On my '00 the temp is between 178 (highway) and 220 (stop and go). last year, after a tune up done by the local Honda shop, my bike got up to 240 on the way home, Found out they did not purge the air out of the coolant system and this caused the problem. So that told me that if it goes over 230-235 there is a problem, on the other hand the 800 is not overheating untill 255, thats when the temp display will start flashing. BTW, I live in steamy Alabama :-[.
David, I agree with Biff. My '98 runs around 170/180 on the highway and 210/220 in town. I live in muggy Missouri where it gets not only hot but extremely humid.
Yep, same here....although I was out in the desert area last week and engine temp. got up to 225...no biggie. RF
Hmmm...I guess it all depends how hard you ride the bike...I regulary get mine up to 230 if I'm riding say in second gear in the powerband on tight twists. Around 8,9,19K RPM.... I don't beleive to have a problem with cooling, because if I kick it up to 3rd and ride those same roads lower in the rpm range, the temp is lower...around levels just mentioned. good to know 255 is overheat range...
Think about this for a second or 3,you have dual radiators, plus an oil cooler! switch over to ambiant air temp and don't fret about how warm the motor is! I have friends that ride Harleys that are air cooled and engine temp is never usually a topic. I was in SW Colorado a week and half ago with temps near the century mark and saw 238 for engine temp, heck thats only 138 degrees over ambiant, my older bikes never had temp gauges, so engine temps were never an issue!
Howdy, My 01 runs hotter than my 98. The 01 is still running lean from the factory whereas the 98 has a custom map with a PCII and runs a little richer. Lean bikes run hotter. I was tooling down I-45 on the North side of Houston not long ago in slow traffic, 107 F ambient, and the engine temp started flashing. As long as I stay over about 15-20mph, the bike is fine. Any less and it gets hot enough to burn my inner thigh to the point of being painful. The only other time it has gotten this hot is in the thin air of Colorado in 104 F temps while running the canyon on the North side of Grand Mesa up to I-70 in 2nd and 3rd gear, seldom dropping below 7K rpm. As soon as we reached I-70, the temp dropped in a matter of minutes. I have flushed the radiator several times on the 01' and this has not changed a thing. I thought about using Water Wetter, but just did not get around to doing it. Some people claim that makes the bike run cooler. Using a full synthetic oil dropped the temps about 10 F on average. But in the 01, I started getting a little clutch slippage. Never had the slippage on the 98 despite it being ridden harder for longer on the synthetics. Go figure?
^^^ WORD! ^^^ 230 F is too high. 250 F is death for an engine. Thermostat and coolant change is cheap insurance.
My bike runs around 210f-220f all day, every day, year round, has since new. I brought back to the dealer I bought it from in 2000 and he said it's perfectly normal. This is exactly why I won't buy a used bike unless I personally know the owner or I am capable of beating their ass. I bought my Hawk GT used but that's only because I had no choice & really, really wanted another one. I also shopped around for almost a year before I bought the one I did. KC-10 FE out...
bike hot my bike runs hot too 210-230 has ever since i could remember. tried water wetter but didnt notice a huge difference. maybe ill put the airbox rubber thingy back in
The one spot where it consistently hits 230 is kind of a weird spot. You gain 5K ft elevation over the course of about 20-30 min (depending on traffic) and the last 800 ft is a steep incline and the speed limit drops steadily until it is 15mph through town. Definitely tough on any engine. I did change fluids recently and that definitely helped.
My bike runs around 78 -85 degrees Celsius. Ya, I know, its the Canadian thing. The fan comes on around 104. The manual states that if the temp. gets to be 122, shut the damn thing off. Now all you have to do is convert the temperatures!!!! Good luck.
Went for a long ride sunday. The first good ride after my coolant flush/change. Temps were much better. Cruising at 65-70 in the flats it would hover at about 170-180F with ambient around 85 when I left. In the mtns, it would touch 200F but that was pushing it pretty good (ambient was about 70-75F). On the way home, it was a lot hotter in town (95F) but the engine didn't get much hotter than 215F. Fan came on when I got off at home but I was pleased not to see 230F on the gauge. Yay.
Yeah around town my 98 runs at 160-170 unless i sit at a stoplight for a long time, then it might reach 210 then the fans kick in and it keeps it at 200. then as soon as i start to move and get air going through it, it cools right back down. 220-230 is HORRIBLE for any engine!! Boiling is 210. My motor never reaches 190 cruising anywhere. I just got back from a 1100 mile ride (northern washington to northern california) and it stayed at about 175 even in 95 degree weather. On the coast where the ambient temp was 70, it stayed at about 160-165. Thats about where a small motor like that should stay, nice and cool.
