Warming up the engine?

[FinalImpact]

From the Owners Manual:

CAUTION:
For maximum engine life, always warm the engine up before starting off. Never accelerate hard when the engine is cold!

BUT on the 07 and up the manual states this too. . .
Under 39 °C (Under 103 °F) => Message “Lo” is displayed. => OK. Go ahead with riding.

I think the key words are "Never accelerate hard when the engine is cold!"

My 2 cents: If the bike is above 65F, go ride, short shift, but don't lug it, keep the RPM's under 5.5k and warm everything up at once. I usually pull the clutch lever in a few times before dropping the bike into gear and if its real cold, give a push off as I drop it into gear as the engagement is less harsh by doing this.

As for the cool down. I see no value in restarting the engine during the cool down period but I don't ride the cr@p out of it prior to shut-down (last 1mile of ride). So restarting it just creates more wear on all the components IMO.

Why does the temp go up after you kill the engine? The combustion process generates heat of which most goes out the exhaust, then the radiator and lastly the radiant heat by the engine block itself. Even though the combustion process ended (just turned engine off), you still have the same amount of BTUs to dump when you kill it but the cooling system is now off and nothing is being extracted by the exhaust so the temp climbs for 15 to 20 minutes and then falls again. This is normal and is expected.

 

[novaks47]

From the Owners Manual:

CAUTION:
For maximum engine life, always warm the engine up before starting off. Never accelerate hard when the engine is cold!

BUT on the 07 and up the manual states this too. . .
Under 39 °C (Under 103 °F) => Message “Lo” is displayed. => OK. Go ahead with riding.

I think the key words are "Never accelerate hard when the engine is cold!"

My 2 cents: If the bike is above 65F, go ride, short shift, but don't lug it, keep the RPM's under 5.5k and warm everything up at once. I usually pull the clutch lever in a few times before dropping the bike into gear and if its real cold, give a push off as I drop it into gear as the engagement is less harsh by doing this.

As for the cool down. I see no value in restarting the engine during the cool down period but I don't ride the cr@p out of it prior to shut-down (last 1mile of ride). So restarting it just creates more wear on all the components IMO.

Why does the temp go up after you kill the engine? The combustion process generates heat of which most goes out the exhaust, then the radiator and lastly the radiant heat by the engine block itself. Even though the combustion process ended (just turned engine off), you still have the same amount of BTUs to dump when you kill it but the cooling system is now off and nothing is being extracted by the exhaust so the temp climbs for 15 to 20 minutes and then falls again. This is normal and is expected.

Pretty much what I do! Really as long as the revs are kept down like that, and the throttle application is kept light, I see no issues with just firing it up and riding straight away. Heck, I did that this morning, as I didn't feel like waiting to get riding. lol

Great thread BTW. Lots of good points and facts in here. :thumbup:

 

[stpetemike]

If below 70 degrees outside I will wait longer. Sometimes leaving work the temp is already at 104 upon startup from sitting in the sun all day. Yarg, Florida in the summer is steamy.

 

[Kaisersoze]

It seems like, from all the responses, its all about the risk your willing to accept. The chance you are gonna screw something up (mechanically) seems to drop the longer you let the engine warm before getting on it and riding. I wont get into a workout at the gym until im warmed up, cant expect the bike to be happy without a warm up either. 5 minutes vs repair work on engine?

I'll wait 5 minutes

 

[FinalImpact]

It seems like, from all the responses, its all about the risk your willing to accept. The chance you are gonna screw something up (mechanically) seems to drop the longer you let the engine warm before getting on it and riding. I wont get into a workout at the gym until im warmed up, cant expect the bike to be happy without a warm up either. 5 minutes vs repair work on engine?

I'll wait 5 minutes

The down side on bikes equipped with catalytic converter is that it runs richer longer and this could reduce the life of the CAT which leads to an expensive repair. On my cars I always start driving as soon as I know the engine can handle the load imposed w/out stumbling, dying or misfiring etc...

An example might be this:
If every day its 70F and it runs fine at startup and your path is down a 3 mile flat road, the owner could start up and go without issues.

If however its 45F outside and immediately after leaving you have to climb a 10% grade and you know it may stumble or misfire, let it warm up enough to handle the load.

In short everyone's situation could be different so there is no "one answer" which fits all conditions.

Not to mention some could get a false feeling of "the engine is warm" but the tires are COLD and push it too hard. Result = crash! Hence, warm it all up together when possible. . .
I'm just saying

 

[MarkG813]

I usually dont take off unless my temp gauge gives me a number reading instead of "LOW"...