There are only two things keeping your Honda 600 engine cool, the air coming across the fins on the cylinders and the oil in the engine.
There are cylinder head gages you can put under the spark plug seat and they will tell you that the sparkplug is getting up to about 350 Degrees, unless you fixed the threads and then it will say 400 Degrees. Pulling more air across the fins helps, but every engine I have pulled apart that didn't have an oil cooler on it was caked with tar from the burned oil in the crankcase and throughout the transmission, all over the gears and packed in around the shift plates. One was so bad that it could hardly be shifted.
The cooler allows you to put a remote (spin on) PH8A Fram oil filter (remember that a whole bunch of High Tech has happened to oil filters since the Honda element filter was made) into the oil circuit and with the remote filter housing you can plumb in a oil temp and pressure gage. There is a Oil thermostat that is available to keep the oil running back into the engine while it heats up to around 165 degrees (operating temp.) before it starts going into the cooling coils. Is it cheap, no nothing worth doing is ever cheap. But, think about this. Wear comes from heat, more wear produces more heat and you literally burn your Air Cooled Engine up.
I have heard the answers to "Why do I need a Oil Cooler? Honda didn't make one for it when it was new." You are right, but the key word here is New, when the Honda 600 engine was new it didn't have any wear, as it got older it has more wear and because of this it has more heat causing the oil (remember this is half the cooling) to break down faster and so it doesn't lubricate as effectively causing your engine to wear more producing more (what) HEAT! A match burns at roughly 3000 degrees, and it is burning material. Oil in between bearing surfaces gets to about 1500 degrees, oil is supposed to lubricate these surfaces (cooling them down) which it does effectively but as things wear the temperature goes up and the oil breaks down causing it to lubricate less effectively which causes more heat.
So, put another fan on the fire, and see how hot your oil is the next time you come to a stop light. Turn it off, ok, now there is no air moving across the fins.
You by now are asking how do I know all this, well I put a temp gage in the oil drain plug on a Honda 600 engine (before placing a oil cooler on the car) and the oil temp stayed about 185 + as I drove down the freeway. When I left the freeway and came to the first stop light the oil temp climbed to almost 250 degrees. Folks, at this temp you are burning oil because the bearing surfaces have climbed to about 2000 degrees or better. Remember the Tar I was talking about, well the engine is making tar at this point. When I started back up the temp went down again but never below 210 on the gage. That is when I looked at how I could put an oil cooler on the engine. Life on the road in a Honda 600 has been a whole lot better since then.
Go to the Yahoo Group site below and look at the pictures of the cooler and parts you will need. So there you have it, better oil life, better filtration, add more (about 3/4 Qt. more) oil to the system and the engine will run cleaner. Tell me the electric fan, venting on the hood, water spray (have you heard of that one?) on the cylinders all don't give you that much security.
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/anzhonda600owners/
Bill
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> 2cylinderhondas@yahoogroups.com [mailto:2cylinderhondas@yahoogroups.com] > On > Behalf Of > Kevin Lister > Sent:
> Friday, June 15, 2007 10:04
> AM
> To:
> 2cylinderhondas@yahoogroups.com
> Subject:
> Re:
> [2cylinderhondas] Re: Heat and Driving long distances in the > 600?
> I'm probabaly going to put an electric in my sedan. Anyone out there have > an extra fan housing they'd like to part with?
> kev
> infinkc
> infinkc@yahoo. com
> wrote:
> Miles- do you have any pictures of the electric fan inplace?
> thanks!
> --- In
> 2cylinderhondas@ yahoogroups. com
> ,
> "Miles" wrote:
> > I like to run an
> electric cooling fan on my 600 in place of the
> belt
> > drive fan. I
> bust out all the supports inside the stock fan and
> put a
> > Honda
> GL1000 fan in place. No more belt, no squeeking, no cut in > half
> clutch cable.
> > Kevin, Bill Colford is the oil cooler king in
> here, but I can make
> > the parts for you if you don't weld.
> > Miles
> > --- In
> 2cylinderhondas@ yahoogroups. com
> ,
> Kevin Lister
> > wrote:
> > > Yes, it's been hot up here in the Santa Cruz Mountains as > well.
> > > I was worried about driving my 600 in the
> heat as well. I was
> > wondering if anyone on the group has ever
> installed an oil cooler
> > also.
> > > kev
> > > infinkc wrote:
> > > Currently its
> been about 95-100F lately out and i
> havent
> > driven my 600
> > much, i was wondering if it will be ok to drive the car about 35
> miles
> > > in the heat? Anything i should do to help it out? im
> thinking an
> > oil
> > > cooler
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