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My BMW is oil cooled. Essentially, as I understand it, the engine oil is circulated through a pair of radiators on either side of the bike, just in front of my knees. Here's a pic of my bike from head on. You can see the oil coolers below the turn signals, and above the (opposed) cylinder heads.

Given that I live in the Baltimore/DC metro area and commute by motorcycle when I can, I occasionally get stuck in traffic. On a summer day, that can be really tough on an air cooled engine.



>This pic is an early one. Prior to most of my upgrades... you can see the OEM front shock.

P

zefi wrote:Being there are two general choices of the GS500 (air cooled or oil cooled, depending on what year you get)

I wonder if the reason Suzuki added the oil cooler to the GS500F is that the fairing they added somehow reduced cooling air flow to the engine?

jstark47 wrote:

zefi wrote:Being there are two general choices of the GS500 (air cooled or oil cooled, depending on what year you get)

I wonder if the reason Suzuki added the oil cooler to the GS500F is that the fairing they added somehow reduced cooling air flow to the engine?

All GS500/E/F built from 1989 to present are air cooled and there is no basic difference in the engines of any of them. The small auxilliary type oil cooler added to the fully faired 04 and later GS500F models was added because of the addition of the restrictive fairings.

The naked GSs didn't have any overheating problems and while the naked GS500 hasn't been sold in the US since 2002 it remains on the world market and is still sold without the oil cooler. After putting 230k miles on four 400-750cc air cooled Hondas I've put my last 150k+ miles on 2 naked GS500/E models over the last 11 years and the naked GSs without oil coolers are the coolest running of the bikes I've had.

In buying a used GS500 I would decide based on whether I wanted a naked bike or a fully faired one without regard to whether it has an oil cooler or not. The oil capacity remains at just over 3 quarts with filter change and the GS-F models with the oil cooler only take a small fraction of a quart more oil than the ones without the cooler.