Thermostat Confusion
Thread Starter
Advanced
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 69
Likes: 0
From: Jefferson Hills PA
Thermostat Confusion
I have a 160 thermostat sitting here and am debating whether to install it or not. I have tuned the fans to run continuously with the stock thermostat and have noticed cooler temps while cruising or in traffic. I do not plan on taking the car to the track.
Should I leave well enough alone? I have read numerous posts here and the more I read the more confused I am. Please guys no flames just a rookie with limited car smarts. I am just looking to get the most out of my car.
Should I leave well enough alone? I have read numerous posts here and the more I read the more confused I am. Please guys no flames just a rookie with limited car smarts. I am just looking to get the most out of my car.
Moderator
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 40,898
Likes: 4,351
From: Lakewood Ranch, FL
My fan rarely runs unless sitting at a light in summer heat.The thermostat only controls when the flow starts and when the flow is full. Once you have reached that temp, and beyond, the thermostat is out of the picture. With a 160*, the system starts flowing at 160* and normally will maintain 180*+/- cruising. A stock 190* stat doesn't start to open until 190*.
Melting Slicks
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 3,120
Likes: 506
From: Greenville, NC
2025 C8 of the Year Finalist - Modified
Go with the 160 degree thermostat and adjust the fans.
One piece of advice though, test the 160 degree stat first to make sure it opens properly. The first two I had didn't work properly (they opened too soon) so I had to take them out and try another one. The first two that didn't work for me were Mr. Gasket brand. The third one I tried was an SLP brand and it works great. That being said the Mr. Gasket brand has worked fine for others, including Modshack who posted above. Bottom line its a good idea to test it before installing.
Burning Brakes
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 1,083
Likes: 3
From: Buena Park CA
I'm happy as a clam with the 160. Here's what I programmed the fan percentages which seem to work pretty good:
192° = 25%
196° = 50%
199° = 75%
203° = 100%
Of course, the rest at 100%, too.
192° = 25%
196° = 50%
199° = 75%
203° = 100%
Of course, the rest at 100%, too.
Pro
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 528
Likes: 0
A 160 degree tstat may not be a good idea in Pennsylvania. Below is a recent discussion about 160 degree thermostats.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...t=160+d egree
Here is a quote from the above thread:
"In the old days ('60s and '70) our performance cars had woefully inadequate cooling systems, and a lower temperature stat actually made a difference. Sometimes I would remove the thermostat entirely. The big block Fords I campaigned with at the strip would bake in the staging area. We ran the heaters at full blast and popped the hoods to try to bleed off heat, sweating like pigs. That isn't the case today. And you're right about optimum operating temperature for performance and longevity. I even had better performance with my hot-running Vorteched LT1 with the stock stat. Of course, temps have to be moderate enough that the knock sensor doesn't pull out timing.
Engines like cool air, but not cool operating temperatures. There's a distinction. I wouldn't go lower than a 180 degree stat in any situation, and the one time I used a 160, I was way down in power and had no heat in the winter. BTW, if you run a 160 degree stat in the winter, you are a fool. Flat out. At least make this a seasonal mod, like snow tires. Or wear an extra sweater."
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...t=160+d egree
Here is a quote from the above thread:
"In the old days ('60s and '70) our performance cars had woefully inadequate cooling systems, and a lower temperature stat actually made a difference. Sometimes I would remove the thermostat entirely. The big block Fords I campaigned with at the strip would bake in the staging area. We ran the heaters at full blast and popped the hoods to try to bleed off heat, sweating like pigs. That isn't the case today. And you're right about optimum operating temperature for performance and longevity. I even had better performance with my hot-running Vorteched LT1 with the stock stat. Of course, temps have to be moderate enough that the knock sensor doesn't pull out timing.
Engines like cool air, but not cool operating temperatures. There's a distinction. I wouldn't go lower than a 180 degree stat in any situation, and the one time I used a 160, I was way down in power and had no heat in the winter. BTW, if you run a 160 degree stat in the winter, you are a fool. Flat out. At least make this a seasonal mod, like snow tires. Or wear an extra sweater."
