Liquid or Fan cooled? - Snowmobile Forum: Your #1 Snowmobile Forum

doomsday · 01-03-2003, 12:49 AM

What do you think is better Liquid (im guessing cooled) or Fan (cooled) engines? Which one would you say is less prone to over-heating?

strokez · 01-04-2003, 03:21 PM

a liquid is without a doubt. you can run them at 90* temps and she'll never overheat. Liquid cooled engines tend to have more power as well, but they are also MUCH heavier. Fan sleds are nice, they lack some power, but on the other hand, they are very light. They go through the powder much easier than any liquid

**Administrator** · 01-04-2003, 11:41 PM

Liquid cooled engines are much better except in conditions when there is not enough snow to reach the cooling plates. Liquid cooled engines can be built to much higher tolerences enabling them to get over 30 percent more power than a similar size fan cooled engine.

The only real drawback to a liquid cooled engine is that you need to have enough snow thrown up by the track to reach the heat exchanges to cool the antifreeze. Liquid cooled engines are not a lot heavier than fan cooled engines... and the horsepower difference between a fan and liquid cooled easily makes up for any weight differences in powder.

Fan cooled engines have a couple major drawbacks. 1. less power 2. has to be cold outside (at least less then 30 degrees) to keep them running at high rpm without overheating

In my experience, unless you live in a place where you get very minimal snow levels to ride on, a liquid cooled engine is almost all advantage over a fan.