Heat Reduction Modification

Here in the Washington D.C. area, it gets pretty hot and muggy in the summer. I finally decided to do something about the unbearably hot gas tank on the K1100. As anyone who drives one of these bikes knows, the tank can get too hot to touch. The fuel system design is the culprit here, it seems. Fuel is pumped continuously from the in-tank pump, through the fuel hose, steel fuel rail, fuel regulator and then into the return line back into the tank. All of these items are located just above the engine, and pick up a lot of heat The constant fuel flow transfers this heat to the fuel and back into the tank.

To minimize this heat transfer, I covered the fuel rail and regulator in heat insulating foil-backed foam tape, and the fuel hoses in foam tubing. These items can be bought from the local home supply store for a few dollars.

While I had the air box and air intake tube out, I painted them in heat-insulating paint. The idea here is to minimize heat transfer to the incoming air. The hotter the incoming air to the engine, the more power you lose. While this does nothing to improve rider comfort, it does prevent some power loss on hot days.

I have been running with this modification for some time now, and can report that the tank no longer gets hot, and has never been more than slightly warm, even on very hot days.

I have not seen a noticeable improvement from the air box paint, but I normally don't use more than a fraction of the power that the engine can produce, and have not done any dyno testing.

This modification does not take a great deal of mechanical skill, and costs less than $10. I can highly recommend it as a solution to the K1100 heat problem.

Below are photos of the various components.