DaTT(1sK)

When I got my baseline dyno run done, they guy was looking at the graph and noticed that the car held back a little near redline on 2 of the three runs. He said that these engines are probably heat sensitive and putting a lower thermostat in might free up an HP or 2. If this is the case, cheap mod I'm sure.

spyder7724

i already pulled mine out and checked. it has a 180 degree in stock. i couldn't find a 160 so i drilled 4 or 5 1/8" holes in the disc to allow some water to pass through and so that it will circulate when the engine is below 180. so far works great my temps stay about 1/4 the way up on the gauge...i need some gauges bad.

TTU4.6

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(spyder7724 @ February 5, 2006, 2:19 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
i already pulled mine out and checked. it has a 180 degree in stock. i couldn't find a 160 so i drilled 4 or 5 1/8" holes in the disc to allow some water to pass through and so that it will circulate when the engine is below 180. so far works great my temps stay about 1/4 the way up on the gauge...i need some gauges bad.
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Thats not smart, the engine needs to be at a high enough temperature to go into closed loop mode. The ford engineers knew what they were doing when they put a 180 degree t-stat in. Plus engines have less wear between 180-200 compared to 160 and below. Do yourself a favor and put a new 180 t-stat back in.

GIG4FUN

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TTU4.6 @ February 5, 2006, 2:41 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
Thats not smart, the engine needs to be at a high enough temperature to go into closed loop mode. The ford engineers knew what they were doing when they put a 180 degree t-stat in. Plus engines have less wear between 180-200 compared to 160 and below. Do yourself a favor and put a new 180 t-stat back in.
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yeah...todays standards 180 is cool.

spyder7724

yeah my tuner said the same thing but it ran faster and more consistant when the engine temp was lower. i tried both ways and this one seems to be more consistant. water temp. means very little as far as wear on engines. oil temp is critical though. if the car is tuned for running at a lower temp like mine is there is no problem with drivability or longevity. my 5.0 ran extremely cool compared to my friends' cars which all had 160 thermostats. that engine lasted 180,000 miles and ran strong when i sold it. no burning oil or anything.
david reher from reher-morrison race engines just wrote an article about engine temps and why coolant temp should be kept to a minimum for performance and longevity. i think it was in national dragster a couple weeks ago. i'll look to see if i can find it.

dustindu4

Blazing Saddles put a 160 in and it caused problems, I forget what the reason was or what it was doing.

If you're concerned about engine temperature you need a Meziere to get 5 times more water circulation.

RPM

Stock is only 180? [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon24.gif[/img]

don_w

FWIW, the Kenne Bell supercharger kit comes with a 160* thermostat to replace the 180* stock version.

spyder7724

mine runs great and jj at woodbine motorsports did my dyno tune with no problems. i like my engines to run cool i seem to have good luck with that. this thing ran about .1-.15 second faster when the water temp was low. maybe the tune has a lot to do with how well it runs when cool.i will let you guys know if i have problems from it running cool but for now i'm not touching it.it runs too good. when i had my super gas car i switched to an alky carb setup. i was told to always launch at 180+degrees. i tried that but that car also lost e.t. when it was hotter than 160degrees. i usually left the line at 140-150degrees and it was deadly consistant 9.20's. on the other hand my dragster was the opposite. it didn't like being under 160. every combo is different especially with efi.