Why is my air filter cover HOT

[J.T.M.]

I have a 2010 Ultra Classic with a pure stock 96 cid. This thing is just like it came from the factory except the trike kit. The pipes, mufflers, air cleaner and all are factory. I am running Syn 3 oil. My air breather gets so hot I can not touch it. I thought about fans but they would blow even more heat that way. I know an engine will run better with cool air. Any suggestions?

 

[consitter]

Hmm...I had an '09 Night Train before I became a TG enthusiast. Funny thing was, with it, it was never hot. I could lay my hand on it after riding for an hour.

With the TG, the breather cover got hot quick. Nearly burned my skin to the touch. When I had a stage I kit installed (FulSac), it became much cooler. Not as cool as the Night Train mind you, but still a lot cooler. I can touch it with my bare leg (yes I wear shorts when riding) and not get burned now.

 

[screwball]

The air cleaner covers on our: '09, '11, and '14 Tri-Glides and '15 Freewheeler all get hot enough to burn if you touch them with your leg. Solution, don't rest your leg on it.

PS, I wear shorts too

 

[rhino 2]

If you ever sat on a hot stove just once' You'll be careful not to do that again..
Air cooled engine's tend to get thing's hot, Especially with a trike.. Something to do with air flow.
Or lack of..

 

[DK Custom Products]

I have a 2010 Ultra Classic with a pure stock 96 cid. This thing is just like it came from the factory except the trike kit. The pipes, mufflers, air cleaner and all are factory. I am running Syn 3 oil. My air breather gets so hot I can not touch it. I thought about fans but they would blow even more heat that way. I know an engine will run better with cool air. Any suggestions?

You are correct about engines running better with cool air. They run significantly better, which is why performance oriented vehicles have cold air intakes.

Harley's are really challenged in this area, and power suffers a great amount because of it.

There are many things you can do, but most of them will involve moving away from a pure stock engine.

There are a couple of add-on's that will help cool it down some, while leaving the engine pure stock (if that is important to you).

* A better primary oil cooler, or a second oil cooler.

* Even though the fans will blow some of the air in the direction of the air cleaner box, in the end, it will lower the temp of the air cleaner box some.


Below are a couple of links where you can see what I have done to my trikes to get the over all temps down.


I can rest my bare leg against the air cleaner on my Trike and it does not burn, the cover does not get very got.

http://www.triketalk.com/forum/thre...sive-heat-on-my-2011-Tri-Glide?highlight=heat

http://www.triketalk.com/forum/thre...thoughts-on-the-differences?highlight=ongoing


Kevin

 

[FuzzyWuzHe]

After doing the discrete crankcase breather my air cleaner never gets much more than warm .. I can and do rest my nekid leg against it.

 

[DK Custom Products]

After doing the discrete crankcase breather my air cleaner never gets much more than warm .. I can and do rest my nekid leg against it.

Yeah, but you're not running the air box or cover either. Methinks that if you were running the stock enclosed A/C box, the crankcase breather would cool it done some, but it would still be pretty warm.

Kevin

 

[consitter]

After doing the discrete crankcase breather my air cleaner never gets much more than warm .. I can and do rest my nekid leg against it.

All you think about is bein' nekkid.

 

[FuzzyWuzHe]

:AGGHH: oh no ... they're on to me.

 

[consitter]

:AGGHH: oh no ... they're on to me.

Doesn't take me long.

 

[FuzzyWuzHe]

Yeah, but you're not running the air box or cover either. Methinks that if you were running the stock enclosed A/C box, the crankcase breather would cool it done some, but it would still be pretty warm.

Kevin

You may be right, but it is sure nice to not be burning my thigh

 

[jwkhd1]

After doing the discrete crankcase breather my air cleaner never gets much more than warm .. I can and do rest my nekid leg against it.

I had the same results when I installed the discrete breather on My TriGlide '15 with a Fuel Moto Pro billit stage 1 air cleaner with stock Rushmore cover.I also installed a DK 1-1/2" tank lift at the same time. That may have helped some too.

Wayne

 

[Steve on 3]

After doing the discrete crankcase breather my air cleaner never gets much more than warm .. I can and do rest my nekid leg against it.

I won't sleep tonight with that vision burned into my eyeballs

 

[BinIdaho]

After doing the discrete crankcase breather my air cleaner never gets much more than warm .. I can and do rest my nekid leg against it.

:AGGHH::AGGHH: It's a "Colorado" thingy to ride nekkid :kpzxvq:

 

[FuzzyWuzHe]

:AGGHH::AGGHH: It's a "Colorado" thingy to ride nekkid :kpzxvq:

On my bowling team ... if I get 5 strikes in a row ... I get to get nekid ... ya outta see people scatter when I get 4 ... ... although I gotta admit ... it happens less and less ... :blush:

 

[fuelmoto]

I have a 2010 Ultra Classic with a pure stock 96 cid. This thing is just like it came from the factory except the trike kit. The pipes, mufflers, air cleaner and all are factory. I am running Syn 3 oil. My air breather gets so hot I can not touch it. I thought about fans but they would blow even more heat that way. I know an engine will run better with cool air. Any suggestions?

What you are seeing is the effect of excessive heat and lack of airflow. The air cleaner and cover are essentially becoming a heat sink. Fortunately as several have already noted there are some very straight forward ways to resolve this. If you are happy with your current level of performance you may want to start by replacing the air cleaner with a good Stage 1 unit and adding an EFI tuner, this will make a notable difference in most applications. If you are looking for significant reductions I would recommend also replacing the catalyst head pipe, not only will this reduce the effect of parasitic heat it also makes a considerable difference in performance. A good muffler can help as well as the stock chambered style mufflers retain heat considerably

Jamie Long

 

[wimoonshiner]

I agree with fuel moto! If you still have the catalyst in your exhaust, GET RID OF IT!! We had some major heat coming from our 2010 TG, I replaced the whole exhaust with Vance & Hines Power duals and put the V&H Tri-Glide mufflers, different breather, re-mapped the computer and nearly all the heat issues were gone!:clapping: