Tempa flow install and stories "FYI" "long"

dockter71

New member
Joined
Oct 29, 2003
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56
Location
Maple Grove, Mn.
Well I learned the hard way. a year agao last fall I freshing up the SRX with 3 new Weisco's , jetted to -20 and installed the tempa flow. I rode the sled for 2 weekends. First weekend it died outside of bessmer with a whopping 5 miles on it. One of the 3 bolts holding the stator had come loose and ground enough of the head off to fall out and and give the ID of the stator a good beating. FYI, I have never touch these fasteners nor have I taking them out. 900$ including parts labor and a rented Ski-Doo REV for 4 days later and I was home. The next weekend temps climbed up to 40 in MSP and it was one of the last days to ride from the back yard before the snow melted. 20 miles from the house started running rough and sporatic. About 3 miles from the house and it was down to 2 cylinders. The last thing I'm thinking about is a lean burn down at those temps. #1 and #2 are gone, Jugs shot. Lean burn down, broke the upper rings and destroyed the jugs. Not really sure what the issue was because It was so warm and I enrichened the main jets. FF this year ,3 new yamy pistons / re-plated jugs, disconected the tempa flow. and 600 miles no problems. Checked the plugs regularly. After some -20 riding I checked them and the PTO & center looks a light cardboard kinda on the lean side, while the MAg is darker carbboard brown. With some upcoming cold weather I decided, Im jetting that thing to -40 on the PTO and Center just to be safe. ......so while taking the cover of the airbox and removing the airbox all togather I find something that stops me in my tracks. I drilled the carb vent line for the tempa-flow too low in the upper cover and when I installed upper cover onto the lower airbox half, the airbox shelve had pinched the vent line almost completely closed. I then went to the tempa-flow instructions obviously nothing there specific to a yamaha. so I went to the tech page under the SRX tempa-flow install, and sure enough there it was "be sure to not install vent line to low in the upper cover....or something like that. Called Holtzman and just talked to them about what this install could have caused and he agreed that with the combination of a warm day with the tempa-flow working at the maxx and the carbs being vapor locked, and not really knowing where they are in this atmosphere, that its possible to burn it down. So I just thought of putting out a little reminder to the rest of you Yamaha owners who install tempa-flows. Thanks for listening to my soap opera, and sorry for this being so long. Doc
 

Sorry to hear of the misfortune..... thanks for the heads up since we've TempaFlow installed on each of our sleds at home... Will check first thing tonight...

Can you post a couple of picks showing the problem?.. This might be of great use to MANY on this site..


TJ..
 
That sucks! I've got 3 seasons on my tempaflow though, love the thing. Went from 11mpg to 14mpg when riding hard. For me, money well spent.

sorry about your luck man!
 
tempablow!!

i used one for the first and last time...i have a bender piped viper...installed the tempaflow and pow!!! burnt the mag and center piston and trashed the mag cylinder.here is my theory why.with a triple piped machine it simply creates too much heat under the hood...holtzman tells you that the for the first mile or so after you stop you have to go easy...in the real world this ain"t gonna happen.the group that i ride with if you wait that long their gone!! i will admit that it does work..the temp out was 35 degrees and my sled ran awesome...too good.went acroos a island pond in vermont(2 mile run) and poof!! anyway tempaflow is coming off and is for sale.used once aand i will even include the cover off the carb with the fitting already installed.best offer!! i also have a set of dial a jets for a triple brand new never used! best offer! paid 154.00 for the tempaflow from rich and paid 135.00 for the dial a jets...good adverstiment eh? if somebody out there can tell me how to use the tempaflow with my setup i will listen..the theory is right...probably great for a single piped machine...thanx betheviper for the jug...i am going to try wiseco pistons!!! see ya!!
 
Put the body of the tempaflow inside your handlebar pad. It's alot closer to fresh air, and shouldn't see the heat of the under hood area and pipes. I have seen this happen to other folks with pipes too, and it seems the guys with stock SRX's love them, or ceramic coatings on their pipes.

