Quote:
Originally Posted by bruce71198
Well, we ran the snot out of this bike over the weekend. I raced it in the Light Weight classes and my son ran it in the Ultra Light Weight classes. I was able to race up into the SV crowd but couldnt catch the fast guys. Caught and passed most of the Buell 1200's in LW super bike/super twins combined. The weekend ended sunday with a blown head gasket. I'm thinking a bigger radiator is in order. My fastest ever lap time, at this track, on my stock bike, was a 1:23.9 but usually run around in the 1:24's, I got down into the 1:19's (1:19.2 the fastest) on several laps and consistant 1:20's.
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Bruce my experience taking the 250 to the track in temperatures up to 40 degrees Celcius (104 F !!) was that the huge problem is oil cooling... in Italy there has been for about 5 years a championship for newbies with 250s and I was in contact with them during their first efforts to overcome this problem. Working with bigger water coolers, fans etc ended up in having low coolant temp but boiling oil and hotspots and coldspots eventually either melting/broken valves or pistons...I had the same issues myself. I tried oil coolers from a suzuki V-strom 1000(same as kawa KLV) and it got better but not enough. The problem is there is just not enough space for a big enough oil cooler and in addition there is the way air gets there(in fact it doesn't). the fairing has not a design destined to send air in a way to do that kind of work and the speed we have during a track session is simply not high enough to cool oil down. That is the most important reason why most of the guys there have switched to 300s... I don't know exactly what you can do about it but the larger refrigerator is definetely NOT the solution...
The oil coolers in the pictures do the job just because these 250s are... 250s... no high compression, no extra ccs, just exhaust and jetting or PC Vs...you need sth way bigger...
I agree of course on getting ARP studs (I wish I could get a set too...) but I don't think a special gasket will make a difference (I believe you have chaecked both head and block for warp because of taking them apart and sleeving before re-bolting them together)
Trying an oil cooler will definetely help but try the biggest you can put there because it stays hot not only because of the exhaust pipes but also becuse of lack of fresh flowing air (front wheel in combination with moderate speeds aren't much of a help there)
I hope you make it and get back on the track soon, having overcome those minor issues...
I wish I could just watch you going past those Buells...
