Veefer 800 Canuck's Sportbike Pages
	VFR Oil Cooler modification
				As posted to the VFR mailing list
Having read all the various posts from various 800fi owners as to the tendency of the 800s to run hotter than desired, I decided to "hop up" my cooling system. I put out an inquiry to the list asking if anyone had attempted this before or not. After an underwhelming response (0 replies), I decided to forge ahead regardless. Looking at the bike and studying the side mounted rads, I decided to leave well enough alone as the entire airflow vs side rads looked like too much to tackle. There did not seem to be any room for improvement there. I felt that the path of least resistance was to increase the size of the oil cooler. I looked at several Hondas and found that a cooler off an '86 VFR seemed to be the closest fit. It has 3 tiers whereas the stock '99 unit has only 2. Theoretically, this should offer *about* 150% of the cooling capacity of the 800s original oil cooler, all else being equal. Also, the length and thickness were identical, making for easier packaging. An RC 51 unit would offer even more surface area, approximately double the 800s item, but it was significantly taller and would pose problems with the cylinder head being in the way. I found an '86 oil cooler at Edmonton Cycle Salvage in excellent shape and carted it home. 2 problems presented themselves immediately. First, the '86 unit mounts "right-side-up" with the inlet/outlet flanges at the top. The 800's mounts "upside-down". So we need to flip it over, only the mounting brackets are now on the bottom. After some puzzling, I decide to fabricate a new bracket out of 1x1x1/8 aluminum angle. Hacksaw off the old brackets, gently grind them flush and deburr them. I removed the 800s cooler to use as a mounting guide. I determined that I would need to mount the new unit ~1/2" further forward to help with cyl. head clearance. I cut the angle iron about 3" long, drilled 2 holes to accept the rubber grommets for the mounts and rounded the edges for a nice finished look. Now here comes the backwoods part! I was afraid to braze the bracket to the new cooler as I was scared of melting it and I do not know anyone talented enough to trust it to, so I used (of all things) J-B weld!!! Ok, Ok, you can stop cringing now. It worked superb! I mixed up a small batch and *very carefully* applied it to the underside of the bracket, pressed it firmly to the cooler in the correct spot and smoothed the edges all around with my finger. Let it set up for 24 hours and presto! It cannot be budged without a hand grenade. The edges do NOT look sloppy as I was *very* careful in applying it, and a coat of aluminum spraypaint makes everything look spiffy. Next problem was re-routing the cooler lines. The '86 item has the inlet/outlet set on an angle relative to the front face of the cooler and the '99s are straight on. In order to rotate the lines, I needed to cut and re-orient them. I got savvy and measured them first, 0.395" O.D.--CRAP, METRIC!!! We have all sorts of stainless fittings at work, but they're all standard. A phonecall to Edmonton Valve and Fitting freed up a pair of stainless steel Swagelock 10mm Metric tube/tube unions. Perfect! Won't rust, can be disassembled and reassembled and are good for several thousand PSI, so I think they'll be *adequate* to stand up to the viffer's oil pressure. :) That, and they look like first-rate NASA hardware, not plumbers junk. So, I closed my eyes (not really) and said a prayer, cut into the oil tubing with a proper set of tubing cutters and set about lining up the old lines with the new cooler. I shortened each side ~1/4" and bent them ever so slightly to achieve a good fit. Installed the tubing unions and torqued carefully. Sat back and admired everything and then worked up the nerve to fire it up. Please God, no leaks! Vifferooom! Vifferooom! Vifferoooom! everything is clean and 100% leak-free! Woo-hoo! Upon re-installing the bodywork, I found the inner fairing panel that hangs down by the headpipes contacted the oil lines slightly. I carefully carved some material off the inner curve of the panel and smoothed the edges for a factory look. Lotsa clearance now. Let's ride! I went for a spin, and the result was: I can't tell. Mind you, it was *only* +11'C out today, and the bike never got over 77'C on the gauge. The real test will be when I get down to CA this summer at Laguna. I will be traveling with 2 other 800s and will have to compare temperature readings with them when the weather is hot. I hope to see a 5-10'C drop in readings, but time will tell. I'll report back to the list after Laguna with some numbers. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- <addendum> Well, after travelling to CA and looking at temps from a couple different 800s, I have seen results ranging from around a low of 8-10'C cooler to a high of about 35'F cooler (~20'C). Why the different measures? Well, one of the bikes was a CA model with farenheit measurements. On one particular day (42'C on my ambient temp display), the CA VFR was consistently showing 250'F and above. At that same time, my bike was showing around 100-102'C, or about 212-216'F. It seems the bigger cooler really works, but you have to be moving at a fairly decent pace to see a difference. If someone is contemplating the swap, I'd try the RC-51 (AKA VTR1000SP) unit. It appears to be about twice the size of the 800s oil cooler and should be even more effective at reducing the tendency of the 800 VFR to run warm. So my *highly* unscientific data says it's about 8-20'C cooler running than when in the company of other 800s on the same road, on the same day. AS ALWAYS, YMMV!!! Please use your browser's back button to return to the previous page.