TXC449 Oil cooler?

[Tinken]

Why not a traditional cooler? These will take the oil heat and put it into the water system.

Ah yes, an excellent question. In testing the 449 platform, Ty Davis of Zip-Ty racing found the oil temperatures to be between 320 to 350°F (normal temps being closer to 300°). This is caused by an unusual alloy combination in the making of the Kymco engine in that the lower cases are poor conductors of heat and tend to hold their heat in. Tests were ran using traditional cross flow oil coolers, sandwiched both in front of and behind the radiators. Oil temperatures were only dropping approximately 10°, clearly not worth the effort to create the entire system. The exchange of heat using a heat exchanger far exceeds that of an air-cooled oil cooler and are far less susceptible to damage.

 

[Rearwheelin]

I think the system will create inefficiencies in the lubricating system . You might get more oil faster to the top end sooner when rpm's climb fast with it in stock form. Also there might be a benefit to less air bubbles in the oil with these add on exchangers/capacity increasers.

 

[Tinken]

I think the system will create inefficiencies in the lubricating system .

Are you saying that my design has inefficiencies? Or all designs?

I wonder if SpeedBrain knows about this? Every one of their new race bikes for sale have a oil cooler installed.

Technical data:

Water-cooled, 4-stroke single-cylinder engine, two overhead camshafts, four valves, dry sump lubrication with oil cooler,
Electronic intake pipe injection / digital engine management

 

[McKay]

Ah yes, an excellent question. In testing the 449 platform, Ty Davis of Zip-Ty racing found the oil temperatures to be between 320 to 350°F (normal temps being closer to 300°). This is caused by an unusual alloy combination in the making of the Kymco engine in that the lower cases are poor conductors of heat and tend to hold their heat in. Tests were ran using traditional cross flow oil coolers, sandwiched both in front of and behind the radiators. Oil temperatures were only dropping approximately 10°, clearly not worth the effort to create the entire system. The exchange of heat using a heat exchanger far exceeds that of an air-cooled oil cooler and are far less susceptible to damage.

My question is more inline with what do we do now with the water that is now hotter? What did they he see for water temp rise, there has to be one and its not a linear rise due to the different thermal characteristics of oil and water. What drop did they see using the exchanger on the oil?

Flows (read contact time) must be right for these to work BTW.

 

[McKay]

Don't get me wrong here, I think your 'Tinkin Tinkering' is great as your messing in areas I make my living in.
My interest is peaked.

 

[Tinken]

Yes, I do tinker, old nick name of mine is Tinken. haha. I am not really in the retail side of things like Ty and Kelly, this is just a hobby for me.

I believe the small testing that Ty did with the heat exchange was nothing more than tubing welded to the radiator. I think he said that he received a 20° drop in oil temps from that. A small tube welded with contact and a real heat exchanger are two very different things. I am hopeful to see a 30-40° drop if not more and that the cooling will help the torque limiter and clutch to survive better during the high stresses of racing. Even at 302°F, oil with the grades of 40, 50 and 60 weight all have a viscosity of 3. To me, that is pretty thin.

I know there will be a rise in coolant temperature, but I am unsure how much. I say coolant because I no longer use water and neither did he. My coolant over boils at 400° degrees @ 1 atmosphere. Testing needs to be done for sure. I am unsure of the survivability of this modification if regular water/ethylene glycol coolant is used, especially at slower speeds.

 

[Tinken]

Here is another heat exchange system I have been looking into. If I were to build my own, it would be similar to this one.
No where near as efficient as the Laminar, but I could control the size of it. Coolant flows in via the black nipples at either end.
Oil flows in through the top fittings. The small holes are actually tubes that run length wise.

 

[McKay]

"My coolant over boils at 400° degrees @ 1 atmosphere."

Now I'm really interested, what is this magic fluid? Is the system even capable of 1 atmosphere (14.7 psi)? That's pretty high. Cant remember what our caps dump at stock, 6 maybe?

 

[McKay]

Here is another heat exchange system I have been looking into. If I were to build my own, it would be similar to this one.
No where near as efficient as the Laminar, but I could control the size of it. Coolant flows in via the black nipples at either end.
Oil flows in through the top fittings. The small holes are actually tubes that run length wise.

No reason to re-invent it, it already exists in many sizes. Duda can get you close. These are plate exchangers, better at handling small systems with rapid flows like you are experimenting with.

I use these to cool my beer on transfer to the fermenter! They work great!
http://www.dudadiesel.com/heat_exchangers.php

 

[Tinken]

Oh sweet, those are pretty cheap. Are they pretty high flow or no?

 

[McKay]

Oh sweet, those are pretty cheap. Are they pretty high flow or no?

They will handle what your doing just fine, I would only be concerned on head pressure on the oil pump at cold arse temps, a thermal bypass may be needed for that.

 

[Tinken]

I use Ty's XF coolant, it is the same as Evan's, he is their west coast distributor. What I meant by 1 atm is pressure @ sea level.
http://www.ziptyracing.com/xs-coolant-1/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propylene_glycol
Boiling point
188.2 °C (370.8 °F)

 

[Tinken]

Looking at the square heat exchangers - Now I'm thinking, Where am I going to put that?

 

[Tinken]

They will handle what your doing just fine, I would only be concerned on head pressure on the oil pump at cold arse temps, a thermal bypass may be needed for that.

I wouldn't be running 20w60 through it, that's for sure. I run 0w40 personally, but I'm sure 10w or 15w## would be fine at pretty cold temps.

 

[Tinken]

There's three locations I can put the heat exchanger. I would prefer to put it somewhere I can feed it with hot engine coolant, preferably inline. A second location is inline on the left prior to entering the engine. And lastly, it can be sandwiched onto the side of the cylinder where my oil breather is, I would have to move it to the other side.

 

[Tinken]

I wonder what this thing weights?

 

[Tinken]

How much? Need a tester. Still might try and race bike in BITD this year.

I made 3 adapters, I decided that I am keeping one of them and selling off the other two. I won't be making anymore, when they're gone, that's it. I wish had more, but they are a huge trouble to make.

 

[McKay]

There's three locations I can put the heat exchanger. I would prefer to put it somewhere I can feed it with hot engine coolant, preferably inline. A second location is inline on the left prior to entering the engine. And lastly, it can be sandwiched onto the side of the cylinder where my oil breather is, I would have to move it to the other side.

That's another story altogether.

 

[McKay]

What I meant by 1 atm is with no pressure @ sea level.
188.2 °C (370.8 °F)

We cant have both, one atmosphere equals 14.7 psi at 59F SSL (standard sea level)
You may be referring to PSIG which takes account for the local atmospheric level at measurement and makes it transparent to the gauge reader.

What is the stock cap rated at?

 

[Tinken]

1.8 bar, so 26psi or so