Back from a road trip, Evans coolant obervations

[MarkT]

Just returned from a 2200 mile shorty road trip.  Had changed over to Evans Racing coolant a few days before leaving.  Have a temp gauge so can note relative running temps.  This is on the 1800 Wing, which is so similar to the Valk, this observation should apply to the Valk as well.

What I observed - Running temp is affected by speed but not by ambient temps.  Runs a bit hotter with Evans, now the needle's width above the midpoint on the gauge when holding at steady 80mph, whereas before it was consistently just above the 1/3 up point regardless of speed.  When I slow to steady 70mph, temp is very close to the old temp, slightly higher.  I'm thinking this is because the boiling point of Evans is 400°, which should result in very low pressure in the cooling system, reducing heat evacuation through the radiators.  Temp varied with speed, not at all with air temp or altitude - same result when the daytime temp was nearly 90° and altitude about 1000ft in MO, as it was at 40° at 2:00AM at 5,000ft in CO.  In both instances I was on Interstate and running 80.  Might be the temp sensor is in a place that reports hotter, as Evans doesn't cavitate at hot spots like around the cylinders, so it cools better, thus gets hotter, before it is cooled in the radiators.

Evans says boiling over doesn't happen with their high boiling point.  But that also results in a low pressure system.  Don't know yet if I should care about that.  Fuel economy was really bad, but I expected that with high speed against strong head and crosswinds.

[John Schmidt]

Mark, I noticed the temp change as you described using Water Wetter in the Valk. If I run above 75, the temp will climb to 190 or slightly higher, especially if it's really hot out. If I drop to arond 70 indicated, the temp drops a good 10-12 degrees. Unless it's extremely hot out(upper 90's and above), that doesn't seem to affect the operating temp as much as if I'm running hard. One thing I did experience a while back....after I added I/S radiator pods to my Tourer along with the I/S plastic air dam behind the fan, the bike started to run hotter. Even with a lower temp t'stat it still is hotter than before the pods were added. Never been able to figure that out. Nothing else was changed, same temp gauge as before. Doesn't seem to affect the operation, just bothers me because now the fan comes on in traffic quite often when before hardly ever.

[sandy]

Mark: I really like your "First serious ride" . Have you stayed in touch with her? The thumper reminds me of my first 3 bikes: all Ducatis. The 3rd being a '67 250 Scrambler.