92KK 84WW Olaf
Life time member
Number of posts : 7967
Mike
I smiled when I saw my dear friend John Cleese, definitely makes you a good forum member who is also endowed with K humour.
I actually read your post shortly after it was posted and with no replies, typed out a long reply and then it never posted.
They guys here generally don't reply to technical questions if they can't support the particular question raised. Some very knowledgeable members have made few enough posts but will alsways offer good advice if they can. Some of us however do sometimes step in with well educated theories and advice. But the last thing any of us want is a load of bad advice so many don't make any post at all and in fairness when it happens the reprimands are very tactful and polite, unlike some other forums I have used.
The thing about the K1200 is the change in frame configuration makes certain parts, ie starter and alternator, very difficult to access.
The K75/K100/K1100 in sharing configuration and many parts fall naturally together. We do things like put K75 pistons in K100 for higher compression ratio, some do things like put K1100 engines in K100s, some have fitted turbos, altered geometry, lots of things but very few if any involve interface with the K1200.
Going back to the question raised reminded me of a good friend since deceased who had a varied career including test driving for Lotus and in the seventies designed and built a one off car for road use, got it through the insurance hoops and when it was finished it looked like it came off a production line if only because where possible he used off the shelf components and glasswork. 'Built' included building a monocoque fibreglass body, by way of making the mould himself. We were working on a large hospital project at the time and when I turned up with a nice shiny Honda 500 Four his mechanical interests formed a bond. He was slightly upset that the informal 'fastest time I set from my house to the site was decimated by a young squirt on a motorbike'. Of course this led to my interest in his car, at that stage it was still 3 years short of being on the road.
This led to a conversation about cooling and heat when you upped an engine's performance. In his career he had experimented with black painted radiators, radiators with extra fins added on the main flow pipes, metal waterpipes with fins instead of hoses [which he couldnt use on cars due to rubber mounted engines], finned engine sumps. Lectures about fluid dynamics, airflows etc led to a few discussions on how waterways, cooling requiremends, pump speed and impeller shapes have to be matched and are usually optimised for an engine and for the higher powered versions being made from one basic engine unit. We had big interest locally in this stuff as motorcycle drag racing was all the rage in this little corner of the world.
The only way I can see more cooling [apart from the sort of things explored above] is a change in gearing to make a pump go faster but the drive shaft for the pump does not seem to lend itself to a change in gearing if only because whatever drives the pump gearing also must change, ie both cogs. I dont think anyone has been in that far to make that change of if it can be done but if they have I may have missed the post. I did look up Clymer to see but it doesn't give anything on the K1200. Changing impeller may change efficiency by causing cavitation and resultant overheating.
Back to my deceased friend he also had ideas of remote radiators and longer hoses, now quite commonplace, such as in the side vents of my sons VFR800 Vtec that has them in the fairing. Not something discussed on this forum but at high end I have often wondered if other products can be used in the cooling system for faster heat dissipation. Radiators could be curved too.
The other one mentioned was to machine a plate to increase the sump capacity. This does not seem to be a very difficult task and as the oil performs a big part of the cooling function may help. I am wondering how much extra depth would be needed to achieve another litre of oil capacity and could this also be used to introduce oil cooling?
I know it doesn't answer the question, but sometimes a different direction may work.
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1992 K100LT 0193214 Bertha Blue 101,000 miles
1984 K100RT 0022575 Brutus Baja Red 578 bought 36,000 now 89,150 miles
1997 K1100LT 0188024 Wotan Mystic Red 689 58,645 now 106,950 miles Deceased.
1983 K100RS 0011157 Fricka 606 Alaska Blue 29,495 miles Damn K Pox Its a Bat outta Hell Now 58,200 miles.
1996 K1100LT 0233004 Lohengrin Mystic Red 38,000 miles currently 51,800 miles.
1983 K100RS 0004449 Odette R100 colours 58,000 miles. Sprint fairing now 63,390 miles
Past:
1968 Yamaha 80 YG1
1971 Yamaha 125 YAS-1
1968 Honda 125 SS
1970 Honda CD 175
1973 Honda CB500-4
Honda CX 500