Not Bagging.....But What Is Up With

[Rick]

All these KTM's over heating????

Backgound.....My 99 EC200 is going through a mid life rebuild......ok, so I've been racing my 2005 YZ 125 here in Nor Cal D36 series, why? Because it is a kick in the butt to race, plus I get a kick out of racing with my peers on a 125 when most of them are on 250's 350's and 450's........

So, last weekend I raced the AMA West National Harescramble up at Shasta Lake, CA, near Redding, CA. The course was 23.5 miles long, had some really tight single track, long steep up hills....fast fire roads...pretty much everything...except wet dirt

This very same hill /trail the club ran the (AA, A, B's ) which I had no problem getting up on my 125, in fact I had a great battle banging bars with one of the guys in my class who has pointed out. Anyways....the club decided to run the second race "C" race up this same hill / trail, yes it was steep, loose rocks, dry dirt, very little traction.....but besides the bottle neck.....one thing that caught my eye is, both riders who shot the video their Ktoom's are over heatings. The temps were mid 70's into the low 80's during this race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKlUeiuIopI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJoerPYkC0g&feature=youtu.be


What gives???

Have the KTM's always been prone to over heating?

I know that over heating is NOT and issue with my 200, in fact there are very few posted here pertaining to overheating issues.

If your thinking...how did I finish.....I got an 8th....had a bad....bad day....not my normal finish....

Thanks

 

[papa_j]

All these KTM's over heating????

Backgound.....My 99 EC200 is going through a mid life rebuild......ok, so I've been racing my 2005 YZ 125 here in Nor Cal D36 series, why? Because it is a kick in the butt to race, plus I get a kick out of racing with my peers on a 125 when most of them are on 250's 350's and 450's........

So, last weekend I raced the AMA West National Harescramble up at Shasta Lake, CA, near Redding, CA. The course was 23.5 miles long, had some really tight single track, long steep up hills....fast fire roads...pretty much everything...except wet dirt

This very same hill /trail the club ran the (AA, A, B's ) which I had no problem getting up on my 125, in fact I had a great battle banging bars with one of the guys in my class who has pointed out. Anyways....the club decided to run the second race "C" race up this same hill / trail, yes it was steep, loose rocks, dry dirt, very little traction.....but besides the bottle neck.....one thing that caught my eye is, both riders who shot the video their Ktoom's are over heatings. The temps were mid 70's into the low 80's during this race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKlUeiuIopI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJoerPYkC0g&feature=youtu.be


What gives???

Have the KTM's always been prone to over heating?

I know that over heating is NOT and issue with my 200, in fact there are very few posted here pertaining to overheating issues.

If your thinking...how did I finish.....I got an 8th....had a bad....bad day....not my normal finish....

Thanks

I ride the desert and my ktm 530 boils and steams every time I'm out. Fluid dyne radiators didn't help. Heat wrapping the header didn't work. Re-jetting didn't help. Engine ice didn't help. I haven't tried evans waterless coolant yet.
The only solution that you can find on ktm-talk is "ride faster".

I haven't lost a drip of coolant from my 2011 EC 300 in 2.5 years.

 

[cbutler]

Everyone I know with them have to put a JD jetting kit in them to make them stop boiling.

 

[desertgasser300]

A gentleman I ride with occasionally has cooling fans on both his 2T KTM's.

I just did the Campwood enduro last weekend and ran into maybe 3 or 4 katooms that were over heating.

 

[Rick]

Everyone I know with them have to put a JD jetting kit in them to make them stop boiling.

Are they that lean out of the box?

 

[Moto7man]

I have a buddy who uses the Evans waterless coolant in his KTM 300, its still boils over. My GasGas hasn't boiled over any at all. Wow, those orange tea kettles on the video were alarming.....close to seizing......yikes..

 

[PEB]

You guys have never boiled your bikes over? The KTMs definately boil over sooner than the GG but if you slip the clutch for long enough I can attest to the fact they will boil. I don't run the recovery bottle and have dumper water on ther ground lots of times.

 

[rosco]

I have found the same thing. Even the ones with cooling fans still overheat and the fan runs so much that it drains the battery so the elec. start doesn't work. The Gas Gas's seem to be really good at cooling. I very rarely over heat mine. I really have to be flogging the hell out of it on a warm day and then it might overheat a little. But any other bike would be overheating way before that.

 

[Rick]

You guys have never boiled your bikes over? The KTMs definately boil over sooner than the GG but if you slip the clutch for long enough I can attest to the fact they will boil. I don't run the recovery bottle and have dumper water on ther ground lots of times.

I have the catch tank on the 200, I've only seen water in it a few times after some serious slow goat trail clutch work.

A month or so ago i was flogging the clutch on the125 really bad trying to get up a rocky river bed at the last National....so bad that the clutch just went away.....it was mush......but my 125 never did puke water or steam.....

The radiator cap on those KTM's could be an issue?
The older GasGas bike used KTM radiators in I remember correctly.

 

[AZRickD]

Neither my 05 or 11 EC250 boils over. I've smelled coolant on two occasions during long, clutch climbs but I wasn't sure if it was me or the KTM in front of me.

 

[Simmo737]

You can boil a gas gas easy if you punish the clutch and use an oil it doesn't like, the gg clutch seems to like semi synth, full synth like motul transoil expert doesn't hook up as well and gets grabby when td hot then just slips and will boil the bike - did it twice last week, changed the oil and it stopped.

 

[twosmoker]

i have owned 5 ktm s 250 and 300 s , and have never had any of them overheat , about 15 harescrambles , and many hours of tight rocky gnarly singletrack , i dont really have much bad to say about ktms , but i like gasgas too .......

 

[GasGasDreamer]

i'm not sure but I think ktm has a higher psi radiator cap so they run at higher temps, so maybe they are 'closer' to boil over ??

I had fluid pump out of my GG once, then I tightened the cap and never again.
I like my '06 expansion tank behind the number plate too and sometimes that will get some fluid in it. I also have an overflow that captures and returns fluid but I have never seen the bike use it.
of course maybe i'm not in the 'real' hot areas, i'm only las vegas, nv and gets 120F in the shade, and I do ride it that stuff and in the slow technical snotty stuff.

 

[n_green]

I think the modern 2st KTMs also run about 250ml less coolant then equivalent GasGas. But as Simmo said the Gasser will still boil. Just about every ride I go on these days I hear it bubbling away after a long techy hill.

 

[twowheels]

KTM water jackets have shrunk to tiny volumes, and this can work if you keep the water pump spinning. Grunting up hills and through deep mud or sand simply adds too much heat (or heat too quickly).

There may have been an inherent advantage to the old sand-cast cases as well in their ability to draw heat away from the cylinder and expel it, but that's speculation.

 

[swazi_matt]

i also think the layout of the bike does not promote easy air flow on the ktm. If you look at it you will see the gas tank is very close to the back of the radiator, the GG on the other hand has very little restriction behind the radiators.

In this part of the world most of the ktm's are fitted with fans. I also fitted one on my GG, but for the record before fitting it i only boiled at the top of the climbs where the ktms were blowing steam halfway up already. (Unfortunately if i forget to turn the fan on in tight situations the bike boils much easier now that the fan cowling reduces flow when the fan is not on)

 

[shang]

I frequently boil my 300. But usually in the warmer summer months and when the going gets really rocky and slow. Abusing the clutch a bunch. I did put a cooling fan on mine but since it's cooled down it hasn't ever kicked on. We will see when it warms up outside.