liquid vs air cooled

[deserthealer]

is liquid cooled better than air cooled?

i can't seem to find good info anywhere.

[Icelander]

Depends.

Liquid cooled tends to keep the engine working at a lower temperature, and makes it easier to heat the inside of a passenger car.

Air cooling has fewer parts and therefore is simpler to operate and maintain. No radiator or hoses to break.

I don't think you can find a car today with an air cooled engine. But in a scooter, air cooling is fine because the engine is almost entirely open to the atmosphere and unless you'll be running it flat out (or towing something), adding a liquid cooling system will just complicate things.

[Motorsport Scooters]

It's a trade-off. Most 50-150cc bikes don't create enough heat to need liquid-cooling, including the buddy. Liquid cooling on a 150 is a bit of overkill, but on a 250, I would say it's a good thing. It's usually the racing bikes that benefit because they run at such high RPMs and such fine tolerances, that the extra cooling helps. I have 11 vehicles, and only the one with 4 wheels is liquid cooled. All my bikes from 50cc-1100cc are either air or oil cooled. None have liquid cooling. The more complicated the system, the more can go wrong.

[Beamie]

Most liquid cooled engines can develope more hp.
Radical compression and valve timing tends to generate more heat needing disipating. Look at the hp rating of the air vs liquid cooled vespa line.