Cooling systems used in ATVs

Regardless of whether we’re riding on a sports quadrant or a crossroad, each of them feeds on a smaller or larger size, working hard to give us the most driving pleasure – a generator that generates a pretty solid dose of heat in addition to driving our quadricycle.

Due to the fact that the engine works optimally (remember – burns gasoline supplied to it to achieve the maximum possible explosion energy, driving the piston with the smallest possible amount of harmful substances in the exhaust gases) only in a certain narrow temperature range to include the maximum possible and smooth operation.

A little bit of history suggests that quad bikes came to the world markets quite late, so designers could take advantage of the ready-made solutions developed during the technological boom of the 1980s. During this period, there was a very tough arms race between motorcycle manufacturers, especially in the off-road segment, which we were interested in.

Types of cooling systems used in quad bikes:

• Air Cooling

The air-cooled cylinder and engine head are equipped with a large number of fins designed to increase the current heat transfer surface to the piston, cylinder walls and combustion chamber in the cylinder head and the resulting fuel-air mixture in the cylinder, as well as friction forces and piston during operation.

These ribs are washed by the air flow caused by the car’s movement during the ride, which provides a reduction in engine temperature. There are also options with additional forced cooling in the form of an installed fan that artificially causes air movement. This makes the motor unhealthy due to moving or stopping for a long time.

This type of cooling is used in cheaper, less spacious ATVs because of their ease of construction, typically in engines that are not subject to extreme loads when driving on the racetrack or in deep mud.air cooling was used in the two-stroke.

• Liquid Cooling

The design and principle of operation of the cylinder and liquid-cooled engine head have a completely different design – they have no fins and their walls are definitely thicker, with hollow channels for liquid cooling.

In addition, the engine unit is equipped with a rotary water pump driven by a crankshaft rotating while the engine is running, connected by a hose system with an external liquid cooler similar to the oil cooler at the front of the car.

In the case of larger or busier vehicles, the water cooler is equipped with a fan that additionally keeps the air flow through the fins of the cooler, and when the engine is running, the pump pumps the coolant into the ducts in the cylinder (or indirectly through the engine block depending on the solution).

The network of these ducts is so dense that the fluid flowing through them forms a casing that receives heat from the piston and the combustion chamber. If there is a thermostat in the cooling system, the liquid in the cylinder remains there until it reaches the desired temperature.

• Oil cooling (maintenance)

In addition to the standard cylinder and head (or fluid chiller) fineness, since oil cooling is usually an additional cooling for the main cooling, air or fluid), a small oil cooler is also installed.

It is located 99% of the time in front of the engine, at a short distance, so as not to interfere with the cooling airflow of the upper engine fin and not to “warm up” the engine from each other.

The oil removed from the cartridges (or from an external reservoir, depending on the type of oil sump used in this type of engine) by the oil pump is not pumped directly into the head, but “washed” through the oil lines to the radiator, where it is pushed through the channels between the fins of the radiator.

This type of cooling is only used in four-stroke engines because of the high temperatures achieved by the engine oil and the engine design itself with forced lubrication circulation. The correct temperature range of the engine oil should normally be in the range of 100-110 ºC.

Tuning of the cooling system

As well as most of the components used in the design of the rectangle, the cooling system can be improved. The worst-case scenario is with air-cooled car owners, in which case we cannot significantly improve the plant without a lot of money.

Cooling system management

Other, when making any changes to the cooling system to improve its performance, you need to pay attention to a few facts. The first thing to do is to make careful control of the existing system. Often, our constantly boiling and overheated equipment only requires thorough cleaning of the system from deposits and thorough cleaning of the radiator.

By thoroughly understanding it, rinsing it through or illuminating it with a flashlight on one side, we can easily see light falling through the radiator slot on the other side after rinsing. In most cases, dirt from everyday travel penetrates deep into the radiator, so that good cleaning can lead to health for several hours.

When cleaning the radiator, we should do so with care – it is best to connect the water supplied directly from the tap, with a rubber hose, unreactive chemicals and compressed air, and after carefully wetting the radiator hose, it should be treated with the chemical that is best applied with the high-pressure washer available in hypermarkets.

After a few seconds of waiting, the already softened dirt should be rinsed by applying the outlet hose with water to the radiator fins and then passing compressed air through the washed radiator. Depending on the degree of contamination of the fins, the operation should be repeated.