Appreciate any views.

I have a new stock softail slim that I'm running in.  Went out today (about 25 deg c) and did around 70k's, from ODO  start of 30k's.  Kept it between 2500 - 3000, varying engine load.  Varied traffic, some stop start and some longer runs with no lights about 80 km/h.

Stopped every 10k's as I noticed the oil temp get up.  It was around 250F regularly and got to 300 once. Cylinder head temp maxed at 148 deg c, in general was between 120c to 140c.  Not sure what oil I'm running, it's whatever the bike came with from the harley dealership. Should I be concerned with these temps, or generally ok even if it's running non synthetic oil?

Cheers

 

 

Hey Marvin, you should change the oil & fillter after the first 100 miles (160Kl) as you get a little metal in your oil while the engine is wearing in. And agin at five hunded miles if it was me! Oil & filter are cheap under $50.00 if you do it yourself, best insurance ever. As far as temp is concered A new engine will always run slightly hotter than an older engine as the tolerances are a lot tighter when new. You are safe up to 300F at which point you should stop & let the bike cool down. As for oil, I use 20/60 Penrite minreal diesel oil as I found it to be the best. I have never used synthetic oil in anything I have ever owned! It is also my belief that slugging your motor slightly going uphill helps to bed your rings better, but like I said only slightly don't over do it, & for no more than 30sec to one minute then slip her down a gear & then give her some throttle. (Accelerate) Cheers mate!  

 

this is from the delivery sheet that came with mine.
Ride between 2500rpm and 3500rpm ( do not ride below 2500rpm). In the first 200km give 20 smooth bursts up to 4250rpm. Important: do not labour motor.
that's pretty much what I did and then changed the oil and filter at 300km and 700km and then at first service.
It seems to run good, makes good power and doesn't use oil.

Just saw my reply didn't get through.

Thanks for the advice. Will keep doing what I'm doing and park it to cool down if I see it approaching 300F on the oil again. Hopefully it sorts soon as I'm pulling up every 15 odd mins to keep the temp around 250-300F and about 140 C on the cylinder head. Will change the oil around the 170k mark too.

Cheers,

what you got to remember is, ALL Harleys old & new, use roller bearings at the bottom of the rods, they don't like getting hammered. so don't lug them at anytime thinking your doing motor some good. always keep revs over 2,500, even better keep them over 3,000.

these days does not take long to seat the rings, the restrictive exh system would cause new stock Harleys to run a bit hotter. if i had one i'd fit a fan that you can turn on or off, i've seen some good ones with billit covers that don't look too bad. when you pull up to cool motor they get hot at start as no oil circulating, so if your got a fan fitted can turn that on to blow air between barrels cools them faster. the fan would be good in traffic too.

enjoy your new ride

Thanks gents. No worries on the lugging Erny, will stay away from that. When you said you ran at 200 to 220 on a warm day do you mean oil and deg F? If so, you're running way lower temps than me so I hope to see mine come down as things loosen up. Will look into a fan Krash, thanks - pretty hot days in WA and would be useful in and out of the city for work.

if your not doing pipes and A/C just yet throw a set of Xieds on it and the extra fuel might help cool it down a little.

How are you reading your temps???Do the new bikes come with oil temp guage...

No guage on the stock. I grabbed an oil cap gauge from Frasers in perth, about $40 to cover oil temp. For cylinder head I'm using a powervision - it's great, lets me run a log and see what the temp did throughout the ride, at idle etc.
I'm using a stock improved tune from PV. It holds the cyl head around 10c cooler.