your opinions please!!! how long is ok to idle an aircooled bike w/o a fan?

[belome]

 

[sledge]

Personaly, and I probably speak for many others, I turn the engine off if it looks like I wont be moving for a while. Stuck in stationary traffic cant be cited as a reason to design the engine to idle indefinately when its possible to turn it off and restart it so quickly. Slow moving is a different issue, you will get some cooling effect while moving but the engine speed will be up and therefore it will be generating more heat. Can anyone give a reason yet as to why you would want to let the bike tickover for long periods despite the reccomendations of Suzuki??

[Blueknyt]

while im not an engineer, i did stay at a holiday inn express last night!


all aircooled engines that can handle sitting still have some sort of Fan/impeller  to move a certain amount of air for cooling.  a lawn mower, aircooled diesel,older VW engine and even Avgas Aircraft engines use forced air cooling. be it Idle/or Full throttle use air is pushed across the fins. Motorcycles are designed to move, be it fast or slow they are meant to move, they arent mobile generators, they dont have PTO's to drive equipment and yes they may be able to handle idleing on the kickstand for a good amount of time, but even from an engineer Veiw point, not one of them  designed a motorcycle to sit and idle for long periods of time. they may design around rushhour but even deadlocked for 2 hours you would be expected to shut the engine off.   3mph rush hour (walking speed) is enough air movement to keep from overheating if idleing.   watercooled vehicles can overheat idleing even with a fan.    good way to prevent it is to  1 have a HUGE amount of water/OIL (large radiator/oilcooler) or 2 vent the compartment (poping the hood letting more heat out)   

all in all there are extremely few engines built/designed with convection cooling for use on a fixed platform.  the mere action of compressing air without combustion creates a fair amount of heat.  ive seen aircompressors overheat and cook their oil.

the twins and singles can handle idleing without moving air better then the triples and inline 4's that are aircooled.   the singles and twins have more fins expossed per cyl then the triples and 4's,   the middle cyl's will cook pretty quick without airmovement. i still wouldnot push my luck idleing for more then 10-15 min (depending on outside temps) with no air movement regaurdless.   


this is my opinion from my expeirences, im not knocking your knowlege or skills as an engineer so please dont take it as such.   i also dont want to get into a pissing match over this as i have to do that at work all to often with my boss, over the neckties in P&D who can only seem to think on paper and drafting board and not in the realworld.

[Toledo Jim]

--- Can anyone give a reason yet as to why you would want to let the bike tickover for long periods despite the reccomendations of Suzuki??

How about a reason not to?



From the following thread: Melted Front Fender

http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=20846.msg196975#msg196975

[sledge]

I stayed at a Holiday Inn express at the weekend..........In Cardiff. I was gutted in the morning when I found out they dont do cooked breakfasts!!!!

[Wrecent_Wryder]

sds