Running 180 instead of 160 t-stat.

jlat said:
hello; Tell me Earl Brown what ever's going on with your set up it sounds great. Is that a Ga. trick with the hole in the stat? I've never heard of that. How's your car in the summer Ga heat?
IBBY
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The hole is a 'steam hole' drilled at 12:00 on the thermostat flange. Since it's a SBC unit it was designed to be mounted horizontally (giggity). Anytime you have a vertical thermostat it's a good idea to put a hole up high to let any captive air bubbles out so the radiator cap can burp it out.


No, no oil cooler yet. I had a huge one but it had a leak so I removed it last fall. ... That reminds me, I need to start shopping for an oil cooler before summer! (actually I might wait now that I can log oil temps to the tenth of a degree :) )


EDIT: I just noticed something on my powerlogger screen grab. If you look when I floored it and the IAT's started climbing, my coolant temp actually dropped just a smidge. Kinda neat you can see the extra flow and pressure on the screen.
 
The thermostat regulates the temp with infinitely adjusting valve opening. When you're running hot, it's wide open and the rest of the cooling system can't keep up with the heat rejection needs of the engine.

Something else to keep in mind, the colder the ambient is, the less the valve will be open. The further open it is, the more GPH flows through the engine. With the faster rate, the engine temps are more even. If the thermostat is barely cracked the temp reading will be 'X'. What that means is your engine is that temp at the front of the intake manifold where the sending unit is mounted. All the way back from there get progressively colder until you hit the lower radiator hose. The front two cylinders are very cold, and the front combustion chambers are the hottest part of the engine. Faster/ even flow is why you see big trucks with the radiator partially blocked off in the winter.

I have a cardboard Molsen case flat in front of my Blazers and my GN's radiator as we type.
 
GNRick said:
If you have a 190 stat, then stat opens at 190.
Click to expand...

A better way to phrase that would be 'the thermostat reaches equilibrium at 190'. It will start to open slightly before it's rated temp. Much like our wastegates in tuner style.

It's happy place will be dependent of many factors like flow, heat rejection, ambient air temp, humidity, etc...
 
Earl- I have a transmission temp gauge and it reads 150 almost all of the time, just like yours. So I assume that is a good thing. I don't have an oil temp gauge but what is ideal oil temp?
 
I don't know if they still exist, but some of our race motors used to use a restrictor plate style of thermostat that you could choose different hole sizes for different flow rates. Fine on a race car, but bad on the street.

The thermostat's job is not to keep the engine cool, it's used to keep the engine hot.(160, 180, or 195) depending on your stat choice. Engines need heat to run efficiently. If your cooling system is working very well, and you run without a stat, it's possible the engine could run at 100 degrees all day long. We want engines to at least be at 160, but I prefer it to bee closer to the 180-190 mark for efficient combustion to happen.

Fire triangle=Fuel, Oxygen, and Heat.

fire+triangle.png


Stats are for heat not cool!
 
hello; I know on track bikes no antifreeze can be used and they do use restricters for coolant temps. Alot of bikes now are water cooled and it seems to be they way to go. I guess emmissions can be controlled better. I heard Harley is comming up with more for the future besides the V-Rod that's already out there.
Well, the better weather will be here soon. So let the fun begin.
IBBY
 
jlat said:
hello; I know on track bikes no antifreeze can be used and they do use restricters for coolant temps. Alot of bikes now are water cooled and it seems to be they way to go. I guess emmissions can be controlled better. I heard Harley is comming up with more for the future besides the V-Rod that's already out there.
IBBY
Click to expand...


My 2stroke 250 GP bike has no thermostat (or even a housing to put one). The coolant is run wide open and duct tape on the radiator is how you control the temp.
 
Dedicated full blown race. GP bikes have no thermostat housing, place for a key, place for a side stand, idle circuit, charging system, or mounting tabs for any street accessories.
 
Just reading over this stuff as it's quite cold now in PA, back around the end of the summer I put a 160 stat in my 85T (still a HA car). With temps outside around 80-90 degrees I was seeing coolant temps at 170-175, even after playing awhile the temps never rose above 180 at any point. With that said now that it's cold outside temps are barely above 160 and the heater output sucks. I think I may swap in a 180 stat and see what happens.
 
I'd like to get my chip set up for a 180 tstat but I'm sure it would cost me another 80 bucks so I'm just gonna run it the way it is. I never saw a difference on the sm or wb when the car run hotter. Hell if it's worth saving a few mpg without any compromises why not do it?
 
I will be converting to IC in the spring, I already have a TT chip and everything so I'll just use the 160 at that point. Won't need the heater anyway. Want to do the conversion now but still need a few parts and cash flow is low :(
 
I agree, and after reading these posts it's seems that a low t stat isn't the best remedy. Since I don't have plans on my buick seeing cold temps after this winter I'm going to run the 160 in the IC setup since the chip is already burned. If I have issues then I'll have eric customize it for me. From my experience the 160 doesn't seem to helping me at all, in these temps it's far too cold and I'm noticing the car seems to be slightly sluggish.
 
TURBOPOWERED68 said:
all this temp stuff makes me want to run to the E85 forum and ask about how a 180* stat and E85 play together.
Click to expand...

If I had to make a guess, I would think a 180 with E85 would be just fine, but that's just my thoughts. I have no experience running E85 as it's not even available in my area, to the best of my knowledge the closest E85 station is a 40-45 minute drive.
 
For me the drive time and cost of converting to E85 is just not worth it, I'd rather stick with 93 and alky
 
I run a 160 because no matter what I did, new 3 row radiator, boxed radiator dual fans etc. my coolant temps would be 200-210 sitting in stop and go traffic on a 90+ degree day. I do use the AC.

Since I put in an Alradaco a couple of years ago I've never seen temps above 175 on the scanmaster. I'd like to go to a 180 but my fan comes on with my Extender chip at 175 and goes off at 170. It has a race mode that turns the fan on at 160 and goes off at 150. I wonder if I could get the chip burned to come on at 190 and off at 185 for regular mode and keep the race mode the way it is and use the corresponding tstat for the mode.
 
captndave737 said:
I run a 160 because no matter what I did, new 3 row radiator, boxed radiator dual fans etc. my coolant temps would be 200-210 sitting in stop and go traffic on a 90+ degree day. I do use the AC.

Since I put in an Alradaco a couple of years ago I've never seen temps above 175 on the scanmaster. I'd like to go to a 180 but my fan comes on with my Extender chip at 175 and goes off at 170. It has a race mode that turns the fan on at 160 and goes off at 150. I wonder if I could get the chip burned to come on at 190 and off at 185 for regular mode and keep the race mode the way it is and use the corresponding tstat for the mode.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure Bob can hook that up for you.
 
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