tyre warm up v's engine warm up?

Looking for some opinions here, wondering roughly how long it takes to warm up my tyres to start having fun, at the moment i'm going by the warmth of th engine, when it's warm enough to cane it a bit, I'm assuming the tyres are warm enough to be a bit grippy too.....

tyres are Metz Z6 Roadtecs

the reason I ask is my journey to work is only 7 1/2 miles, mostly through central London, so not much chance to get above 30/40mph and lots of stopping, but a couple of lovely corners I like to lean over for

i havent had the sv a week yet but for all the other bikes i have had the engine temp and tyre temp i treat as 2 diferant entities...

i let the engine warm up to temp before riding it.... then i do 15 miles to work......... after about 10 miles i start to play.

if your not sure.. stop and have a feel of ya tyre, if its hot and sticky..... its play time.

if we go out on a days riding, we usually leave the fun till after 30 mins of riding.

dont be fooled taht weaving your bike left and right warms teh tyres up.... it simply rubs the ****e off them...

you need hard acceleration, hard deceleration to get the rubber sticky.....

I did not realise that it was a good idea to warm up engine before riding off or reving it....my bro just told me that this weekend. Was worried that i may have screwed up something as it only has 400 on clock but he said the engines are tough and to just be sure in future to let everything warm up before i rev it up and ride off and have some fun

Some people on this site would say that it's best to start and go.

I've heard is not good to let the SV run on its side stand, it's bad for the crank i believe

i start mine, put my helmet and gloves on and go, take it easy till the oil's over 75 degrees then have more fun.

NOTE - i'm not saying that's what you should do, just what i do

i start my bikes.....
open the garage door...
put helmet/gloves on
put bike outside
close garage door
off i go... its about 65 by this time take it easy till it gets to 75+
then wait another 10 miles till i lean right over on the tyres

Originally Posted by twotime

Looking for some opinions here, wondering roughly how long it takes to warm up my tyres to start having fun, at the moment i'm going by the warmth of th engine, when it's warm enough to cane it a bit, I'm assuming the tyres are warm enough to be a bit grippy too.....

tyres are Metz Z6 Roadtecs

the reason I ask is my journey to work is only 7 1/2 miles, mostly through central London, so not much chance to get above 30/40mph and lots of stopping, but a couple of lovely corners I like to lean over for

Engine temperature and tyre temperature are in no way directly related. If your commute is through central London and only 7.5 miles then the chances of your tyres being anything other than mildly warm are remote, so hold back on leaning over too far as you could well find they slip.


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in mcn about a month ago it said it was'nt good to warm a bike up left ticking over on the side stand? apparently its no good for your oil. best way was to start and ride,just dont hammer it till the lumps warm.

[embee]

I really wouldn't recommend warming the engine at idle/no load before riding. I know a lot of people do it with bikes, but very few people do it with cars.

The reasoning is that when the bores are cold the combustion products, largely water, some soft carbon soot and some mildly acidic gases (CO2, NOx etc), will condense and combine with the oil film on the bore surface as the cylinder gas expands and cools (refer to "dew point"). This oil film is only a few molecules thick, and it doesn't take much condensate to contaminate it to the point where the lubricating properties are significantly reduced.

There were historically cases of old diesel engines which suffered liner fractures, cleanly round the circumference, usually near the BDC ring travel reversal point, and this was due to acidic attack as the gases reached the dew point and the oil film was contaminated.

OK so modern (gasoline) engines won't suffer this, but it shows it's a real phenomenon.

Start the engine, allow it 10 or 20sec to settle, for afterstart enrichment to ramp down and plugs begin to warm a bit etc, then ride off gently. This will help get the surface temperatures reasonably quickly up to values where the condensation will not form and attack the oil film. Preferably allow the engine to reach normal working temps before using max performance, but try not to potter around and sit in traffic jams while it's cold.

A further tip though if anyone is using colder than standard plugs . The biggest drawback is cold fouling, usually just after starting and often associated with trying to pull away (i.e. putting load on the engine at low speed when cold). Afterstart enrichment (= choke on carbs) combined with acceleration enrichment and some fuel hang-up (condensed fuel on the walls) getting pulled through from cold inlet tracts will suddenly make lots of soft carbon and water condensation, which makes the plug centre all black and gooey. This shorts out the spark.

The best way to get round this is, contrary to my earlier suggestion is to start the engine as normal, then gradually ease the revs up to say 2500-3000rpm and hold there for say 30secs, putting the choke off fully if carbs as soon as possible (it'll usually run fine if held at steady speed). This gets the plug temp up as quickly as possible without the soft wet carbon forming. The plugs need to be at 300C or so to begin self-cleaning.

Don't blip the throttle, this makes it even richer and more likely to foul the plugs (that was basically the "cold foul" test we developed for car engines). Also iridium types are slightly less prone to fail since they will tolerate leaner mixtures when still cold and need a bit less voltage to arc.