over cooling , high fuel consumption

1. It has been very cold recently (1-5degrees)
2. I've still been riding
3. My fuel consumption has been horrible -up to 10l/100km
4. Normally I get around 6l/100kms
5. It's a 1200SE with beetle map all tps valves tuned etc.

I seem to remember a thread about the bike being overcooled in cold weather as it never warms enough to get off the 'warm up' map, but I can't find the thread!!! did I imagine it?

could that possibly be what's going on here?

cheers

enter "overcooling" in the search box and it will pop up
I think Guzzilooper had a thread about following Beetle's lead and fitting his bike with a T-stat too

if you think it's cold weather related, you can try riding the biker longer/harder ( if you can stand it) to get it fully warmed up to see if anything changes

is your air temp sensor reading correctly? I believe the ECU uses this value for calculations

hopefully someone with more experience will weigh in soon

thanks, I did manage to find that thread but it doesn't have anything to say regarding my question...

On my last run, it was about 12°c out and after a few miles consumption went back to normal

The solution that many have used is to block off some of the input vent to the oil cooler.
It would be wise to have an oil temperature gauge to see what is going on though.

Beetle fitted an "Improved Racing" unit I believe. They divert to oil back to the motor bypassing the cooler until the oil temperature is up.

The biggest problem I read is that the oil doesn't get hot enough to vaporise moisture in the oil.

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Lazlokovacs wrote:

I seem to remember a thread about the bike being overcooled in cold weather as it never warms enough to get off the 'warm up' map, but I can't find the thread!!! did I imagine it?

You did imagine it. The warmup map is only active for the first 200 engine revolutions.


A simple and easy remedy is to cut out a piece of cardboard and use it to block the oil cooler intake. I used it extensively when I was making the GRiSO maps, as I needed the engine temp to be 100 degrees.

thanks beetle, good info... so if it's not the warm up map then what's making it use more fuel before its fully warmed up? just inefficient combustion?

or put another way, the cardboard would be a remedy for what exactly?

It's a bit of a double whammy. If the engine doesn't get up to optimum operating temperature (say, 95 - 110 degrees), the way the correction tables in the map work actually make it run a bit rich. There's two main temperature correction tables, "Fuel-Engine Temperature" and "Pressure-Air-Temperature". The air table is intake air temperature, and if the engine doesn't get hot, the intake doesn't heat up much either, so the corrections add fuel because the ECU is reading a cold engine and intake state.

Blocking the cooler inlet allows the oil to run hotter, which keeps the engine hot, which allows the ECU to correctly adjust the mixture. It's really only an issue if you ride in sub 15 degree ambient temperatures.

got ya.

appreciate it.

I got halfway with the thermostat oil cooler project, might have to resurrect it before next winter

cheers

beetle wrote:

Blocking the cooler inlet allows the oil to run hotter, which keeps the engine hot, which allows the ECU to correctly adjust the mixture. It's really only an issue if you ride in sub 15 degree ambient temperatures.

This means large parts of the season here North  
Maybe I'll have to make some kind of quick fix, a curtain or something...