I've read in a few threads here that it's bad to shut down the engine when it's hot, or let it idle, such as sitting in traffic. I'm wondering if it would be beneficial at all to mount a fan to the front of the engine/radiator. I have some large 12V brushless fans from servers that will push/pull quite a lot of air, and I can build a small thermal controller to keep it spinning at the right speed. Does anyone see any reason why this wouldn't work, or why it would cause other problems? (The fans are 12CM square, and pull 1A at 15V.)
you could put fans on it, but all the other bikes do just fine without a fan... :)
just keep an eye on your oil level and enjoy the ride :)
If it ain't broke, fix it until it is.
Only on rare instances did I ever notice my bike get too hot, shifting would get notchy until it got cooled off again on a long straightaway. Other than that I'd say it's fine. That particular instance was Las Vegas 115 degree weather in almost parking lot stop and go traffic for half an hour, can't split there so had to sit in traffic. So unless you're facing even tougher conditions than that you really don't need a fan. Oh and it always comes up that you're in the muggy south or whatever. Engines don't see muggyness and humidity, so 90 degrees at 100% humidity might suck for you but to an engine it's just 90 degrees which isn't bad at all compared to a sweltering 115 desert heat, again doesn't matter that it was a dry heat, it's still heat.
You'll just kill your battery. The GS will be fine, don't worry about it. When it does get super hot out, just check the oil more frequently... I rode in LA all last summer with no problems at all, even on days well over 100...
Quote from: electromage on March 31, 2009, 06:42:03 PMand I can build a small thermal controller to keep it spinning at the right speed.
what temperature would you measure and how? :dunno_white:
I was worried about it too. Not having a temperature gauge of some sort drove me nuts. Now that I've done a track weekend in 100 deg heat, burned very little oil, and it didn't miss a beat all weekend, I've learned to trust the design of this engine.
A great solution.............. to a problem that doesnt exsist.
Unless you regularly get stuck moving at walking speeds or less for extended periods, this is really a non-issue. If you do find yourself in these types of situations, get an oil cooler if your bike doesn't already have one. Somewhere around 280-300°F is where you'll start to break down regular oil if it stays that hot. A small fan to help move air through an oil cooler might help with this, but if you're moving slowly enough to create those temps, you aren't putting out enough voltage from the charging system to power the fan without draining the battery.
Drain the battery???? It's a little fan!? lol....how can it dramatically drain the battery?
I was thinking to put on a fan to hit the oil cooler as well....if I do it it will be later on, but I am not so sure now....
The drain may not be great, and in fact probably isn't, but if you're stuck in the kind of traffic which is likely to cause the oil temp to rise, you are probably running the engine at low enough RPM to not be fully recharging the battery anyway. If the charging system is not operating correctly, it only shortens the time till you are sitting on the side of the road waiting for help. Probably not a major issue, but one that should at least be considered before adding anything to the electrical system.
Quote from: vorBH on April 01, 2009, 10:15:08 AM
Drain the battery???? It's a little fan!? lol....how can it dramatically drain the battery?
I was thinking to put on a fan to hit the oil cooler as well....if I do it it will be later on, but I am not so sure now....
From a quick google search, most motorcycle radiator fans seem to be 60 to 80 watts, some as high as 100. The stock headlight has a 55/60 watt bulb. Running a fan would be like having an extra headlight running at minimum, probably more. The GS charging system doesn't have a lot of headroom and doesn't even charge anything below 3000 rpm so if you're sitting at idle running the fan and the highbeams are on, you're likely draining the battery.
Yea but....really....it probably takes like 1hr at minimum to fully drain the battery...no? even with that situation described above with highbeam and an 'extra light'
Quote from: vorBH on April 01, 2009, 10:52:44 AM
Yea but....really....it probably takes like 1hr at minimum to fully drain the battery...no? even with that situation described above with highbeam and an 'extra light'
I think you're overestimating the capacity of the GS battery. A week of going on short rides while running the fan would probably be enough to get you in trouble with anything but the newest of batteries. Why do all the work of adding a fan to a bike that doesn't need it and risk killing your battery and getting stranded? Also, I challenge you to find a post on this board about someone overheating who didn't have a crazy lean mixture. If your bike is running correctly, you shouldn't have trouble with it.
True true....but if my engine overheats and seizes...you owe me a new gs500 engine..deal? lol :icon_lol:
Quote from: sledge on April 01, 2009, 08:58:15 AM
A great solution.............. to a problem that doesnt exsist.
Exactly
A fully charged battery will read about 13.1 volts with the bike off. Somewhere between 11 - 11.5 volts is where the bike won't run. That isn't really that wide of a range given the relatively small reserve that motorcycle batteries have. If I regularly rode in an area where a fan assist on the oil cooler would be a worthwhile addition, I would probably find a way to turn off the headlight to reduce the power draw when the fan was on.
