Legondary6301,
I live in the middle of the mojave desert & have absolutely no trouble with either my fuel injected, or carborated bikes when it comes to heat. While it seems obvious an air cooled engine runs hotter than a water cooled, an oil cooler & synthetic does me just fine out here. Also...just like Harley made the decision not to go with overhead cams when they designed the twincam soley for the purposes of maintaining the pushrod tower look that is traditional with harley...I believe the water cooled thing strays too far from what I like about the bikes. To each his own, but honestly if I was searching for something & didn't care about tradition...I'd be riding a rice burner (NEVER!)
-clutch-

 

Rode down and back to Las Vegas yesterday in 102 degree heat. Cruised at 75-80 for over 100 miles nonstop. Bike didn't seem to mind, oil pressure stayed at 32 pounds, got 42 mpg. I didn't think the heat issue was all that bad. When my wife wants to cruise the town at night, when it is 90+ outside, the bike gets a bit hot after about 5-10 miles of 40 and under speeds. I think the "mid frame air deflectors" will mitigate the heat issues. No need for liquid cooled.

My riding buddy just bought a new Kawasaki Nomad 1600. It is water cooled. He said it was very hot. It had a large catalytic chamber slung under the frame behind the transmission. Yesterday he changed out the exhaust pipes for V&H. Heat disappeared.

Heck, it is hot outside right now.

 

It gets really hot and humid in Okinawa. However, I really only feel it when stopped. I wouldn't sell my ride just to get rid of the heat felt when not in motion.

 

While reading this thread I only saw 2-3 mentions of an oil cooler. With that said, can anyone tell me how much difference an oil cooler would make? They're smaller than a radiator and I've had one on an Iron Head that didn't look bad. Does an oil cooler make that much of a difference when it comes to lowering the heat of the HD engine?

 

Sam I wonder if they made a mistake by not offering the water cooled engine in a traditional frame right from the start. I dislike the vrod because of the sitting position it puts you in, not because of the engine itself. What if they had just offered the revolution engine as on option for a few of the softail and dyna models? I probably would have bought one.

 

I think it depends of if you have a fan on the cooler or not. A cooler by itself in stop and go traffic won't do much if anything for the temp. I saw one advertised a year or so back in the Annapolis stealer but it was for the touring bikes only. I'm sure there is an aftermarket one out there.

 

As long as the sound doesn't change and the radiator doesn't look like crap I guess I could tolerate it.The worst thing would be the big cube motors would be tough to cool with limited radiator capacity

 

I've felt alot of heat from most motorcycles I've ridden in hot weather, stop and go traffic. My water cooled flat-6 valkyrie is probably the hottest I've ever felt. Its not an issue unique to HD.

 

I have doubts the Moco could develop a water cooled Ultra that didn't have 3 years worth of bugs in it, and if it leaked and spit coolant thay'd say that was normal.

 

I also recently read in an American motorcycle magazine about a re-useable oil filter that was supposed to drop the engine oil temperature x amount of degrees or %. I don't have the mag here overseas, but I know I saw it when I was home.

I did a search online and found the filter I mentioned. It's costly and I don't know how effective it is: http://www.gopurepower.com/