Originally Posted By: Cujet
Originally Posted By: motor_oil_madman
So I have a Honda 6500 watt generator with the Honda gx390 engine on it. I Was surprised that if it doesn't have much load on it the engine really doesn't get warmed up much at all. I ran it for about 30 minutes when it was 50 degrees outside and I hit it with temp gauge and it was only about 105 degress on the cylinder head. I shut it off and it did take me about 5 minutes to find the infrared temp gauge. Not sure how much it would cool down in that period though.
Keep in mind that the infrared, non contact, thermometer is only accurate on a black body. It's wildly inaccurate on reflective surfaces. Put your finger on the fins. I'd guess you can't keep it there.
I aimed it on the valve cover, the sump, and the cylinder head. They were all about 105-120 degrees if I remember right. Also I put my hand on these areas cause I didn't believe it either and they felt about like 105 degrees. Didn't burn my hand. The engine must have cooled off a bunch in the 5 minutes or so it took me to find the infrared thermometer. It's a fluke meter, not some cheap meter.
Then I've run it other times where it had more of a load and would have burned my hand big time. I think it's the continuous load that creates the heat. I was just surprised at how cool it runs without a continuous load.