Overheat question??

[J.D.]

I was just on a ride, and I was going up a hill with a 45 degree angle on my Tri-Z...as I was going up, I kept losing power, losing power..eventually just stopped,then I saw the overheat light flash on. I actually have 2 questions, why does it lose power when it overheats, and what's the best way to let it cool back down? What I did was stopped it on the hill, turned it around, coasted back down and "push started it"(just dropped the clutch while I was going down), rode it to the bottom, and let it idle like 2 mins, then just shut it off for 10 mins. Hopefully I did that right but this is the first time I've ever experienced anything like this...thanks for the help in advance, later!

[Wickedfinger]

How long and hard were you riding for when it started losing power?. Usually on liquid cooled motors, if you know the overheating is just from hard riding or a really really hot day, you should let it continue to run and just putt around - The worst thing you could do is shut the motor off. The temperature will actually rise furthur. The Idea is to keep the pump flowing coolant through the jackets and fuel going to the cylinder so it can displace heat through evaporation. If however there is a serious mechanical failure, shut it down and hope for the best.

[J.D.]

I was riding it really, really hard. Hard as I could infact, then on top of that 300 feet up a 45 degree incline in second gear full throttle. I even shifted down to first to try and keep it going, no luck.I didn't let it overheat anymore after that.

[skippy]

do you have an in line cooler in it? fresh liquids?

[J.D.]

Nope no inline cooler, the liquid was bought wednesday, put in thursday....Peak Pre-Mix 50/50 stuff....

[TimSr]

The TriZ is most famous for impeller failure. Anytime you suspect an overheating problem, you need to check for flow. If you take the radiator cap off, you should be able to see it flowing like a faucet in the radiator when its running. If you have the thermostat in yours, you wont get flow until its hot enough for it to open (though they too fail all the time, but usually stick open). The rest of the cooling system on the Z works pretty well, but the impellers come aprt all the time, and without flow, all the inline coolers in the world wont help.

[J.D.]

Is it possible for the impeller to be in one piece and not working right?? Because I just changed my waterpump seal and the impeller and everything looked fine. If you say your's breaks often, something we should look at is those billet Banshee waterpump impellers, I don't see why they wouldn't work/couldn't be made to work for a Tri-Z plus they last a lifetime!