Is a Oil Cooler Needed?

[simon79]

The oil cooler is related to the faired models becasue here in Australia, if you get a 2004+ GS, the faired ones have the cooler, the un faired don't.

Based on the fact these are budget bikes, Suzuki wouldn't put on a oil cooler unless they thought it was needed.

Not only in Australia, I suppose. The oil cooler seems to be an F-specific feature everywhere the GS product line is sold.

As for a supplementary cooling being necessary in case of fairings applied, it may not be in some places such as Northern-Central Europe-British Isles (where GS's sold relatively well), but in a Mediterranean climate, say, as we have here, I'm afraid that a faired GS w/o an oil cooler would have a hard time from June thru August.
On my _naked_ GS I recently experienced a traffic-jam-like situation on a very hot afternoon (not one of the hottest, though) where my oil temp reached just short of 130°C.
My final opinion about oil coolers is "having one is better".

[qwertydude]

Even though it only cools oil when the bike is moving the greatly increased surface area even helps in traffic because one little burst of speed will cool the bike off much faster, with a fairing you're blocking more air so increasing the surface area would be needed. In 110 weather in stop and go Vegas I started noticing the transmission feeling stiff when the engine was hot one little burst of speed off a light was enough to keep it from returning for like another 10 minutes. I've ridden other solely air cooled bikes and it took like a mile before they returned to normal temps. Don't know how much different it is with the Non-oil cooled gs though I could approximate it by covering the oil cooler. I'll post back with oil temp differences in stop and go.