Fresh off another practice day with a few new things tested and a few more modifications needed.
One thing i wanted to try was to paint the radiator matt black to see what effect it would have on the running temperature.
Its known a black radiator is more effective at transferring its heat energy to the atmosphere when there is no air moving through it due to the colours higher emmisivity and absorbtivity. see these links for info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_radiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchhoff%27s_law_of_thermal_radiation
In practice things rarely go 100% according to theory and i was worried the paint might make a barrier and stop effective heat transfer. Thus only way to check is to test it.
So here it is. nicely painted matt black radiator. this one is a bit ruined so if it didnt work it needed replacing anyway!
Out on the track the temp was about 30-35 so it was roughly the same as the last race day i tested the system at. After the radiator was bled it read a steady 70c through 20 laps which is identical to last time, however i was riding almost 4 seconds a lap faster then last time so its ever so slightly better. Not much but every degree helps.
Where it did make a large difference though as predicted by the theory is when the bike was at rest and shut off ala in the pits. It cooled down from 70c to roughly ambient in 15 minutes flat which is about half the time it used to take.
So the black radiator is a success!
Another great tip i got off Chris aka the claw was to put an angle spacer under the top radiator mounting bolts to angle the radiator fowards slightly. This lets you have more room to remove the spark plug which in a banshee is a complete nightmare of a job. especially when the bike is still hot.
Plenty of room now :) Spacing the radiator away from the exhaust manifold should help a tiny amount as well, it was touching the bracket before which isnt good.
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