Thread Starter
Advanced
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 69
Likes: 0
From: Jefferson Hills PA
I switched to the 160
Installation was easy...made a bit of a mess with the coolant. I didnt have a big enough pan to catch it all. Otherwise everything went great. I burped the car using techniques found on other posts. No leaks 
I used the original seal. It was very hot in Pennsylvania today so my traffic temps were around 200.
I used the original seal. It was very hot in Pennsylvania today so my traffic temps were around 200.
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Melting Slicks
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 2,167
Likes: 11
From: Powell TN
Cruise-In VIII Veteran
A 160 degree tstat may not be a good idea in Pennsylvania. Below is a recent discussion about 160 degree thermostats.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...t=160+d egree
Here is a quote from the above thread:
"In the old days ('60s and '70) our performance cars had woefully inadequate cooling systems, and a lower temperature stat actually made a difference. Sometimes I would remove the thermostat entirely. The big block Fords I campaigned with at the strip would bake in the staging area. We ran the heaters at full blast and popped the hoods to try to bleed off heat, sweating like pigs. That isn't the case today. And you're right about optimum operating temperature for performance and longevity. I even had better performance with my hot-running Vorteched LT1 with the stock stat. Of course, temps have to be moderate enough that the knock sensor doesn't pull out timing.
Engines like cool air, but not cool operating temperatures. There's a distinction. I wouldn't go lower than a 180 degree stat in any situation, and the one time I used a 160, I was way down in power and had no heat in the winter. BTW, if you run a 160 degree stat in the winter, you are a fool. Flat out. At least make this a seasonal mod, like snow tires. Or wear an extra sweater."
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...t=160+d egree
Here is a quote from the above thread:
"In the old days ('60s and '70) our performance cars had woefully inadequate cooling systems, and a lower temperature stat actually made a difference. Sometimes I would remove the thermostat entirely. The big block Fords I campaigned with at the strip would bake in the staging area. We ran the heaters at full blast and popped the hoods to try to bleed off heat, sweating like pigs. That isn't the case today. And you're right about optimum operating temperature for performance and longevity. I even had better performance with my hot-running Vorteched LT1 with the stock stat. Of course, temps have to be moderate enough that the knock sensor doesn't pull out timing.
Engines like cool air, but not cool operating temperatures. There's a distinction. I wouldn't go lower than a 180 degree stat in any situation, and the one time I used a 160, I was way down in power and had no heat in the winter. BTW, if you run a 160 degree stat in the winter, you are a fool. Flat out. At least make this a seasonal mod, like snow tires. Or wear an extra sweater."
Melting Slicks
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 2,167
Likes: 11
From: Powell TN
Cruise-In VIII Veteran
Here is a write up by David Reher of Reher-Morrison fame:
"Chilling Out: How to Keep Cool Through a Long, Hot Summer"
by David Reher
What's wrong with this picture? I am walking through the staging lanes at high noon on a sweltering summer day. All around me people are wearing shorts and T-shirts, with wet shop rags wrapped around their foreheads to keep the heat at bay. Super Comp drivers sit in their dragsters with umbrellas strategically placed to ward off the sun, while electric fans circulate the heat inside a dozen Super Gassers like convection ovens. As I head toward the starting line, I hear engines running on all sides as racers warm up their engines.
Wait a minute! It's hot enough to cook an omelet on the starting line, so why are drivers warming up their engines?
It's no wonder that some racers have problems keeping their engines cool in the summer. If the temperature gauge is already at 160 or 180 degrees when you pull out of the staging lanes, chances are it will be pegged by the time you get to the time slip booth.
Some racers believe that a warm engine makes more power than a cold engine. Others think that a warm engine is more consistent. In fact, heat is the enemy of performance. A motor will make more power if you run it cold - and it can still be consistent. My fellow back-page columnist Warren Johnson has described the chemistry of internal combustion in detail. An engine is really a vessel that contains the energy released by chemical reactions. Petroleum is the remains of prehistoric plants, plankton and protozoa. Eons ago, these organisms banked the sun's energy in their cells. We harvest this stored energy to heat our homes, cook our dinners and propel our race cars.
