What temp does your fan kick in?

Okay go for it, but my bet is, unless its freezing out side, that fans not turning off. And if you have ever been on the highway, with the fan stuck on, you know that being the fan is opposing air flow, it does more harm than good and temperatures sky rocket.

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I did a little hunting to find the average fan switch temp for a car/truck but didn't come up with anything.

Who knows what that might be?

I have a strong feeling most vehicles would have a cut-in no more than 195F, and I don't see why Honda saw fit to make it significantly higher for a motorcycle!

 

Side mount radiators are just a terrible design to begin with, but they saw it as the most cost effective way to package the v4 at the time. this gave them two fan options, pull ambient air from outside across the radiator which would work best in traffic, but be worse at highway speed as it would fight against the natural flow of the air at speed or option two push hot engine compartment air across the radiator. pushing would work great at any speed that keeps the engine compartment full of fresh air, but would be terrible while stuck in traffic. So then the engineers ask themselves, when does this bike overheat the worst, in traffic or at speed on the highway. The obvious answer is overheating while stuck in traffic. So now we go with a pull fan set up and decide how to deal with puller fan set up compromise. We need to make sure that fan doesn't get stuck on while on the highway, as it is not good for the fan motor itself and it will cause the bike to heat up faster than if there was no fan at all. Do we program so algorithm for engine temps and mph variables and let the ecu sort it out or do we just set the fan temp high enough (on at 225 off at 215) to give it plenty opportunity to turn off at speed?

 

Or we just do as everyone before you has for the last ten or twenty years, flip the switch on while in traffic and flip it off when you get moving.

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Higher temp for emissions to keep cat hot not for best performance of engine.

 

^^^^^^THIS

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I've been told 185-195 is best for performance, 175-185 may allow for very aggressive tuning (aggressive ignition mapping/compression/boost) with out detonation, but 215-225 is probably the cleanest.

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Understood it's a catch-22 situation, and I see the logic for many people installing
a reverse flow fan, and effectively that is still a catch-22..

I think the sequence (assuming all components are functioning well) should be

1. Lower temp fan switch
2. Manual switch, if #1 is insufficient
3. Waterless coolant if #1 and #2 are insufficient
4. Reverse fan flow (fan from a VTR I believe?)
5. Refit other radiators
6. Keep it parked in anything over 75-80F (unless all highway riding)

I do have a full aftermarket system with no cat, so while that may be a concern for those with a stock setup, it's not for myself.

I'm far more concerned with heat emissions than air quality (we'll let the 4-wheeled vehicles clean our air)

I'm just thinking aloud, please don't take what I say to be anything more than opinion.

 

1. Please try this. I already did and basically the fan will never turn off.
2. I have this and its great.
3. Water less coolant has terrible thermal properties and will only make the cooling system worse. Its already been discussed on another thread.
4. I tried this and it was horrible in traffic but great when over about 30 mph, basically the fan again never turned off with factory and low temp fan switch.
5. On my list of things to do one day
6. Lol I live in central Florida, so basical I would never ride the bike.
7. I am running catless and ceramic coated exhaust. doing this with proper fueling changes is the way to go. the factory bike is set up to run hot and clean (very lean fueling map from 3000-7000 rpms). Go catless, ceramic coat the exhaust and richen up the fuel mapping. The bike will run much better and cooler. The catalytic converter generates a lot of heat that just radiates right back into the engine compartment.

By all means don't listen to me and try it out for your self, I did the same thing 7 years ago (when I bought my 2007 in January 2009) and I wont judge you, but I will tell you exactly how it is and what will happen

 

Old old thread but anyway same topic, I'm wondering does it make sense at all to install a fan switch on my bike given that the temps in Ireland are never very hot and I never commute or get stuck in traffic, on the rare occasion I might encounter some traffic on a hot summers day here I can filter past them anyway.
The bike has survived 26 years and 27,000 miles without it. Suppose I answered my own question.

 

The thermoswitch is between the motor and earth; there is a positive 12V feed to the motor at all times, so it just needs the earth path to complete through the switch to start up. If you add a bypass switch from the thermoswitch spade then you are adding a new parallel switchable earth path, which means the thermoswitch will still function to start the fan if needed but you can override that and start the fan whenever you remember to. If switched on your fan will run until the ignition is switched off.

I also live in a moderate climate (25C is HOT!) so have not gone down this path either, and I also avoid congested roads whenever I can, so (mostly) temperature is no concern.

 

I usually wire in a parallel switch even with my (usually) milder climate and (usually) not commuting in heavy traffic. BUT, it is easy and is piece of mind if you may need it or if your thermo-switch fails at the worst time.

 

That's a good point, it's back up in case the thermo switch ever failed, might try and wire one in so before I put the fairings back on.

 

Well I decided to just fit a switch when I had the fairings off the bike anyway, I just fitted a simple on/off switch, ran one wire from it to a ground and the other wire I spliced in to the wire going to the thermo switch, very simple to do, sounds more complicated than it is,
these modern little connectors that have solder inside them are great, all you need is a heat gun, there is hardly any need for shrink wrap as the connector itself acts like shrink wrap, of course I had to use shrink wrap also, belt and braces