2024-01-18 CermaChrome Infrared Test

2024-01-18 CermaChrome Infrared Test

Finally got the water pump installed and leak free
(I hope, haven't checked today yet!)

Time to fire her up and see if the CermaChrome coating reduces heat onto radiator.

As we all know, KZ's have marginal cooling. Removing OEM dual wall headers and replacing single wall pipes puts much more heat into radiator and engine block.

This quote from KawBoy, kz1300.com
The biggest issue I see with the KZ1300 is that the oil runs hot. The engine is massive in frontal size and sits right behind the exhaust down pipes and the radiator. dumping all that heat in front of the engine and of course the engine will run hotter.

The original stock exhaust was a double walled header pipe system and that would substantially help control the heat in front of the engine but almost all of the KZ's and ZN's have got replacement exhaust systems and the pipes are all single walled which will dump heat immediately in front of the massive engine block.  You could use header wrap on the pipes but my personal experience with header wrap is that the wrap will absorb moisture during down time and that will prematurely rot out the exhaust pipes. I had to use it on my F350 Ford truck with 400 series stainless pipes and within a year and a half, I had perforated pipes.
I'm a bigger fan of ceramic header coatings since they will add corrosion protection and also keep a lot of the heat in the exhaust pipe until it exits at the tailpipe. Jet Hot coatings is one option and it's not cheap. Don just had his headers coated and once he gets the bike up and running, will be able to report on the effectiveness of having the pipes coated. I think he had  Cermachrome- By Bright Hot Headers  ( this is his topic)

Another DIY option is an internal ceramic coating offered by  Eastwood's Internal Exhaust Coating  Which I plan on trying. At $30 a can (which is enough to do the header pipes) it looks like an interesting option.

The legend identifies hot spot, cold spot and other temperature points.

Subjective statements about to happen. The area feels much cooler to the hand. The bike took much longer to reach mid-scale temperature.
Then again, ambient temp is high 50's low 60's. This imagery taken when primary purpose was to see if water seal leaked.

Would be interesting to compare previous imagery to new. Less subjective.

Headed back up to shop in a bit..

Oh, also have the new fan installed. So that's changed too.