As W.J. noted, gasoline molecules release energy when they break down into water and carbon dioxide - lots of energy. Every gallon of gasoline contains roughly 114,000 British Thermal Units (BTU) of heating value, enough energy to raise the temperature of 1,000 pounds of water by 140 degrees.
Where does this energy go? Roughly 25 percent is converted to useful work, five percent is used to overcome the engine's internal friction and five percent is radiated directly into the air. The largest portion, about 35 percent, goes out the tailpipes as exhaust heat. The remaining 30 percent is heat that must be dissipated by the engine's cooling and lubrication systems.
Most drag race cars have cooling systems that are hard pressed to deal with such a staggering amount of heat. We typically use tiny radiators (or sometimes no radiator at all), low-speed electric water pumps and inefficient fans and shrouds because we are more concerned with reducing weight and minimizing parasitic losses than with cooling capacity. In contrast, the belt-driven water pump in a typical street car moves 100 gallons of coolant per minute through a thick-core radiator with a properly engineered fan and shroud system.
Think about how much heat energy is released in your engine's cylinders in just a few seconds of full-throttle acceleration - and remember that 25 percent of those BTUs go straight into the cooling system. Even though a drag racing engine runs only a relatively short time, it's hardly surprising when the heat of combustion overtaxes the cooling system.
The ritual of warming up an engine is really a holdover from the days when we ran "molasses" in our motors. Back when racers used 20W-50 and 10W-30 mineral-based oil in their engines, there was a valid reason to warm up an engine. Those thick petroleum oils caused big pumping losses. In contrast, today's off-the-shelf synthetic oils do not need an extended warm-up. Even on a freezing morning at the Winternationals, all you need to do is take the chill off when you use synthetic oil. Further heating synthetic oil makes no difference - it just needlessly puts heat into internal engine components and the coolant.
If you are not using synthetic oil in your 800-horsepower Super Gas, Super Comp or Top Sportsman engine, you should be. A serious racing engine deserves serious racing oil, not whatever is on sale at the local discount store. Why jeopardize a $20,000 engine with $1 oil?
Our dyno and track tests have repeatedly shown that a drag racing engine runs best with thin oil and cold water. No one is more obsessed with horsepower than Pro Stock racers. Do you see Pro drivers warming their engines in the staging lanes? Never. We tow our cars through the pits, push them in the staging lanes, and fire them up at the last possible minute. After the burnout, the staging process and a six-second quarter-mile run, the water temperature rarely exceeds 150 degrees.
In Pro Stock, a stone-cold engine is best. The fact that Pro engines are often on the ragged edge of detonation is certainly a factor. We have also dyno tested literally hundreds of sportsman engines, however, and it appears that a coolant temperature around 120 degrees at the start of a run is ideal.
I recognize that Pro Stock teams have the luxury of 90 minutes between runs, and that it's tough for a sportsman racer to keep the engine cool during round-robin eliminations. That's just another reason to have an effective cooling system and to refrain from putting unnecessary heat in the engine by warming it up. Once the water temperature reaches a certain point, the cooling system can be overwhelmed. It's like sitting in a traffic jam and watching the needle on your street car's temperature gauge steadily climb. When it reaches the critical point, the cooling system loses its ability to control the temperature. The result is a toasted engine. I've watched racers warm up their engines and then turn off the electric pump and fan to keep heat in the motor. My advice is to leave the pump and fan running to pull heat out of the cylinder heads, which need to be cool. You won't pull much heat out of the oil because it's sitting in the sump of the oil pan. My recommendations to sportsman racers on surviving the long, hot summer are to use synthetic oil and run your engine as cool as you can.
"Chilling Out: How to Keep Cool Through a Long, Hot Summer"
by David Reher
What's wrong with this picture? I am walking through the staging lanes at high noon on a sweltering summer day. All around me people are wearing shorts and T-shirts, with wet shop rags wrapped around their foreheads to keep the heat at bay. Super Comp drivers sit in their dragsters with umbrellas strategically placed to ward off the sun, while electric fans circulate the heat inside a dozen Super Gassers like convection ovens. As I head toward the starting line, I hear engines running on all sides as racers warm up their engines.
Wait a minute! It's hot enough to cook an omelet on the starting line, so why are drivers warming up their engines?
