Greetings to all Back to riding after 5 years and I found a well maintained, 26.000km 998S with full termi system. But bike runs hot ie 95C on highway and if pushed hard upto 105-110C. Also fans (starting at 103C) dont seem to lower temperature and keep it at 105-110.. Saw a number of threads looking at various causes including water pump, cooling system etc but it seems the ecu came from an R and its all down to wrong mapping. Probably. Question is what would it mean to the engine internals for a bike running +10-15C for a number of years/ 000s kms for this specific model? Just accelerated wear oro am I getting into trouble here? Thank you all Philip
Imho, It shouldn’t really do much harm if the oil is fully synthetic. My car runs at 100C and is designed to do exactly that for peak efficiency. Having said that, this is very unusual as Ducati’s generally run cold at speed and only get hot when going slowly. Maybe your coolant level is low or you have an air lock?
I see you are in Cyprus. What speeds are you maintaining on the “highway”? If only 60 kph or so, that could be why your engine is running hot. When looking at ways of reducing the slow speed temperature of my 999, I found uprated fans were available for the 916. Seems very possible one of these would work on a 998.
Thanks for reply. Well highway temperature now ranges around 20C and speeds never below 120-140kmh. It shouldnt run that hot. My 996SPS and 916 on similar conditions used to run at 80-85C.. The cause we will find it. What I am concerned is damage all this time to engine if any. Thanks again P.
No it wouldn't normally run that hot but if you have good synthetic oil it will have done no harm. Ducati have deliberately set the fan to come on at 103, imho because that is a desirable temperature for the oil to reach. The coolant shouldn't boil until 130 or so. Anything up to 125 is alarming but should do no actual harm. Have you checked the coolant level?
Yes we have. Between the max amd min mark so it is ok. My mechanic believes is the mapping on the ecu as they put a 998R ecu.
If that's the case, although such a difference in temperature does seem remarkable, @chrisw is the man you need to speak to. You may still have an airlock though and could the radiator be clogged with dead insects etc??
Yeap system flush was the first thing we did. As well as the water pump and whether those fins are ok.. the bike was basically idle for years so engine fluids was the first thing we did. But it still runs hot..
Seem to remember that only one fan comes in at first then the second one at a higher temperature? I believe there is a kit which will bring in both fans together at a lower temp which should hopefully solve the problem.
As long as the coolant hasnt boiled,the motor should be fine,shouldnt it?Have you checked that the temp guage is accurate?
Have you got a coolant rated high in there too? Some can boil at just over 100 and some are rated much higher...
Have you checked the thermostat whilst the engine is warming up? The thermostat will open with a coolant temp around 65c and it will soon become obvious if the thermostat is stuck as at 65c the radiator starts getting warm, at 95c it will be fully open and the rad will be too hot to touch.
We ve ve checked the thermostat and its fine. Also changed coolant to ice-sth which supposedly lowers the temperature..for temp gauge ,we used one of this digital thermometers and it showed 80C on the engine casing which was suspicious (while gauge was 100+). Mechanic is supposed to check it again
I had problems with heat on my 1098. I did a lot of searching on the web While doing this I found a thread on the Ducati.ms site The op found that the 1098 temp sensor fits into a plastic fitting. When they looked further by looking inside the plastic fitting they found the tip of the probe is shrouded by the plastic They fitted a temporary temp gauge in the water system and found that the bikes gauge was reading a lot higher than the real water temp He cured it by using a dremel to cut away the plastic inside and thus expose it to the water flow. His bike then showed the real cooler temp
I think Ducati radiator caps are marked as 1.1 to 1.2Bar which is 2.1 to 2.2 absolute, assuming the coolant boils at 106°C then that's 128°C for boiling Coolant. The engines are designed to have a working temperature of 85°C... the rest is margin. Check the condition of the pump... strip it down and have a look.... replace the coolant with new after a flush... it may be too strong... anything above 50/50 and the efficiency to transfer heat will be seriously down.
how would a remap increase engine temp?. (thinking out loud) advancing ignition timing? running leaner? i wonder if an octane booster or running on premium would help.
Love to see some kind of documentation that indicates that 85C is the design running temperature. The thermostat would indicate that it is but the temperature the fans are designed to come in at contradicts that. Very confusing...
Sorry, just something in the back of my head, historical.... someone on here is into engine design, perhaps they could enlighten. The thermostat starts to open at 65°C and is fully open by 70°C.... So I'd say that the designers really wanted that excess heat removed as fast as possible...... IF not why not open the thermostat at 115°C?
