[screwtape]

Just bought a 2003 RC51 with 17k miles on it. The guy I purchased it from said he flushed the radiators, and substituted a mixture of water(hopefully distilled) and "water wetter". Here is the link to the site for this stuff: http://www.redlineoil.com/products_coolant.asp
What do you guys think. Is this setup okay? Or do i need to flush the radiators again and go back to standard coolant?

Also what temps are "normal" for summer riding? So far it has been running anywhere between 170 to 220. But it went up to 245 at one point! This seems too hott to me. Am I wrong?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Allen03RC]

if your riding in town and its hot outside seems about the norm. the 245 is alittle high. I run the honda HP coolant in mine. seems to work well for me down in south texas. It was right at 100 f today. oh how I love hot days

 

[screwtape]

if your riding in town and its hot outside seems about the norm. the 245 is alittle high. I run the honda HP coolant in mine. seems to work well for me down in south texas. It was right at 100 f today. oh how I love hot days

ha ya Im in So Cal so I know how you feel. summer is upon us, and I am not excited.

 

[kip]

hey man! I just did put the red line water wetter into my bike today. From reading around I have come to the conclusion that the water wetter with the distilled water is the best to use for your bike. Im from San Diego so I know I wont have to worry about freezing anytime soon!! Im going to take the bike for a spin today so I will let you know how it works.

 

[SubSailor]

No. Distilled water is second best. It still has some traces of dissolved minerals that can clog your radiator over time.
Tap water is the worst to use. Tons of dissolved minerals.
The best water to use in cooling systems is deionized water. It's 100% pure H2O.

 

[screwtape]

well i took the bike into honda today, and had them flush the cooling system and switch me back to Honda recommended coolant. Even if it doesn't run any cooler now, at least I will have peace of mind.

 

[jh4db536]

I'm using NPG+, but it required some effort to flush the system completely and modify the cooling system (pulled the thermostat and modified the housing that the radiators are the only path for the hot coolant). Fans are reversed and switch controlled. definitely more effort than installing engine ice which i have in my 636.

I think it saves some weight and space too as i don't need the reservoir/overflow tank.

Hard to say what temps i run, but i dont think i have gone over 200F yet...or even 190F for that matter. I have jethot coated header and cans.

I havent ridden it enough in sustained traffic to get it really hot. I've only done long cruises on it so far i just put this stuff in recently.

Before i did any mods, i saw temps around 240F...

 

[tht1crzyguy]

i did the engine ice and am about to do the fan mods my self. the engine ice dropped me a little but here in az if it is hot everything get hot and if the bike does not get enough air flow the highest min has gone is 235

 

[jgos929]

Water wetter is a great product. I run alittle mixed with my coolant and don't see above 220 then the fans come on and sitting in traffic it hovers around 207.

FYI 245 is way to hot. At 250 that thing will shit coolant all over the road and then your in trouble. If you get that hot again you need to pull over and shut her down.

 

[ZeroGara]

Destilled and deionized

No. Distilled water is second best. It still has some traces of dissolved minerals that can clog your radiator over time.

Distilled water is absolute H20, if there is anything else in it then it is contaminated distilled water. When you boil water and bring it to a gas and then by cooling it liquifies into H20. All contaminants and solubles stay in the heating tank.

Tap water is the worst to use.

I agree! Depending on the source there will be a variety of stuff in it.

The best water to use in cooling systems is deionized water. It's 100% pure H2O.

Deionized means it has no ions in it, it is therefore not conducting any electricity and thus it stops electrolysis (which will corrode dissimilar metals in your engine by carrying particles from one metal to the other.
Yes that is a good thing, but there may be non-conducting solubles or contaminants in deionized water that will stick against real hot surfaces of metal (like around the exhaust port of the head).
Deionized water is filtered water that goes through a process (I think intense magnetic fields) that reduce the ions in the water). Distilled water is a much more expensive process as it requires too much heat/energy to produce.

Here is a trick though. As water in gaseous form exist in our humid atmosphere (even in the dessert there is some humidity but very little of it) when it encounters a surface much cooler than the atmospheres it condenses into liquid or even a solid. That snow/ice you find in the freezer part of your non-auto-defrost refrigerators is pretty much as close as you can get to distilled water. If you are patient enough and scrape every day and funnel it in an very clean container, you can collect enough for your bike

Air-conditioners also produce water but you have to make sure you clean the surfaces very well before you can collect some.
The reason distilled water is bad for us to drink is because it is very absorbent of all salts and bases in our system. Therefore it drains our body of all electrolytes and by drinking it we eventually dehydrate.
If you want to test your distilled or deionized water use a multimeter set on resistance and see if you get continuity. If you do there are ions in it. If you get a very high resistance it is pretty clean. But air carries so many particles in it that the moment you open the container it collects ions from the air it comes in contact with.

In the old days in ships they use to produce water by distilling it from the sea, but they had to add electrolytes in it before drinking it. Now they have reverse osmosis filters that just allow enough salt past it to make it drinkable. (the best water I have ever tasted).