It's no wonder that some racers have problems keeping their engines cool in the summer. If the temperature gauge is already at 160 or 180 degrees when you pull out of the staging lanes, chances are it will be pegged by the time you get to the time slip booth.
Some racers believe that a warm engine makes more power than a cold engine. Others think that a warm engine is more consistent. In fact, heat is the enemy of performance. A motor will make more power if you run it cold - and it can still be consistent. My fellow back-page columnist Warren Johnson has described the chemistry of internal combustion in detail. An engine is really a vessel that contains the energy released by chemical reactions. Petroleum is the remains of prehistoric plants, plankton and protozoa. Eons ago, these organisms banked the sun's energy in their cells. We harvest this stored energy to heat our homes, cook our dinners and propel our race cars.
As W.J. noted, gasoline molecules release energy when they break down into water and carbon dioxide - lots of energy. Every gallon of gasoline contains roughly 114,000 British Thermal Units (BTU) of heating value, enough energy to raise the temperature of 1,000 pounds of water by 140 degrees.
Where does this energy go? Roughly 25 percent is converted to useful work, five percent is used to overcome the engine's internal friction and five percent is radiated directly into the air. The largest portion, about 35 percent, goes out the tailpipes as exhaust heat. The remaining 30 percent is heat that must be dissipated by the engine's cooling and lubrication systems.
Most drag race cars have cooling systems that are hard pressed to deal with such a staggering amount of heat. We typically use tiny radiators (or sometimes no radiator at all), low-speed electric water pumps and inefficient fans and shrouds because we are more concerned with reducing weight and minimizing parasitic losses than with cooling capacity. In contrast, the belt-driven water pump in a typical street car moves 100 gallons of coolant per minute through a thick-core radiator with a properly engineered fan and shroud system.
Think about how much heat energy is released in your engine's cylinders in just a few seconds of full-throttle acceleration - and remember that 25 percent of those BTUs go straight into the cooling system. Even though a drag racing engine runs only a relatively short time, it's hardly surprising when the heat of combustion overtaxes the cooling system.
The ritual of warming up an engine is really a holdover from the days when we ran "molasses" in our motors. Back when racers used 20W-50 and 10W-30 mineral-based oil in their engines, there was a valid reason to warm up an engine. Those thick petroleum oils caused big pumping losses. In contrast, today's off-the-shelf synthetic oils do not need an extended warm-up. Even on a freezing morning at the Winternationals, all you need to do is take the chill off when you use synthetic oil. Further heating synthetic oil makes no difference - it just needlessly puts heat into internal engine components and the coolant.
If you are not using synthetic oil in your 800-horsepower Super Gas, Super Comp or Top Sportsman engine, you should be. A serious racing engine deserves serious racing oil, not whatever is on sale at the local discount store. Why jeopardize a $20,000 engine with $1 oil?
Our dyno and track tests have repeatedly shown that a drag racing engine runs best with thin oil and cold water. No one is more obsessed with horsepower than Pro Stock racers. Do you see Pro drivers warming their engines in the staging lanes? Never. We tow our cars through the pits, push them in the staging lanes, and fire them up at the last possible minute. After the burnout, the staging process and a six-second quarter-mile run, the water temperature rarely exceeds 150 degrees.
In Pro Stock, a stone-cold engine is best. The fact that Pro engines are often on the ragged edge of detonation is certainly a factor. We have also dyno tested literally hundreds of sportsman engines, however, and it appears that a coolant temperature around 120 degrees at the start of a run is ideal.
I recognize that Pro Stock teams have the luxury of 90 minutes between runs, and that it's tough for a sportsman racer to keep the engine cool during round-robin eliminations. That's just another reason to have an effective cooling system and to refrain from putting unnecessary heat in the engine by warming it up. Once the water temperature reaches a certain point, the cooling system can be overwhelmed. It's like sitting in a traffic jam and watching the needle on your street car's temperature gauge steadily climb. When it reaches the critical point, the cooling system loses its ability to control the temperature. The result is a toasted engine. I've watched racers warm up their engines and then turn off the electric pump and fan to keep heat in the motor. My advice is to leave the pump and fan running to pull heat out of the cylinder heads, which need to be cool. You won't pull much heat out of the oil because it's sitting in the sump of the oil pan. My recommendations to sportsman racers on surviving the long, hot summer are to use synthetic oil and run your engine as cool as you can.
