180 Thermostat
 

Just ordered a 180* thermostat. Took a bit of searching, but found that Stant brand is made with a Stainless Steel housing and spring. The rest of it is brass.

Its worth buying the stainless thermostats, because plain coated steel will eventually corrode causing spring or housing failure that can cause the thermostat to stay closed or stay fully open.

is there as question or something your not sure about?

No.

Missing it to...but if your passing on some advice thx....

who runs thermostats

Cool?

yep, stainless is cool.

Me?

Granted my two are either drilled or gutted, but they are there to slow the coolant down.

Fixed

I've drilled so they burp air bubbles better. Never gutted one. I usually use the high flow ones. Year before last I had one stick open. On cool fall nights on the highway my temps dropped to like 100* according to the gauge. Too cold.

A quick update....

Installed the 180 thermostat. The PCM was programmed w/ low speed fan to come on at 190 and off at 187. Its working perfect. The engine has not got hot enough to trip a fan while driving, and when sitting idling, it takes about 5 minutes when the outside temp was about 45F before the low speed fan would come on. It didn't get hot enough to make both fans come on. Probably have to wait until hot summer weather for the high speed fan to kick in.

The heat still comes out strong, and the motor warms up in the same time as it did before w/a 195 thermostat. Just doesn't get as hot.

And another nice side affect of running cooler is longer engine oil life and transmission life.

engine oil is not something you ''want to extend the life of.'' i change my oil constantly. in the ion its almost once a month with the amount of miles that gets racked up on it. but once you hit the 3k/3 month mark the oil should be done.

Yes, I agree that oil should be changed at 3K miles. And running a cooler engine keeps the oil fresher during that period. IE the viscosity will not break down as quickly in a 180 temp engine as in a 195 temp engine.

But conversely, be aware of running too cool. IE 160 thermostat may not let the engine get hot enough to flash off water buildup in the oil. This is a common problem in engines where the thermostat was removed. That is a really bad idea.

Yup. For a street car you can run too cool to be efficient.