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OK I've done three meetings now with a midly tuned engine and with the oil cooler removed and blanked off.

Bike seems to run fine I've not had any sign of an oil leak.............all I've noticed is that it runs a little warmer. The needle is inbetween the two red lines instead of right on the first one....................I suspect this is no bad thing and I've always thought my bikes were over cooled.

There is plenty of oil at in the camshaft area...........no strange noises a perfect and lovely running ZXR.

Cool, think I'm going to remove it but use the long hose from the cooler as a loopback in to the sump just to be sure.

i have taken the oil cooler off my H2 it seemed to stay cool when looking at the gage while riding, but when i turn the engine off it blows water out of the cap into the overflow.

Any ideas? it runs mint while out so not loosing power.

For the past two weeks I've been riding my 400s at he Manx GP a stern test for any bike I'm sure you'll argee.

For the race I was running a RMKD engine it is the best and fastest engine I've ever used in any 400 I've ever ridden and like all my 400s this year I was NOT using an oil cooler.
For a 150 plus mile race my bike did not miss a beat and the temp did not move outside the two red lines on the standad temp guage it was perfect.

Now all year up untill the Manx I've been using one particular bike and engine again with no oil cooler this bike seemed to be running a little warmer than normal but still within reasonable limits. I used this bike during Manx GP practise and it ran fine just showing that little bit of a higher temp.....................however at the end of a two lap practise session I was requested to perform a noise test this involves holding the bike at 6K revs while stationary.............the bike got very hot very quickly and as I moved off again water and steam was blowing form the top hose where it attaches to the radiator.....................this concened me a little.

So next day I swapped the radiators on my bikes and ran them back to back one lap (37.75 miles) each. This was an effort to see if maybe the ebgine that had got very hot during the noise test had blown a head gasket. I was intrugued to discover that now the engine that had bee running hot was now very much cooler and that the engine that had been running cooler was not running a bit hotter.

So by swapping radiators the problem had moved..............clearly the problem was with the radiator and nothing to do with the lack of an oil cooler.

I did this little radiator test long before using my RMKD engine.

I flushed out the suspect radiator with rad flush/cleaner and it show an improvment in reducing the running temp but it was still hotter than the other bike fact is it's very old radiator with lots of racing miles and many of the fins on the radiator are bent/damaged I reckon that is the problem..................

In the end I used the better radiator for the race along with my RMKD engine.......with no problems

For the record my 400 with the RMKD engine was consistantly the second fastest 400 Kawasaki on the speed trap.
I finished 49th in the race from over 70 starters and did my fastest ever 400 lap during the race..........................BIG THANKS are due to RMKD

And the little home made covers that bolted on to the holes where the oil cooler should have been stayed in place all two weeks and not one drop of oil was lost either.

cool

Thats good to know Cargo! I would have thought the rad has a bigger say in engine temp considering the size of it. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

cheers Cargo

that makes me think alot towards my Rad, as its an H2 rad so very old. ill make an L newer rad fit and c how it goes.

after last year, how many times did you check the tightness of them blanking bolts in the 2 weeks at the mgp cargo!?
If it was'nt for them tuned to fook shopping bike twins in the ultra's, you would of got a replica.

May sound daft but... (never stopped me so far) do you think it could be down to the radiator cap??
I know a duff cap can cause many issues and for under a tenner and a few seconds work it may have been worth swapping.
I too run without the oil cooler, don't have any issues. The engine was over heating but the fueling was WAY off which was the cause.

Think I'm gonna be sending an engine off down to Roger in a couple of months, get him to give it the once over.

Good Stuff on the Manx though, must be good. Not done any Road racing yet but planning on the Cookstown next year.

jake wrote:after last year, how many times did you check the tightness of them blanking bolts in the 2 weeks at the mgp cargo!?
If it was'nt for them tuned to fook shopping bike twins in the ultra's, you would of got a replica.

Sorry Jake I must gave missed this one.

The answer is of course twice a day every day LOL

Bloody 650s were very fast and they will be faster next year...................I want to get an ER engine into my 400 frame...................but getting an engine isn't easy. Might have to buy a whole one