Water is very hard to produce for drinking and agriculture and it is vanishing at alarming rates. The only way we have to create water out of the sea is very energy intensive. Water will run out before oil does and it will be the source of major wars in the future.

 

[kperham]

I only use Honda brand coolant in my street bikes. I buy from the Auto dealer, and it's kinda pricey but not like I change it all the time. VFR with side rads and single fan like the SP1, and a PC800 that is totally covered in plastic. Neither run too hot, and the VFR just got flushed after like 4-5 years and it looked brand new. I had to replace the water pump shortly after I started doing track days on the VFR and swapping from coolant to distilled water and back to cheap parts store coolant. With the new pump I used the Honda coolant and like I said still looked brand new when I changed it recently.
For the trackbike SP1 I use distilled water and water wetter. Temps nearing 100 at Road Atlanta in June and I was running just over 200, cooler than the SP2 that was there and my friends Gixxer 600. SP2 was running Engine Ice with Water Wetter. His wasn't overheating, but about 10 degrees over mine.

 

[mighty max]

i'm using water wetter...It very humid it asia...mostly my Rc51 never goes up 110 degress

 

[Biker28169]

I may be a little late on this thread, but my question is based on something a salesman told me here in Tucson. I was told that if you run water wetter you cannot ride on a track unless you drain everything out and run straight water. Engine ice (he said) is allowed on tracks cuz it doesn't cause the slickness of coolant and water wetter if spilled in a crash. Does anyone have any info on the validity of this claim? I know he was trying to sell me a more expensive product, but to my un-expert ears it sounded like it could be a true concern. Any info would be appreciated. It regularly gets into the 115 range here in the summer and anything to save my legs from blistering is a good thing.

 

[SubSailor]

I run Engine Ice in my RC51 and it's damn slippery when spilled (about the same as regular coolant).
I believe it's Water Wetter that's allowed by some tracks (but not all).

 

[Waldo]

MMP in Utah said water or water mixed with water wetter only. NO other fluids are allowed in the cooling system

 

[jgos929]

Yeah its water wetter thats legal on the track

 

[subyrex03]

I ride out here in phoenix and I don't get over 227 or so in the summer! The only time I got up to 245 was when my radiator relay came disconnected. That was fixed quick though. Look the bike over there's no reason it should be up that high.

 

[ZeroGara]

At 225 it is not that the engine is damaged but once you are coasting slow in the summer or come to a light there is oo much heat coming from the engine while fully dressed. at 195-200 it is bearable. That is a good reason to have a manual fan switch to override the relay action to keep the temperatures lower.
It is not good for plastics and some tubing to be reaching such high temperatures as they become hard and brittle afterwards.

 

[Iceman_JD]

I've been fighting the high temps in the summer also. Trying to figure out a solution after reading hundreds of posts (slight exaggeration) I'm closer to an explanation. (my opinion)

I like the front mounted radiators personally, my 86 vfr had one and when the outside temps were in the 110s and stuck in heavy traffic I'd always throw the manual fan switch I wired. Worked pretty good but we have side radiators which suck and personally think the engineering was never designed for hot weather.

Combining traffic stops and low speed stop and go well you know what happens. The bike overheats and I panic while I suffer from dehydration and heat exhaustion. That's the major reason I hate to ride in the middle of the summer in heavy stop and go or slow traffic. (No joy)

We are all familiar with (static air lock) in reference to the air forced into the front of the bike as the fans come on and suck air from the sides of the bike.
Resulting in little or no heat transfer of the radiator coolant.

That's why no matter what you use as a coolant it doesn't make much of a difference. (NO HEAT TRANSFER NO COOLING).

I was never big on reversing the fans only because the rotational pitch of the fan it is designed to flow in one direction only. True you'll get air to flow but no where near the design of the fan.

If I was a Honda engineer this is how I would have done it if I had to deal with the side radiators.

1. Use the radiator ducts that pull cooler air from the front of the bike. (like the ones that are available now for hundreds of dollars.)

2. A fan that works with and not against the air flow.

What I'm doing now and is no way the best way, especially in slow or stop and go traffic.

1. Use water wetter with a combination of water and coolant. (not sure how much it helps.)

2. Wrapped the exhaust pipes to lower the temps inside the fairing.

3. Use a power commander map that works for your bike. Correct air/fuel ratio

4. When It's really hot outside take the lower fairing off.

The motor and frame are large heat sinks, having the lower fairings off help shed some of that heat easier.

I have not hooked an on/off fan switch yet that might help at low speeds to get some air over the radiator. God, I hate this design.

If you have the money a company on ebay is selling a front mount radiator/oil cooler combo. I'm not sure there is room for a fan behind it though.

 

[SubSailor]

I usually don't see temps over 221 deg F. in traffic here in FL during the summer.
Once in motion, it cools down to 205-209 deg.
Out in the open road, it cools down to 200 deg. and in the countryside it really cools down.

This past weekend, the ambient temperature was 81 deg, and my bike was at 177-179 deg.
Ahhh fall...my favorite season, along with spring.
The only decent weather to ride in here in SW FL.