Hi All, Quick question from a newbie to Ducatis.. My 2014 1200S runs at an operating temp, according to the display, of 60 to 62 degrees C when cruising on country roads or the motorway. It does of course get hotter in town but soon goes back to 60 when travelling. Question therefore. Is this normal? Are they all like this? Seems very cool to me compared to other vehicles I've had.
Sounds about the same as mine, while in the rather cooler climes of the UK! More likely up around 80-90 when I've been in Spain, and while I was in heavy traffic in Spain last summer the fan was coming in around 105, and taking it down to 90ish. But the short answer is yes, that seems normal!
yes, 60ish and 70ish is good, anything higher like regular 90s or 100s or if it warms up very quickly, your rad is gone and needs replacing (happens).
Normal maybe but imho, not ideal. Most of our water-cooled Ducatis seem to run cool in our climate when on the open road and at the quoted temperatures, I suspect the ecu could well be enriching the fuelling. If so, not exactly great for fuel consumption or power...
I've been wondering for quite a while what causes this. Is it the oil cooler (could fit an oil stat) or just the exposed nature of the cylinders vs a 4. Car engines seem to be designed to sit at 90, that's quite a difference. The bmw e60 5 series has a common thermostat problem that causes the engine to run cool (in the 70s) and the fuel consumption is the symptom that highlights the problem (no temp gauge on dash).
The oil temp of my 320d is a rock solid 100c. If say 4 cylinder bikes are more exposed to airflow if anything. You'd think that the thermostat would maintain the coolant temperature at an efficient temperature during free running and the fans would control it in traffic but it doesn't seem to work like that. It's as if there is no thermostat. Are our thermostats failing or are they set at too low a temperature?
There is probably an argument that 4s are better insulated, as 2 sides of middle cylinders are insulated by adjacent cylinders and even the end cylinder has one side insulated. Fliw of air over and around a 4 is going to be limited. The horizontal cylinder on our twins on the other hand just hangs there in the breeze. I'd be surprised if it is a thermostat issue. I had a chat with Mike at MD Racing about this and his view was that it was normal and not to worry about it. I do wonder about the old cooler though, as oil is pumped through there regardless.
Yes, I always get much better consumption figures when in warm temperatures on the continent than I get in the cold climes of Scotland.
What we are seeing is coolant temperature, not oil temperature on our gauges - on mine anyway. Normal does not equal good. If it is low enough to be at a level where the ecu is enriching the mixture to compensate, it is bad because both performance and fuel consumption will suffer, as will range of course. If the coolant temperature is low, then the thermostat shouldn't open until it is at operating temperature, then, if the coolant temperature drops, the thermostat should close again to divert coolant from the radiator. Ducati set the fans to come in at 100c or slightly more, so we know they consider anything below that as normal operating temperature - indeed, if the engine never reached 100c, any moisture in the oil from condensation would never boil off and 'mayonnaise' would become a problem. Maybe in Italy, the ambient temperatures are so high that this is never an issue. This has been discussed on here quite a lot but the only practical solution I have seen is that one guy modified his thermostat so that he could set the temperature manually and he determined the temperature by heating the thermostat in a pan and adjusting it to open at his desired temperature. Iirc, that was something like 80c.
Do we know if our bikes have specific or generic thermostats, Derek?? If generic, maybe it would be possible to swap them for ones with different ratings.
Most car engines that I have dealt with have thermostats which open around 80º - 85ºC. The Ducati thermostats seem to open much lower than than. I have a spare in the garage. I'll measure it today and see what it opens at.
They seem to be specific to Ducati although probably made by an outside supplier. If you can find another with the right ports with the same orientation I'm sure it would work. The difficulty will be finding one.
I suppose the real problem is that's built into a housing that makes it specific to Ducati. I have heard stories on Ducatipaso.org of folk taking them apart and reassembling them with some sort of clamp to hold the 2 housing parts together.
I know the temp gauge is coolant temp. Oil temp and coolant temp will surely be similar given the block will transfer heat from one to another. There is no stat for oil cooling so the oil will potentially cool the rest of the engine even if water is not flowing through the rad. Lots of older bikes are purely oil cooled
The thermostats from the Aprilia RSV engines appears to be very similar. Don't know what temp they open at though.