This isn't a problem that doesn't exist, it's a problem that few riders will encounter, and most of them will only do so a few times. My 82 GS1100E has an oil temperature gauge. A group of friends and I were returning from a trip to Niagara Falls, and got stuck in a backup at the border. It took about 20-30 minutes for the oil temp to get to over 300°, when the normal was about 240°. Another time I was stuck on a toll road in the Chicago area waiting to get through the toll gate in rush hour on a 1980 GS750. I'm not sure what the temperature got to, but form the way my legs were roasting, and from the condition of the oil when I changed it the next week, I'm sure it was over 300°. Anyone commuting in an urban area with toll roads/bridges could find themselves needing a boost to the cooling system on a semi regular basis, depending on their travel time and routes.
There we go makes sense, problem DOES exist......its an engine, it will overheat like any engine out there....But I never realized the problem of draining the battery (and I still think it won't be much, but thats because I am thinking like a computer fan hitting the oil cooler....connected to an on/off switch)
Anyone else know how to use and apply Ohms law?? Power = Voltage x Current
The figures are 2A total at 12v......that means the fans will draw 24w from the system, thats less than one half the power of the headlamp bulb.....and slightly more than 1 indicator bulb.
If you left it ticking over you would probably run out of gas way before the battery died :D
Quote from: vorBH on April 01, 2009, 01:20:17 PM
There we go makes sense, problem DOES exist......its an engine, it will overheat like any engine out there....But I never realized the problem of draining the battery (and I still think it won't be much, but thats because I am thinking like a computer fan hitting the oil cooler....connected to an on/off switch)
Wait, dude, you live in Toronto? According to this wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_and_climate_of_Toronto
The highest temperature ever recorded was 106 F and that was in 1936 during a heat wave so bad it was given a name! You would have to go on one heck of a road trip before you even got close to an area capable of being hot enough to seize your engine, and once you got there, you'd have to get caught in wicked traffic for a long while. I don't understand how you could possibly be worried about heat. If you feel like doing a modification to allow you to ride more often in extreme weather, put a block heater in the bike so next time it gets near -40 you can still get the GS to start. That would be a mod you'd be way more likely to need given your location...
I did say that the fan pulled 1A at 15V, it also pulls .78A at 12V, which is 9.36W. Probably about the same as the turn signals :) I was thinking mostly about the fan itself obstructing airflow when the bike is moving.
Quote from: electromage on March 31, 2009, 06:42:03 PM
mount a fan to the front of the engine/radiator.
If you can find a radiator to strap it to... Do it :thumb:
Quote from: sledge on April 01, 2009, 01:59:44 PM
Anyone else know how to use and apply Ohms law?? Power = Voltage x Current
The figures are 2A total at 12v......that means the fans will draw 24w from the system, thats less than one half the power of the headlamp bulb.....and slightly more than 1 indicator bulb.
If you left it ticking over you would probably run out of gas way before the battery died :D
I thought Ohms law was V=IR. The stock Yuasa battery is only rated at 11 amp-hrs, which isn't a helluva lot of reserve. If you're spending a lot of commuting time at slow speeds in hot weather, you could easily find yourself without enough reserve to withstand half an hour with those 24w added to the draw of the headlight and the rest of the electrical system. Until I get a motorcycle with an automotive type alternator putting out enough current at idle to run the engine indefinitely, I choose to be cautious when adding any extra electrical load to the bike.
For most people, adding any fan will be overkill, but if you do the type of riding that would make this mod worth doing, it would be worth the additional effort to add a voltmeter to monitor the state of the battery.
Quote from: jp on April 01, 2009, 07:05:47 PM
I thought Ohms law was V=IR.
There are 12 calculations based on Ohms law that will allow you to determine Voltage, Power, restance or current in a DC circuit....... V=IR is just one of them.
The OP is proposing to use 1 fan, thats takes us down to less than 10W, thats about the same amount of power as the neutral, indicator and high-beam pilots lights take when they are all on together............I cant see what you are worried about.
