Quote: If the water cooling is just for emissions I wonder if it could be deleted. I would want to delete the ABS too. Aside from those points sounds good to me.
Sure, just like you can delete the cooling system on your car or truck. It's easy and makes total sense. Just like removing an expensive safety system like ABS.
The Bonneville will just have a radiator instead of an oil cooler. Let's see the final production bike before passing judgement.
Comparing apples to oranges, the water cooling on a car is the primary and only cooling for the engine and NOT just for emissions. The Bonnie, it states, has fins and is primarily air cooled. It states the water cooling is just for emissions. I would choose to not have a failure due to a water leak, thus I would never own a water cooled bike as I have stated before. If I were to buy one I would NOT want water cooling so does make perfect sense to me. You have done this before, just because it doesn't make sense to you does not mean it wouldn't to someone else. I have had anti-lock brake problems in the past and it is not uncommon on cars in general, I worn on them all the time at work. When they malfunction they tend to fight against you when you try to apply the brakes, I would not want that when trying to apply the brakes on my bike. Simple is more reliable in most cases, the more complicated something is the more prone to failure in most cases. So you do what you want and I will do what I want but don't try and tell me what does or does not make sense to me.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Buell used oil cooled heads to boost performance, among other mods, as well as maintain emissions standards on an XL engine. He topped out rather flat too because of heat. Water cooled engines are heavier and usually a bit larger because of the water passages, returns, pump, and sensors. My buddy has a 2000 Honda Shadow ACE. it's a 750 water cooled twin that looks as large as my 1200...until you unbolt the fake fins off the cylinder block.
When Max cycle was around when i was a kid, he had a stroked hot rod Norton that he made a 'water pack' for the heads. Copper tubing run around the heads and a transmission cooler for a radiator. Worked just good enough that he could make a set of heads last half of a race season. His motors ran like 15:1 compression and destroyed vales and/or the seats. Looked like a plumber's nightmare...Never even thought of using it on the street because he always said, he didn't need another headache...
Glad you mentioned the Honda, I owned a 2001 750 ACE Deluxe the engine was water cooled with fake bolt on fins for looks alone. Engines of this design are engineered from the ground up to be liquid cooled like the one in your car or truck and you cannot simply delete or remove the radiator, water pump ect and run it dry. It just doesn't work that way. The bolt on fins that made it look like an air cooled engine served no mechanical purpose. Heat from the cylinders and combustion chambers could not transfer to the fins because of the empty chamber surrounding them that the coolant would normally be in, and since they were not cast as part of the block the fake fins would not transfer heat anyway.
Talking about certain rare specific "hybrid" systems like the liquid cooled heads on models like the Harley Rushmore Ultra Classic is not the same since only the combustion chamber and exhaust port (heads only) are liquid cooled while the cylinders remain air cooled. You wouldn't consider removing the liquid coolant from the Harley V-Rod or Street 750 engines would you? No. How about trying that with a Triumph Thunderbird or Speed Triple engine? No.
When it is stated they are going to liquid cooling for emission reasons they mean it is far easier to tune for cleaner emission (AND more power) when the engineer knows the engine temperature will remain stable regardless of conditions. Example: You get stuck in traffic, not enough air moving to cool your air cooled engine and the temp quickly increases. To compensate the ECU enriches the fuel ratio and adjusts the timing to keep the engine as cool as possible. This kills emission output. The bigger the engine's displacement and power output the worse the heat problem, that's why larger displacement engines have larger capacity radiators in your truck for example.
2011 Triumph America (10/2011 to 07/2014)
2012 Harley Davidson 1200C Sportster
2014 Harley Davidson Dyna Wide Glide
