Radiator hose setup

[Grande huevos]

You can do either hose. The temp isn't much different from one location to the next, maybe a couple degrees but my enough to matter. My personal opinion is it's better to know the temp going to the motor rather then leaving, because say for example the temp hits 200 coming out of your radiator well after it travels through your motor it's prob going to be a little hotter right??? But like I said it's only a few degrees so it really doesn't make much difference. If you melt your motor down with a gauge installed then you weren't watching it close enough anyways. Here's my setup with Afco radiator

[rablack21]

Grande Huevos, while I see what you are saying, I have to respectfully disagree. If you see the temp of the coolant coming right out of the motor than you could react quickly if need be to severe overheating. The coolant in the radiator is not cycling that fast, so by the time it comes through the bottom hose and you see it on your temp gauge, the engine temp condition coming out of the motor could have already changed drastically. Plus, if you only are checking the bottom hose temp, then you can only guess as to what the temp coming out of the motor is, not actually know. There is and should be a temperature difference between the top and bottom hose temp and it should be more than a few degrees(as much as 25-30° lower). If not then the radiator isn't doing much.

[atv fan 28]

not trying to argue but i dont see their being a 25-30 degree difference in the two hoses. Someone should put 2 gauges on and see what the difference really is.

[DnB_Racing]

not trying to argue but i dont see their being a 25-30 degree difference in the two hoses. Someone should put 2 gauges on and see what the difference really is.

a simple temp gun would do the trick

depending on air temp compared to engine temp it would be different

a cold day would remove more heat then a warm day

[05450r]

I say 20 degrees average, lets take a poll..lol

[udontknowme]

geez if its only couple degrees different from where it enters and exits then just throw the rad in the trash and save bunch of weight.  i remeber some time back i was working on my truck and happen to notice the top hose is hot as hell and bottom was alot colder. should be no different for a bike provided theres air moving through the rad

[Bigred]

Truck u have more than one cylinder lol

[Bigred]

Ya it has a case save was bolting everything on when the pics were taken

[rablack21]

geez if its only couple degrees different from where it enters and exits then just throw the rad in the trash and save bunch of weight.  i remeber some time back i was working on my truck and happen to notice the top hose is hot as hell and bottom was alot colder. should be no different for a bike provided theres air moving through the rad

Agreed^^^

I realize there are different factors involved with a truck, but it brings up a good point. Every piece of equipment that I know of that monitors water temp does so with the sensor inline with the water coming out of the motor, cars, trucks, offroad equipment, atvs, drag racers, dirt track racers, let's just say any race vehicle.

I'm not saying you CAN'T monitor water temp from the water going into the motor, I am simply saying I don't believe it to be the most accurate or beneficial way to do so.

Wayne, honestly the 25-30° was just a guesstimate and was maybe a bit high. It has been a while since I measured the inlet and outlet temps on my R, and I don't remember the numbers. There are variables involved that would change the numbers a bit (fin shape, fins per inch, numbers of rows, air volume, coolant flow rate), but I would think an R should be averaging atleast a 10° temp difference between motor inlet and outlet. While I hate to throw out a number before getting a chance to measure it again, the point I was trying to make is that I think there is enough difference between the inlet and outlet temps that would make you want to measure the most severe/critical one.