Hmmm well, when I am on the road in stop and go traffic.....engine heats up like crazy....and conveniently Suzuki didnt put any temp gauge (thanks Suzuki) so we don't know the temperature range....but all I know is that it heats up at night riding downtown....and even more in the daytime....we hit max 35-38 degrees celsius, and even more with humidity factor etc....this is not Alaska
Quote from: vorBH on April 01, 2009, 08:54:47 PM
Hmmm well, when I am on the road in stop and go traffic.....engine heats up like crazy....and conveniently Suzuki didnt put any temp gauge (thanks Suzuki) so we don't know the temperature range....but all I know is that it heats up at night riding downtown....and even more in the daytime....we hit max 35-38 degrees celsius, and even more with humidity factor etc....this is not Alaska
I ride around all summer in 46 degrees celsius and hotter in some of the worst traffic in the US and I've never had a problem. The bike does get hot, but head temperatures in the 176 to 204 degrees celsius range are widely reported and not a problem. You will know when the bike is too hot because you won't be able to get anywhere near the engine and you'll have to have been doing something like sitting in traffic forever. When that happens, just shut it off for a bit to let it cool down or get moving to get some air over the engine. The GS doesn't need a temperature gauge, there is no coolant to boil and the engine is built to go to really high temperatures and do fine. On an air cooled bike, a temperature gauge would just bounce all over the place anyways since the engine is constantly heating up a bit when load increases or airflow decreases then cooling off when the opposite happens. A water cooled bike uses the thermostat not only to shed heat, but also to keep the engine temperature much more constant, which is why water cooled engines can hold much tighter tolerances.
An oil temperature gauge would be nice, and won't fluctuate that much. I suspect the original poster would find that the high temps aren't really much of an issue for him. I really miss not having an oil temp gauge on an air cooled bike. The only thing I ever had to do to address overheating on my 1100 was to change the oil a little sooner because it got overheated.
Fitting a couple of CPU cooler fans on the rear of the F models oil cooler could be a good idea. (I'm sure they are 12 volts)
Just fit a switch that lets you turn them on and off.
Quote from: vorBH on April 01, 2009, 10:52:44 AM
Yea but....really....it probably takes like 1hr at minimum to fully drain the battery...no? even with that situation described above with highbeam and an 'extra light'
i only quoted you to get your attention.....
shouldn't the AIG jerseys have a price tag of $300 billion dollars ? ;)
nice site you've got there :)
sorry for the thread jack :)
I'm surprised everyone ignored the one thing you posted that really needs addressing. Someone told you it's bad to shut the engine off in a hot traffic jam?
Uh, not it's not.
When you shut-off the engine, the temperature begins falling and you stop wasting gas! :thumb:
Then again, what would cause someone to worry about overheating an air-cooled engine in Toronto? It's now April 3, and it's cool and raining. I'm in Buffalo, which is the same climate you have, and both of our hockey teams suck. It almost never gets above 30C in Toronto. You are obsessing over nothing.
Public education is in the toilet! :2guns: do-nothing public schools
Look at your bike. See the cooling fins. See that there is no radiator. Know the bike is sold all over the world for 20 years, and the Japanese have been selling bikes with similarly designed engines for 50 years. Know the bike has no reputation for overheating problems.
Suzuki engineers are smart people. Your bike doesn't have a temperature gauge because it doesn't need one. Why do cruisers lack tachometers? Same reason, don't need one! Now just enjoy riding it and forget about fans your engine doesn't need. If your bike needed a fan on the oil cooler Suzuki would have put one there.
Can anyone honestly say they have experienced overheating with an air-cooled bike? It happens but when it does its pretty obvious, symptoms include, rough and/or reduced throttle response, rough tickover and a general lack of power. The first thing the excess heat effects is the fuel-air mixture in the inlet tract and the way it burns as it passes the inlet valve. You will know about it way before any damage occurs and get the chance to do something about it i.e.....turn the engine off and let it cool.
other then the vrod harleys have been around for ever and theres no fans on them. gs500 has been around since 89 and suzuki doesnt think it needs a fan and im sure they test in higher temps then youll ever see and they didnt see fit to put a fan on the bike so i wouldnt block off the free flowing air while driving with a fan. if your sitting it traffic that bad thats not moving turn the bike off until your moving again if your only moving a car and then sitting for a while again push the bike until you can see traffics going to get going again. just my .02
Why is this thread still going?
GS500 designed to be aircooled = no fan needed. /thread
<cont thread>
But if he HAD fans, it would not matter if they drained the battery ... 'cause they could windmill in the airstream when he starts moving again, and act as mini generators to put 'lectricity back into the system!
Genius! I'm a genius! I should patent this.
</cont thread>
QuoteSuzuki engineers are smart people.
except for the one that designed the stock airbox...
and the rear shock, the gas tank, the front end, and the fairings. :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: :cookoo:
I've looked putting fans on mine and decided its not worth it. I even went so far as to buy a couple of fans to test fit to the oil cooler, but found that the fans and the accompaning brackets would block airflow while moving forward and might even interfere with steering as the oil cooler is very close to the to the fork. Besides I don't think that little oil cooler they put on the bike does much anyway. If you are really serious about better cooling I would look into fitting a larger oil cooler on the bike.
Quote from: tripleb on April 03, 2009, 10:00:43 AM
QuoteSuzuki engineers are smart people.
except for the one that designed the stock airbox...
