Living in Arizona for the last 62 years, sorry i did not put oil cooler on all my bikes years ago. I installed the harley premium oil cooler last year, very easy do it your self job, I had the 7/16 in tool already. With all my research i did not notice the ultra cool, that is a very nice oil cooler worth looking into. I still think it should be standard equipment on air cooled engines. No matter which oil cooler you go with just go with it, Come on air cooled?
If there is a really good reason to disagree with me. ok but just keep it to yourself,Thanks.

 

I was seriously considering an oil cooler for my RK. Here is what a friend in AL said about it. He has been wrenching on bikes for 30+ tears has like 14 of his own, pan knuckle an 84 Heritidge new 09 crossbone. Even has a couplr of the aeremacchi 90 cc gems in mint With this he convinced me not to bother. A couple others in the south have taken them off more of a pita than anything. It's an opinion no flames please

I've said it before and I'll say it again...
A Harley engine is air cooled, not oil cooled.
#1-Huge amounts of oil does not circulate thru the engine cooloing it like water does in a car engine. Any significant amount of oil is in the lower end where it lubricates the crank and cam and this only amounts to about a cupful at any given time. Heat is generated in the cylinder & head; very little oil is circulating in that area. There's a oil passage tube about the size of a pencil running thru the cylinder jug that carries a small amount of oil to the rocker box. This is not a solid stream of oil but rather droplets & vapor and does little to cool the engine. If you want to cool the engine with oil you should pump oil thru the sparkplug because that's where the heat comes from.
#2-Hot oil is good oil! Oil needs to be hot to evaporate the moisture that will corrode the bearings & bushings. For each amount of gas you use, the engine produces an almost equal amount of water, smoe of which goes past the rings and into the crankcase. Cool oil doesn't evaporate the water.
Riding 2-up in the South in the summer doesn't require an oil cooler. I rode across OK, TX, AZ & CA last summer when it was 115*, my 200+lbs self and enough gear on the back to equal the weight of a passanger. Bike did just fine.
Waste of money.

 

Nice job to have done. Keep us posted on temps, and first oil change.

 

Drew,

Either I'm missing it or it's unclear. I get that the "fan" is thermostatically controlled on the Ultra Cool. Is there any kind of thermostatic function in the adapter under the oil filter? Something that bypasses the cooler while the engine is warming up? Some come that way and others (Jagg) offer it as an option on their adapters. Just wondering!

Thanks,
Steve R.

 

I agree with Vet767 that HD engines are (primarily) air cooled.

But the Twincam engines do have oil jets to cool the bottom of the pistons, which can tranfer additional heat from the metal to the oil.

The oil definately needs to get up to and stay at "normal operating temperatures" so if someone runs an oil cooler, I would think that having one with a thermostat controlled oil flow would be better.

I would say that a little extra cooling in the hotter climates would probably be a good thing, as oil can get too hot and not lubricate as well as it does at "normal" temps. But that really should be the exception, rather than the rule.

And with that said, as far as the oil cooler being "needed", I agree with Vet767 that the engine should be just fine without additional cooling, as long as routine service is maintained and you don't overheat it in stop and go driving, where an oil cooler won't be very effective unless it has fans running to force air through it, anyway.

An oil cooler might be helpful in keeping the temps down a little if you're riding in really hot areas, but it won't help much in a stop and go situation which is where I've had the heat REALLY build up. If that is where someone is having a heat issue, you would probably be better served with a "parade fan" instead of an oil cooler, as a fan would move air across the exterior of some of the hottest of the heat producing parts of the engine, even when the motorcycle isn't moving.

I put an oil cooler on my 2007 Ultra, and it does reduce the temps a few degrees in the summer (and the chrome cover looks nice), but I wish I had spent the money on something else.

No offense to anyone who has had different results. As with most things, our "mileage may vary" and I can only refer to the results on my own bike.

Good luck and enjoy the ride!