Temperature_Gauge

but our bikes don't have dipsticks for some reason so i'm wondering if is a bad idea to install what is basically a dipstick.

[crazy steve]

...how the heck do you know what temp your oil is? can i get a gauge?

On these bikes, fitting a temp gauge is a bit of a PITA. Probably the easiest way to check would be with a 'no touch' thermometer and take a reading off the oil pan; that should get you close.

If you want an actual gauge and the most accurate readings, I'd mount the sensor in the drain plug and put a quick disconnect on the sensor wire. Or you could try and find a XJ oil pan and replace the low oil sensor with the temp one. As an alternative, you could splice a sensor well into the oil feed line to the head. If you do have a oil cooler, you could mount the sensor in the feed line to the cooler.

[crazy steve]

...i found this one

http://www.getgeared.co.uk/MOTO-DETAIL_Motorcycle_Oil_Temperature_Gauge

but our bikes don't have dipsticks for some reason so i'm wondering if is a bad idea to install what is basically a dipstick.

Those work if the probe is actually down in the oil, but as you've noticed, the XS doesn't have a dipstick. So we're limited to some sort of electric gauge (a mechanical gauge could be used, but I don't think the bourdon tube would survive long on a bike) with a sensor and remote gauge. Something like this: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/VDO-310012/ although I don't know if this would be weather-proof enough for a bike. You may want to look at marine gauges...

[fredintoon]

You can buy oil temp gauges but what's the point of them, I ask?

Hi James,
so you can park the bike before the bores seize or the bearings run?
They fit oil temperature gauges on aircraft don't they? And they don't put as much as an extra ounce on an aircraft unless they have to.

[Bonz]

Motoman's logic is right on the money in the technical sense.

I'll propose, to stir the pot... Similar to the XS engine somehow being designed out of ethereal properties and needing to run at a much higher rpm to function unlike all other motorcycles in the history of production, and different somehow than anything Yamaha had ever done, or done since (thus the FD swap, for example, is lowering the rpm too much and stressing the engine, heaven forbid...), Yamaha made secret changes to the '81 models, that necessitated an oil cooler or doom would ensue. SO, whatever you do, leave that thing hooked up!

Doom, I say, DOOM!