Quote from: mach1 on April 03, 2009, 10:10:38 AM
and the rear shock, the gas tank, the front end, and the fairings. :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: :cookoo:
I don't agree. All that stuff does work just fine. Just because you're not happy with the performance you get out of it doesn't mean it was designed poorly. They designed parts that did what they wanted them to do at a price you wanted to pay, which was quite low. They did have to make compromises in design because budget wasn't infinite, but the GS is famous for being a reliable bike that's easy to work on and people have been buying them for 20 years. Name some other bike with a suspension design that's been around for 20 years that is better...
I will back that comment up. The parts mentioned are not generally service items and are "fit and forget." If the design Engineers had to work around the requirement that every bolt head should be easily accessable and every part should be easily removable there would be some ugly and poorly performing bikes out there.
The airbox is a bit of a bear to deal with, but not much worse than lots of other bikes. The shocks and front end were designed to a price-point, and not that hard to upgrade. But I would like to b!tch-slap the engineer who decided to have the turn-off valve for the tank petcock line up exactly with the drain tube from the gas cap area, instead of moving ONE of them a quarter effing inch forward or back.
Y'all are still talking about this? :dunno_black:
Amen, Fred! To say the GS has many design weaknesses is to completely miss the point of what this bike is made for. The GS is designed to be a reliable, inexpensive, fun-to-ride, nice-looking everyday commuter bike, and it is.
It's not a race bike. I think trying to turn it into one is fine to hone one's mechanical skills, but is otherwise a pointless waste of money... just buy a GSXR and stop screwing around!
The stock airbox was designed so you can ride this bike in a downpour. It does what it was designed for. Ride your GS in a downpour with your lunchbox and it will soon stop running when the engine fills with water. Wiser men than mach1 designed this bike, and every other bike in existence for that matter.
What else should we talk about that's more interesting, Chuck? Your new helmet? It's nice. There, now what do we talk about? :dunno_white:
Quote from: vorBH on April 01, 2009, 10:15:08 AM
Drain the battery???? It's a little fan!? lol....how can it dramatically drain the battery?
I was thinking to put on a fan to hit the oil cooler as well....if I do it it will be later on, but I am not so sure now....
Yes... The GS does NOT have enough power to charge the battery when idle... The engine needs to be above 5000 RPM if memory serves me right. Adding a fan in there to cool the bike down during idle is gonna cause more problems.
Doesn't matter to me what you talk about, just seems that it is a moot point.
Quote from: annguyen1981 on April 04, 2009, 10:00:56 AM
Yes... The GS does NOT have enough power to charge the battery when idle...
So.....how long will it tickover for before the battery reaches the stage where it doesnt have the capacity left in it to start the engine?
Sledge, that would depend on load, temperature, and the condition of the battery. The alternator is 190 watts if memory serves, so if you keep power use to about 150 watts or less you won't run into danger of running the battery down.
And 5,000 rpm is where alternator output reaches maximum. It can kick out enough juice to charge the battery at 3,000.
Having said this, there are two things that reduce the output of our alternator. Permanent magnets get weaker with age and especially heat, so if your alternator's lagging, the solution is probably a new rotor with new magnets. Magnet technology has also improved substantially in the past 20 years, so for those of us with older GS's, a new stator would probably help produce more output than the alternator had when the bike was new.
The GS is of an air cooled design and is engineered to take into account the expansion of the components at normal operating temparatures. When I've been riding at a (relaively) extended period at high speed (70-80mph), then I slow down to a regular city speed of 30-50mph the bike seems a little sluggish. But I just put it down to one of perception. When ever one has beeen tooling along at 70mph, anything less seems very mundance for a period. The newer GS's do have oill cooling, don't they? Would have thought that was sufficient...
bassman
Quote from: bill14224 on April 04, 2009, 11:56:35 AM
Sledge, that would depend on load, temperature, and the condition of the battery. The alternator is 190 watts if memory serves, so if you keep power use to about 150 watts or less you won't run into danger of running the battery down.
Yeah I know, dont think you are the only one in here who knows a bit about electrical-engineering.
Yeah, magnets do degrade and reduce field strength in permanant magnet electrical machines, its more of a problem in motors as it leads to a reduction in speed and an increase in current but I would argue that in a generator application such as this where its speed and output is constantly varying and there is plenty of spare capacity and the output is rectified and regulated the effect would be negligable............ After all, we dont see people having to replace rotors on a regular basis because the magnets go flat.
Regarding alternator speed and its relationship to its output......ask yourself a question, how much voltage is actually needed to keep a 12v battery topped up? Next time you have been out for a run and you get home with a fully charged battery put your voltmeter across it and make a note of the reading, then start the bike up, let it settle for a few minutes and while its ticking over take another reading.......you might be surprised.