Do You Need To Warm Up Your Engine? | The Shop Manual

here's a question should you let your bike's engine warm up before you hit the road i mean i wouldn't want to roll out of bed on a cold morning and sprint down the block without warming up first and your bike probably doesn't either or does it today on revzilla we will discuss if when and why you should let your engine idle and warm up let's open up the shot manual [Music] this episode of the shot manual is brought to you by kershaw my go-to unboxing knife and a tool i carry with me everywhere get 25 off your order at kershawknives.com with the code revzilla25 people will cite a lot of reasons for letting their engines idle after startup and while there used to be several legitimate justifications for getting the engine good and warm before clicking into gear most of them just don't apply anymore even when it's properly cold out the first valid but mostly out of date explanation is carburetors up until the 90s pretty much all bikes relied on carburetors to mix fuel and air in the right proportions for combustion and carb bikes just tend to run like crap until they've warmed up they'll idle weird and bog or stall when you open the throttle and that's because vaporized gas condenses on still cool engine parts like the intake tracks piston crown and cylinder walls leaning out the mixture and causing the engine to stumble the solution is to pull the choke which adds more fuel to compensate for the cold condition and then just wait until the engine has enough heat in it to keep the fuel vaporized so if you ride a carbureted bike then yeah you gotta give it a minute or two to warm up or it's just not gonna run right with fuel injection however the ecu monitors engine temperature and a bunch of other sensors to ensure a smooth idle and crisp throttle response right from startup so as far as proper running is concerned there is no need to warm up a fuel injected bike the next formerly legit reason is oil flow perhaps you've heard someone say that you have to allow time for the engine oil to come up to temperature because when it's cold it won't flow properly but modern multi-weight oils are multi-weight specifically so they will flow when cold in fact 10w40 that's a common viscosity for street bikes is designed to pump from as low as 10 degrees fahrenheit in other words a lot colder than anyone in their right mind is going to want to ride in okay so if you're on a bike that's 20 years old or younger then you don't need to let the engine warm up to clean up the fueling and you don't need to worry about proper oil flow you do however want to give it a little bit of time for oil pressure to develop and for oil to get distributed throughout the engine so that things are properly lubricated luckily that occurs very quickly and most bikes will even let you know it's happened by turning off the check engine and oil pressure lights so by the time you've pulled on your helmet and your gloves your bike's good to go however just because you don't need to let your motor warm up before you let the clutch out does not mean it's okay to send the tack needle to redline right away and that's because whether your bike is carbureted or fuel injected new or old american or japanese there is a laundry list of critical tolerances that don't come into spec until the components have gotten good and hot and expanded to their intended dimensions we're talking about the thousands of an inch gap between your pistons and cylinders as well as the very precise clearances between your rocker arms cams and valves as well as lots of other parts so if you hammer the throttle before everything has come up to operating temperature you're likely causing ever so slightly accelerated wear as the parts flail around at less than ideal clearances now that's not to say you can't just hop on your bike and ride it just means that you don't want to put the engine under heavy load until it's warm if all you're doing is cruising across town to pick up lunch then just don't worry about it even on a cold day healthy engine parts are going to function fine at moderate loads in rpm but if you're hopping on a bike to fire down the drag strip or go turn laps at the track you're going to want to wait until the clutch cover feels warm to the touch before you bring the tack needle to redline some bikes like bmw's s1000xr even display a lower redline until the engine is sufficiently warm just to remind you to limit ramps to summarize unless you ride a carbureted bike or have somehow unearthed oil from 1940 and decided to put it in your engine you don't need to let your bike idle for more than a minute before you ride it so hit the starter strap on your gear and get on the road but don't get greedy with the throttle until the engine has had time to come up to operating temperature you

Channel: RevZilla

Views: 1,110,296

Keywords: The shop manual, shop manual, ari henning, Warm-up, engine, motorcycle, winter, cold temps, operating temp, temperature, engines, rev, engine warm up, warmup, motorcycle engines, redline, engine oil, oil, viscosity, cold, cold engine, cold start, revzilla, review, revzillatv, common tread

Id: BdSxeZfzfc8

Length: 5min 13sec (313 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 29 2022