Pro
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 528
Likes: 0
Here is a write up by David Reher of Reher-Morrison fame:
"Chilling Out: How to Keep Cool Through a Long, Hot Summer"
by David Reher
What's wrong with this picture? I am walking through the staging lanes at high noon on a sweltering summer day. All around me people are wearing shorts and T-shirts, with wet shop rags wrapped around their foreheads to keep the heat at bay. Super Comp drivers sit in their dragsters with umbrellas strategically placed to ward off the sun, while electric fans circulate the heat inside a dozen Super Gassers like convection ovens. As I head toward the starting line, I hear engines running on all sides as racers warm up their engines.
Wait a minute! It's hot enough to cook an omelet on the starting line, so why are drivers warming up their engines?
It's no wonder that some racers have problems keeping their engines cool in the summer. If the temperature gauge is already at 160 or 180 degrees when you pull out of the staging lanes, chances are it will be pegged by the time you get to the time slip booth.
Some racers believe that a warm engine makes more power than a cold engine. Others think that a warm engine is more consistent. In fact, heat is the enemy of performance. A motor will make more power if you run it cold - and it can still be consistent. My fellow back-page columnist Warren Johnson has described the chemistry of internal combustion in detail. An engine is really a vessel that contains the energy released by chemical reactions. Petroleum is the remains of prehistoric plants, plankton and protozoa. Eons ago, these organisms banked the sun's energy in their cells. We harvest this stored energy to heat our homes, cook our dinners and propel our race cars.
As W.J. noted, gasoline molecules release energy when they break down into water and carbon dioxide - lots of energy. Every gallon of gasoline contains roughly 114,000 British Thermal Units (BTU) of heating value, enough energy to raise the temperature of 1,000 pounds of water by 140 degrees.
Where does this energy go? Roughly 25 percent is converted to useful work, five percent is used to overcome the engine's internal friction and five percent is radiated directly into the air. The largest portion, about 35 percent, goes out the tailpipes as exhaust heat. The remaining 30 percent is heat that must be dissipated by the engine's cooling and lubrication systems.
Most drag race cars have cooling systems that are hard pressed to deal with such a staggering amount of heat. We typically use tiny radiators (or sometimes no radiator at all), low-speed electric water pumps and inefficient fans and shrouds because we are more concerned with reducing weight and minimizing parasitic losses than with cooling capacity. In contrast, the belt-driven water pump in a typical street car moves 100 gallons of coolant per minute through a thick-core radiator with a properly engineered fan and shroud system.
Think about how much heat energy is released in your engine's cylinders in just a few seconds of full-throttle acceleration - and remember that 25 percent of those BTUs go straight into the cooling system. Even though a drag racing engine runs only a relatively short time, it's hardly surprising when the heat of combustion overtaxes the cooling system.
The ritual of warming up an engine is really a holdover from the days when we ran "molasses" in our motors. Back when racers used 20W-50 and 10W-30 mineral-based oil in their engines, there was a valid reason to warm up an engine. Those thick petroleum oils caused big pumping losses. In contrast, today's off-the-shelf synthetic oils do not need an extended warm-up. Even on a freezing morning at the Winternationals, all you need to do is take the chill off when you use synthetic oil. Further heating synthetic oil makes no difference - it just needlessly puts heat into internal engine components and the coolant.
If you are not using synthetic oil in your 800-horsepower Super Gas, Super Comp or Top Sportsman engine, you should be. A serious racing engine deserves serious racing oil, not whatever is on sale at the local discount store. Why jeopardize a $20,000 engine with $1 oil?
Our dyno and track tests have repeatedly shown that a drag racing engine runs best with thin oil and cold water. No one is more obsessed with horsepower than Pro Stock racers. Do you see Pro drivers warming their engines in the staging lanes? Never. We tow our cars through the pits, push them in the staging lanes, and fire them up at the last possible minute. After the burnout, the staging process and a six-second quarter-mile run, the water temperature rarely exceeds 150 degrees.
