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It does add weight the way they’re doing it now (probably) but a motor that’s designed from the start for an external electric pump will be lighter and simpler. No mechanical pump, drive gears, impeller shafts or seals could be good.
Agree, a 125 would get the most benefit from an electric water pump!
1992 Gas Gas GT-T was the first production bike with a hydraulic clutch actuation I believe. 1997.5 KTM came out with the PDS and hydraulic clutch actuation.
Hopefully never
I actually wondered why someone had not already asked about other electrical components.
The simple answer is, aluminum foil.
We don't just use it for hats here in tennessee.
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Probably depends on how the mechanical pump is sized. If the OEMs knew the bikes were going to be used by all owners as race bikes, at higher speeds and rpms only, they could probably make the pump smaller. I'd bet they oversize them to account for owners who don't use them to their full potential (lower engine/pump speed, lower bike/air speed). In which case there's going to be excess parasitic loss at higher rpms. The electric pump can be sized smaller and still work well at all conditions being that it runs independent of engine speed.
I would be interested to know if the teams are running them full loss battery power. If so, that would almost be like cheating. Not much different in concept than running electric assist, and where do you draw the line? Oil/scavenge pumps? Cams? Etc.
Agreed. Give me a Honda 250 works edition.
Goldwings had hydro clutches in 1975
It’s a centrifugal pump running a closed loop with minimal pressure drop, I think it’s fine.
I’d rather have this style pump than the mechanical one driven from the crank. It’s flow rate and cooling capacity is linear and isolates the cooling loop from the drive assembly. These pumps will outlast your top end’s by 1000x….
I could see it happening in the future. A lot of car racing engines use eclectic water pumps now. I know Tesla went from a mechanical oil pump to an electric one in their latest car motors. Hate to say it but, before we know it the whole production 250F will be electric lol
Here is a clean Goldwing that was sold at a Mecum auction. Sure looks like a cable actuated clutch.
https://www.mecum.com/lots/LV0121-434958/1975-honda-goldwing-gl1000/
Ya, not all markets got hydro...
it's a 12 volt pump. The 201.6V hybrid battery charges the 12 volt system through a converter in the inverter unit under the hood
Electric water pumps on motocross bikes are a solution looking for a problem.
Everyone has pointed out the negatives for an electric pump, but what are the benefits? Parasitic losses are negligible for us, so what else?
I am thinking, the motor case castings could be slightly simpler and smaller since you do not need to account for the pump housing and water channel. This would be a benefit to the manufactures not needing to use extra material for castings and require less machining. Depending where the pump is mounted there could be less hoses required. You could pump the water directly to the heads and then directly to the radiators instead of down to the mechanical pump. You could make the water pump motor also drive a radiator fan so you always have airflow. Depending on each manufactures designs, if the output shaft to the pump is removed and the gear that is needed to drive it, maybe they would have more room to move things around internally?
I'm not seeing a great big benefit to riders unless I am missing something.. but I'm not an engineer, just a dumbass.
I'm not seeing the benefit to ever put these on a production bike. I'd have to guess damn near 100% of us in this forum will ever ride a bike fast enough, hard enough, for long enough to ever need something like this.
People are talking about expense? An engine designed from the start without the add’l casting and manufacturing considerations for a pump “in the cases” would be less expensive. It would be lighter. It would even be easier to service when it comes to water-pump/cooling system related servicing.
As for thermal management? It offers opportunities to control your operating temps in a way that’s much more manageable and adds to your engines performance capabilities in that case, also (thermally). Engine temp can actually be controlled by the ECU in a much better fashion than in an engine equipped with just a thermostat and a std pump.
On the automotive side of things, Electric Pumps have become the norm.
You likely will never see it. The main reasons the teams have gone to the electric water pump is for the power gain they get from it Vs the mechanical water pump. Production bikes are made for the general rider/enthusiast, of which, even less are racers.
No manufacturer will put a component on that benefits only a small percentage of their already niche market and increase the risk of having a failure of some-sort. The risk vs reward just isn’t there.
True but ktm is the only oem NOT running the electric water pump. Gotta be a reason for that
Pit Row
That’s really grasping on some of those benefits. If this becomes a thing it will show hiw the manufacturers are grasping for things to claim are improvements that iou can’t live without all while sending bike prices towards $20k
if the electric pump cools better and also drives a fan maybe we could be going to a single radiator. Along with simpler cases and less one radiator would be weight savings and just a simpler bike
Really a great question.
To the person who said 90 percent of us don't need electric water pumps, most of us probably don't need a lot of the stuff we buy for our bikes but there's a big difference between wanting and needing.
Ya, I’d imagine you would say that. It would make your bike go from a dinosaur to a fossil. Suzuki won’t have it until 2040.
KTM has had their plate full fixing the bikes handling, no time for working on the water pumps, lol!
But with KTMs history of bringing stuff to the market first, I bet they’re first with an electric pump setup. And the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. No coolant/oil seal to fail and they can (should) move the pump off the bottom corner of the motor where it’s exposed to damage. It could also add ability to control temperature via flow rate’s instead of a thermostat, or nothing controlling temperature like we have now, would help both power and longevity. Team Green mentioned all of this, I wonder how much of the future he’s seen in his crystal ball.
As for reliability, it’s one more electrical component. But we already have electrical components that are pretty good, and anything can fail if you’re having a bad day.
Post a reply to: How long until we see a production 250F with an external electric waterpump?