rear cylinders heat shielding

Hi folks,

I realise that the frame on my 4thGen ('96) will always get quite warm but am planning a mission to Spain/Southern France in August and dont fancy getting roasted legs.

Going to try wedging some fibreglass heatshield between the frame and the cylinders to reduce heatsoak. Its basically plumbers heat-mat which I used successfully to protect my hand while tinkering with the carb balance.

BUT I am slightly concerned the reduced airflow from the NACA vents might make things worse.

Your expert opinions most welcome at this point!

Cheers
RIch

 

Howdy Rich, how's the boys from Brighton these days?

The insulating mat sounds like a good idea--especially if you can reduce the heat load into the aluminum. If you have one of those IR thermometers (from harbor freight?) you could insulate one side and make a test run, then measure both sides to quantify the benefit.

i've looked at those NACA ducts and think they are mostly for looks--they are huge compared to the surface area of the fairing, and the openings are behind the engine and are almost immediately blocked by the trailing edge of the fairing. A far more effective approach would be to have several smaller ducts located further forward such that the ducted air flow could actually get to the vee of the engine--but that wouldn't look as cool as the one big ass duct...

 

concluded the heatsoak is mostly thru the engine mounts. Going to descale and flush the coolant system.... might lower it a bit.
cheers

 

Yeah - the NACA duct on the side is for looks. They don't do much of anything.

Since the engine is hard-mounted to the frame, I think that you're going to be hard pressed to find any losses in temps by insulating the motor. If anything, you're going to end up trapping more heat that you prevent.

 

Exactly that mate! It seems that faster is cooler ;-)
Wish mine was red tho. Blue dont do it for me but it was cheap and local.