gary goldberg

has anyone done either or both of these changes?What are the pro's and con's? also living in So. Florida can I run my car without a thermostat? Thanks

Michrider

no. Must have a thermostat, preferably the OEM one. Get away from the OEM spec and you get into all kinds of tuning issues. Unless your capable of reprogramming for that temp, I wouldn't mess with it.

There is problems associated with running too cool. The OEM stat is the only one you can rely on everything working right. Got to think about things like cat converters... run the engine too cool, could trick it to run too rich and melt down the cats. Too cool and also you don't burn off the contaminants in the oil = sludge. Many foreign car companies are dealing with all kinds of sludging problems with engines that run on the cool side.

I wouldn't mess with the filter either. It's got 400 hp, are you really going to notice maybe 402? Unless your going with other mods like complete cold air intake, exhaust, and tuning, the OEM A/C filter does just fine.

LS1LT1

I agree that you MUST run a thermostat but I beg to differ that it has to be the stock one....these motors run quite hot, a 160 degree thermostat (which actually does still operate/open at temps higher than 160 degrees) along with the proper fan setting changes (via LS2 Edit or an auxiliary fan module) can be beneficial to both vehicle performance and longevity.

gary goldberg

can I adjust the fan settings myself, If so how?

LS1LT1

No, can only be done via LS2 Edit (and even with that there are currently still limitations on just how much you can alter the settings) or with a Fan Control Module from Cartek Racing (www.cartek.net).

shopdog

The K&N filters will do zero for you in terms of performance, unless you over-oil it, then it'll kill the MAF. Save your money, the stock filter flows fine, and filters better than the K&N.

Running a 160 thermosat means your engine temperature is going to vary a whole lot more since, once the engine warms up, it is going to be running well above 160 anyway, ie the thermostat will be wide open and doing nothing to regulate coolant flow. Unless you can reprogram the fans, a cold thermostat will hurt more than help, even in a track only car. For a street driven car, its a bad idea because engine warm up will take longer, the ECM will be running too rich, and there's a good chance short trips won't ever get the engine warm enough to get rid of condensation in the oil. Etc.

For a street/strip car, I'd consider a 175-180 degree thermostat to be as cold as I'd want to go. You'd still need to reprogram the fans to take advanatge of the colder thermostat, but at least the thermostat would have some control authority in normal driving.

Cisco Vette

Why do you believe that a K&N filter is useless and not worth the money vis-a-vis the stock filter?