An SRX owning buddy of mine put one on his '01 SRX, and was pulling 19mpg while following a skidoo buddy of his up in Houghton! They work, but precautions must be made. If a guy sold you the wrong jets and you put them in, burned down, it's not the fault of the jets. Tempaflow is just another tool.
 
Tempaflow

Here's some Tempaflow info:
OLDCAT is sort of right about the under hood heat generated by a triple piped Viper but it takes WAY longer than 1 mile to heat up or cool down your airbox. I was curious about this very thing last year so I installed an indoor/outdoor thermometer inside my airbox and attached the outdoor probe directly to the body of my Tempaflow which is mounted directly under the airbox shelf. Anyway, what I found out was quite surprising. During steady state conditions my airbox runs 30 deg F above ambient air temps (this is with uncoated CPR pipes). This number is extremely consistent and is always +/- a degree or two. When you stop for a pit stop, idle for extended periods, or pull off to play in the powder that 30 degree delta rises to as much as 50 or 60 degrees higher than ambient. That means if it is 20 deg F outside your airbox will be at 50 deg while cruising and could be as high as 70 or 80 deg if you hop off into the powder for a few minutes idle at a trail intersection. This would be very bad if your airbox cooled off quickly because the Tempaflow may not have time to adjust for the colder air BUT your airbox does not cool down quickly. If you don't believe me, hook up a thermometer and check for yourself. I ran an experiment last winter in the UP and got my airbox temp up to 80 deg by playing in the powder then pulled back on the trail and cruised at about 60 mph and it took about 8 minutes for the airbox temperature to equilibrate. The thermal time constant of the Tempaflow is about 90 seconds so any temperature change longer than 90 seconds will be properly compensated by the Tempaflow. What this means is you don't need to worry about the under hood heat adversely affecting the Tempaflow. I would not advise putting the Tempaflow under the handlebar pad on a piped Viper because of the wide range of airbox temps - you will see inconsistent performance. This would not be the case of a single piped sled that does not generate as much under hood heat and that is not as sensitive to temp changes. Anyone who burns down a piped Viper with a Tempaflow cannot blame it on the Tempaflow - it is simply a result of not having your baseline jetting right. I have about 4000 miles on mine since the Tempaflow installation and have had no issues but it took me a while to get the jetting dialed correctly. Once you have it the performance is very consistent. Anyway, sorry for the long post - just figured it might be helpful to share my Tempaflow experience to clear up some misconceptions.
 
aha...knew it was coming!!!...i have run the same setup in my viper for over 2500 miles.used to jet for weather predictions.when i bought the tempaflow i jetted it for -20 degrees below zero per bender spec.all pilot settings air screws and needle per bender spec...i run the tempaflow for 1 day and it burns down!!! as far as underhood temps my next ride i will take one of those thinks that you point and shoot and it gives the temp right away. i will report back and let everyone know what that is.i consider myself somewhat knowledgable when it comes to sleds...no expert mind you but i can figure out most anything...i am not knocking the tempaflow but for my application it won't work...i have yet to here from anybody that has a performance sled with triples that the tempablow works correctly...there are at least five people that i know that have burn't down with this device installed.again i would love to here from someone who the device has worked properly...
 
Yamadogger,
Could you post your jetting specs with the tempaflow...you vented under the airbox shelf towards the carbs right? I'm installing CPR ceramic coated pipes with the mod head and stock head gasket this week on my Viper-S. I'll be riding in some real cold temps next weekend if the forecast is accurate. I'm supposed to jet for -20F which I'm not sure what that would be with Jeffs pipes. Last season I was running 160-160-162.5 47.5-47.5-50 I can't recall the needle settings but I think PTO and Center were up .5 and mag was up 1.0. Sound right?
BTW- I sold the Ripsaw and installed a 9830H with 144 1080 Hornets down the middle. I also turned the drivers on a lathe to make them concentric and square the nubs up a bit for better grip on the inside track lugs, and installed the Max Perf adjustable quick-nutz. I see that pic of you standing your Viper up and wonder if your running extros or just keeping that track tight to keep it from ratcheting. Thanks for any input you can give me on this setup.
 
