| Author | Message | ||
     Jimidan |
Having been a squirter of sorts for most of my life, I think I can speak with some "authoritay" on this subject so near and dear to me...and my wallet. Heck, Dad used to call me his little "Squirt" back before I understood why that always made Mom blush and him snicker. I have most of Mom's inheritance tied up in two 88" engines (thanks Mom). These engines produce among other desirable things, copious amounts of heat. The question was, how do I prevent this excessive heat from destroying the fruits of my inheritance. I have aluminum oil reservoirs and external oil coolers, Pro Flow oil pumps and try not to get stuck in traffic, but is that enough? I do know that the MoCo realized that they had reliability problems caused by overheating on these engines, especially on the rear cylinder. If you look at our bikes, there is a dead air pocket behind the rear cylinder near the starter, where temps grow astronomically. The fairings and covers on Buells restrict air flows in this area, exacerbating the problem. The MoCo's solution to this problem is that the new Buell engines have a fan, oil cooler and "squirters" that send jets of oil onto the underside of the piston and cylinder wall. By installing squirters, HD sought to reduce cylinder and piston temps, thus helping to prevent oil breakdown and engine damage. This made sense to me as these are air AND oil cooled engines. As a side benefit, the cooler internals should increase horsepower by reducing friction and therefore, increase reliability. But what about the rest of us who still have dinosaurs without these technological gizmos? The good news is, I have found that older engine models can be retrofitted with squirters, so that you can get the advantages of the new technology in your older model Buell. These squirters are available as a kit by a company called Hot-Shot Motorworks in Upper Sandusky, Ohio (419-294-1997), for $39.95 for the kit. (They are also sold by Axtell, and are available in all its big inch kits.) They are machined from solid billet and require some machining on a small area on the inside of the pinion case for mounting. Hot-Shot also installs these kits, in addition to having a complete machine shop for any engine work. Dan Fowler has been in this business for a long time and made his name, in part, by building XR750 engines for such notables as Steve Morehead, and others. I would say that I trust Dan, as I let Hot-Shot built both my 88" engines. The down side to this modification is that the engine cases must be split to install them. But if you are building a big inch or high performance engine, the additional expense for installing squirters is negligable, considering the increased reliablity. Dan told me he spent many hours of testing on the dyno during development and observed a reduction of 200 degrees in cylinder temperature by using the squirters alone. He "abused" an XL EVO engine by running it WFO continuously for many hours on a dyno with a water brake load. He monitored the cylinder temps, head temps, exhaust gas temps, oil temps, oil pressure and more. He then disassembled the engine and found no damage at all. Kids, don't try this at home! I was so impressed by these findings that Hot Shot has both of my 88" engines now, installing these squirters into them. I believe they will be worth the money by increasing the reliablity of these big "heat generators" of mine. We will see. I am wondering if any of you guys in the performance engine building end of the business have used squirters? For the record, I am not affiliated with Hot Shot in any way, except that I have given them large sums of my inheritance. I will keep you posted on how these work out for me. | ||
| Rick_A |
I cut a large section of the front of my tailsection off...and removed the head shield. The side effect is a lot more heat getting to my legs...but at least it keeps the rear jug cooler. keeps the legs warm in the cold, too Next step is an oil cooler...which is a bit of a necessity in FL summer traffic. $40 seems like a great price for the squirters...but I'm not planning on splitting the cases for a long time! | ||
| Whitebuell |
I am using his squiters,great service from those guys. They send them to Belgium in 2 days! But when they arrived i found out that these squiters don't have the pressure valves build in them like the H-D units have. I asked them why in an e-mail and they didn't respond to my question,so i build my own version of those baby's but with the valves of an XB in them and they work perfect,engine oil pressure stay's ok,temp is never above 150°F when i am on the track in a hot day! It use to go to 200° and the oilcooler and large filter could'nt stop that,now i am running a small oilfilter again. I do have to say i also have an aluminum tank,that also helps cooling down the black stuff inside. The reason i put pressure valves in the squiters is because when the bike is at low rpm the oilpressure drops and with two more holes to feed, it is going way more down and you lose all the pressure there is,at least that's what i think. At low rpm (and idle)those things keep pumping oil in the cases and it is not necessary to do that. You also have more oil in the cases than needed. They recommended me to use a windage tray ,wich i had already planned from the beginning. I think there squiters should be perfect if they put the pressure-valves in it. | ||
| Funjimmy |
I've had quite a lot of problems with scuffing the rear piston on my '97 S1 and am very interested in this modification. Whitebuell: Could you send me more information on the check valve that you incorporated in your squirters? Thanks FunJimy | ||
| Whitebuell |
check pm ,funjimmy | ||
| Alex |
Whitebuell, We fit the stock XB piston jet oilers to older cases (including the pressure valve). As Belgium is close to Germany You could have sent Your case to me. Maybe next time  Best regards Alex M-TeK Engineering | ||
| Whitebuell |
Thx for the offer Alex,i did not know you're company could do that.The site does not say much... Next time i will talk to you first if i have some more wild plans for the S1W. | ||
| Alex |
Whitebuell, I know my internet site is not really informative but working on it. Meanwhile You can find most of my performance work for Buells within the new Hillbilly-Motors catalog (as Jens is a sponsor I hope not to get thrown out with this little commercial ) Best regards Alex |
