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overheating

softail00

Active Member
What temp does the bike have to be when it becomes dangerous to the engine. Does harley offer a liquid cooled bike?
 
I think it should be said that they are running hot because of the design and not that they were designed to run hot. The cam and fuel mixture has a lot to do with it.
 
As Glider says, heat on an air/oil cooled machine is based on the state of tune, frictional losses and design to shed the excess heat not used for combustion.

That said, HD has evolved the V-Twin to close to the limits an OEM can do on a mass produced machine AND meet EPA standards, and all the R&D to qualify said product. We may bemoan the MOCO for it's practices...but most other manufacturers of air/oil cooled machines stopped because demand did not match the R&D dollars to produce a competitive product.

Sure plenty of aftermarket product designers like S&S and others can squeeze more...but at a considerable increase in price and sacrifice to some degree the longevity of the base engine unless all the internals are redone also. Overheating as Smitty says is a bit overblown...lots of R&D has gone into heat management issues, and they could not afford to "blow it" and send defective machines out that would bankrupt them in short order.
 
I was on the strip of vegas and stuck in traffic in mid summer. My bike's oil got up to 300+ degrees and the engine & tranny swelled to where I couldn't put it in neutral within traffic. It freaked me out. I had to let my bike cool down for a few hours and it was fine. A few days later I put in the HD Screaming Eagle synthetic and my bike has never gotten over 250 degrees. It runs way cooler and I get more performance.

If your having some heating issues and concern, I recommend synthetic oil which your local mechanic will even recommend to run cooler.
 
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