Tempaflow

i have yet to here from anybody that has a performance sled with triples that the tempablow works correctly...there are at least five people that i know that have burn't down with this device installed.again i would love to here from someone who the device has worked properly...
You just heard from one - me.

That was my point, the Tempaflow was the best thing I added to my sled (CPR piped Viper) since you never have to mess with the jetting once you get it dialed. The other nice thing is that you can always manually adjust the Tempaflow to fine tune so if you're just cruising trails you can lean it out and improve your mileage whereas if you are going to pull a mile long WOT run and want a little extra insurance you can richen it up a bit. I guess to each his own - it's really a matter of personal preference and how much you want to be messing with your jetting for changing temps. If you don't want to run one then don't - I'm certainly not on Holtzman's payroll so it really makes no difference to me.
 
my tempaflow is behind the airbox, ceramic coated simons triples, no problems in 5,000 miles
 
are the tampa flow and the vari flow the same thing? im not very machaniclly inclinded when it comes to snowmobiles. i have a vari flow on mine, and when i bought the sled the dealer told me not to worry about touching it unless i go to higher altitude. is this right?
 
Difference

Same basic principle on how they affect the fuel flow but the Tempaflow automatically compensates for temperature and the Variflow requires manual adjustment. For optimum performance you'd want to adjust the Variflow for temperature or altitude changes but if you're not comfortable doing it I'd set it on the rich side and just ride it.
 
Dogger, I have to tell you that was one of the most interesting / informative post i've seen in awhile, thanks for all the detail. That info should be in the tech pages. That really helps me understand the product. Now I know how all those people are getting the great mileage out of there SRX's. So to sum it up for triple piped sleds and SRX's with airbox venting under the hood:

1: the tempaflow is working way more than we think it is. Because all the fluctuations in Airbox temps from stopping, playing, idleing, not to mention the work its doing during steady state operation. All of this because of the normally elevated temps of a under hood vented sled.

2: The good news is that typically (holtzman 1 mile warm drive away rule here) airbox temps change / fluctuate at a slow rate, well within the mechanical limitations of the tempaflow. But to be on the safe side give yourself 90 sec for tempaflow to stabilize.

Thanks dogger.
 
Interesting,

I installed my tempaflow on my 01 SRX a few years back per the tech pages information and have had no issues at all. One mistake I did make is installing a clutch kit at the same time. The reason I call it a mistake is I know better then to do multiple mods at the same time, and the Tempa flow is a mod.

When I installed the Tempaflow I set my physical carb jetting to -20 as per instructions which on a 2001 model is richer then a 2000 year. Then I found myself messing with the new clutch kit for a whole season while baffled that I couldn't toss as much weight at the Heavy Hitter arms as other SRX owners were. The problem is that I just assumed the Tempaflow was maintaining the propper initial jetting with the adjustment screw on the body set at the white dot...I was wrong and this was too rich even tho the plugs were boaderline rich to brown. It never fouled plugs like it used too when the sled was new, si I thought the jetting was good, but it must have lost power because the next season, I readjusted the screw on the Tempaflow to 1/8 turn leaner, and the motor started over reving to around 8600 rpm (maybe higher, I couldnt get a real accurate look at the tach in the trail), and could NOW toss more weight at the arms.

I really like the Tempaflow and feel it's a viable component but I will be putting a EGT on it tempararaly to make sure the jetting is spot on.
 
You leaned out your TempaFlow and the sled started overrevving? What base weight Heavy Hitter are you running? I've probably got 61grams loaded in my SRX now and I still over rev a bit on top end.
 


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