It's actually an air/oil cooled engine and as long as the proper precautions are taken, they are very reliable. I rode mine in a parade on Friday for an hour and a half and had no overheating problems.

Yes all Kats are oil cooled.
I have never had a problem with overheating with my Kat.

my gets kind of hot, what can be the problem?

No problems...and I run the cr@p out of my Kat on the track in Las Vegas.

If it did overheat how would you know?? There is no temp gauge on a Kat..would the engine just shut off or would you find out when the engine seized?

Last summer, I was running full synthetic oil. After about 15 minutes on the freeway and then stuck in stop and go traffic for about 30 minutes in 90 degree heat, it started to run rough due to overheating. There isn't much you can do except pull over, shut down, and let it cool. At that point, even if you get back on the highway, accelerating back to highway speed is tough on the engine and it won't cool well unless you shut it off for a while.

If you want to keep an eye on your temp, get one of CyberPoets oil temp gagues in the "members only deals" section.

Sometimes the bandit gets "grouchy" when it gets too hot. Usually a few minutes running over 25mph makes it happy again.

usually I know when my Kat is starting to get hot is when my RPMs start raising slightly at Idle. I then know to shut it down at long stoplights and after that its back to normal. Ive never had a complete shut down with the kat. Ive sat in 90 degree weather in traffic for fair amounts of time and still has done very well. Make sure you are up to date on the oil change and wat kind of oil you are using.

Coming back from Rocky Point Mexico we were in line at the border for a while in 100 degree heat.

When mine gets really hot the rpm's will idle high and a little rough.

I also run full synthetic oil. I just shut it off and pushed it across the border, took a break for 30 min. or so. No trouble.

3 times in stop and go nothing major thoough. just watch it...it kind of sneeks up on you

I just look down at my oil temp gauge

And, yes, I sell this solution (see the parts for sale forum, stickies by the top).

If you are concerned seriously about overheating due to traffic jams, use the highest flash-temp oil (that meets the required specs) you can find. As far as I've been able to tell, that's Mobil 1 MX4T in the 10w40 category and Mobil 1 VTwin in the 20w50 category, although I run Castrol GPS instead for a variety of reasons (I may switch in the future the next time I do another oil comparo).

Here in the southeast, it's fairly easy to overheat in the summer if you've been cruising on the interstate and then suddenly hit a longer patch of stop-n-go traffic (whether it's a traffic jam or a series of slow-changing traffic lights, etc). The problem is that there is no outward indication that the oil has overheated until it has really gone way way too hot and you start getting mechanical symptoms; if you do get mechanical symptoms of overheating, then you desperately need to change your oil at the first opportunity, because it has seen it's useful life at that point.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

I went up Mt.Washington in NH with my wife on the back behind 7 HD's in 100 degree heat never over 2nd gear, the HD's had to pull over about half way up to let their bikes cool but my good ol kat 750 went up without having to take a breakall the way.

As long as you can keep moving, the Kat shouldn't overheat with spec oils. It's stopping the flow of air after it's already quite hot that overheats it.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

I'll see your one pic and raise you another PIC.

If you click on "download" you'll get a little bit larger picture. The oil temp guage is on the left side.