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Low temp thermostat


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Thankyou Richard for the replies, and for looking mate, much appreciated I'm just wondering are these definitely straight swap to the original one I have in now, can't remember what degrees normal thermostat opens at on my gt, going to put my half rad on soon so wanted to do it all in one thanks again

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Thanks Richard mate have been on td but there £50 so was seing if I could get cheaper else where first but thanks a lot mate

Luk what are your temps on normal driving please average and when does the fan cut in on what temp please

Thanks Pat

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Why not colin? Keeps running temps lower, oil temps will be lower too meaning better lubrication. Your car always reaches running temp.

dont believe al the quotes you read about them on a street car its just no good over years it will wear the car out faster !! fact as it wont reach optimal temps as quick

on a track car tho deffo yes

we hardly use our engines on the public roads few second blasts is it

next bit is a good read ( copy/paste )

So what then would a low temperature thermostat accomplish? Not much.

Around town and in the pits, you warm up faster than no thermostat at all, but you will take a while to warm up from 160 to 180 for example. You will get there however, especially on warm days, the only difference is you're trying to cool the car off as it's trying to warm up. As a mater of fact, if you sit there at idle, the temp will go up until the radiator fans kick on since radiators are poor cooling devices without air flow. In other words, sitting still, the thermostat opening temperature doesn't matter much at all.

Once you're moving, on the highway, with a 160 degree thermostat on a cooler day you could be cruising at 160-180 degrees (opening temp->designed operating temp). This is possible because the load on the engine is low and the outside temps are low. Therefore, the thermostat opening temp maters somewhat here. If you're coasting down a mountain, it will be a certainty that your coolant will reach the thermostat minimum if you coast long enough.

The problem with a low temp thermostat then for regular driving is that there are times when the car will be running at a temperature lower than it's design intended. The result is increased wear on the engine's internals. It's essentially the same as if you assembled the engine with clearances tighter than designed for because you didn't follow the directions or your tools were not calibrated properly.

As for the intake temperature argument, while cooling the intake manifold down could be useful, there are a few problems with the argument. The first is that very little heat is transferred from the intake manifold to the intake charge, period. The intake charge is moving very fast and there is a LOT of air flowing through. The surface area of the intake system is very small and the temperature differential in real terms is not that high. There is already very little heat being added to the intake charge by the intake system regardless of what some ads claim. If the new thermostat DID bring the temps of the intake manifold down 20 degrees, the actual change in intake temps would be negligible to 0 on the road.

Regardless, it would take literally a second or two before temps would be regulated by the cooling system, not the thermostat anyway since under load the engine is going to run well above the thermostat fully open mark anyway.

Remember that the thermostat is fully open pretty much any time the engine is under full load because the coolant temperatures spike pretty quickly.

In a race car, the floor (opening temp) of the thermostat is completely irrelevant unless you are running a very efficient and large radiator. Once you're out on the track for half a lap or so, your coolant temps are going to be in the 200 range anyway so the thermostat is fully open regardless.

Edited by 5e colin
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Thanks for the replies lads maybe I need to stop being so paranoid about things, have said this before in another post:

Driving normal temps on the water gauge are around 82-86 degrees, I know that's normal, when in heavy traffic my water gauge goes to 99-100 degrees then the fan comes on and it will drop back down to about 92-93 degrees,

The water gauge sensor is on the top rad hose, with adaptor, now I'm gonna be putting a twin core half rad on ASAP (have all bits already) I suppose I would like to just have my fan come on alittle earlier or is the top rad hose where it's at its hottest point?

Thanks lads pat

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