In Pro Stock, a stone-cold engine is best. The fact that Pro engines are often on the ragged edge of detonation is certainly a factor. We have also dyno tested literally hundreds of sportsman engines, however, and it appears that a coolant temperature around 120 degrees at the start of a run is ideal.
I recognize that Pro Stock teams have the luxury of 90 minutes between runs, and that it's tough for a sportsman racer to keep the engine cool during round-robin eliminations. That's just another reason to have an effective cooling system and to refrain from putting unnecessary heat in the engine by warming it up. Once the water temperature reaches a certain point, the cooling system can be overwhelmed. It's like sitting in a traffic jam and watching the needle on your street car's temperature gauge steadily climb. When it reaches the critical point, the cooling system loses its ability to control the temperature. The result is a toasted engine. I've watched racers warm up their engines and then turn off the electric pump and fan to keep heat in the motor. My advice is to leave the pump and fan running to pull heat out of the cylinder heads, which need to be cool. You won't pull much heat out of the oil because it's sitting in the sump of the oil pan. My recommendations to sportsman racers on surviving the long, hot summer are to use synthetic oil and run your engine as cool as you can.
"Chilling Out: How to Keep Cool Through a Long, Hot Summer"
by David Reher
What's wrong with this picture? I am walking through the staging lanes at high noon on a sweltering summer day. All around me people are wearing shorts and T-shirts, with wet shop rags wrapped around their foreheads to keep the heat at bay. Super Comp drivers sit in their dragsters with umbrellas strategically placed to ward off the sun, while electric fans circulate the heat inside a dozen Super Gassers like convection ovens. As I head toward the starting line, I hear engines running on all sides as racers warm up their engines.
Wait a minute! It's hot enough to cook an omelet on the starting line, so why are drivers warming up their engines?
It's no wonder that some racers have problems keeping their engines cool in the summer. If the temperature gauge is already at 160 or 180 degrees when you pull out of the staging lanes, chances are it will be pegged by the time you get to the time slip booth.
Some racers believe that a warm engine makes more power than a cold engine. Others think that a warm engine is more consistent. In fact, heat is the enemy of performance. A motor will make more power if you run it cold - and it can still be consistent. My fellow back-page columnist Warren Johnson has described the chemistry of internal combustion in detail. An engine is really a vessel that contains the energy released by chemical reactions. Petroleum is the remains of prehistoric plants, plankton and protozoa. Eons ago, these organisms banked the sun's energy in their cells. We harvest this stored energy to heat our homes, cook our dinners and propel our race cars.
As W.J. noted, gasoline molecules release energy when they break down into water and carbon dioxide - lots of energy. Every gallon of gasoline contains roughly 114,000 British Thermal Units (BTU) of heating value, enough energy to raise the temperature of 1,000 pounds of water by 140 degrees.
Where does this energy go? Roughly 25 percent is converted to useful work, five percent is used to overcome the engine's internal friction and five percent is radiated directly into the air. The largest portion, about 35 percent, goes out the tailpipes as exhaust heat. The remaining 30 percent is heat that must be dissipated by the engine's cooling and lubrication systems.
Most drag race cars have cooling systems that are hard pressed to deal with such a staggering amount of heat. We typically use tiny radiators (or sometimes no radiator at all), low-speed electric water pumps and inefficient fans and shrouds because we are more concerned with reducing weight and minimizing parasitic losses than with cooling capacity. In contrast, the belt-driven water pump in a typical street car moves 100 gallons of coolant per minute through a thick-core radiator with a properly engineered fan and shroud system.
Think about how much heat energy is released in your engine's cylinders in just a few seconds of full-throttle acceleration - and remember that 25 percent of those BTUs go straight into the cooling system. Even though a drag racing engine runs only a relatively short time, it's hardly surprising when the heat of combustion overtaxes the cooling system.
The ritual of warming up an engine is really a holdover from the days when we ran "molasses" in our motors. Back when racers used 20W-50 and 10W-30 mineral-based oil in their engines, there was a valid reason to warm up an engine. Those thick petroleum oils caused big pumping losses. In contrast, today's off-the-shelf synthetic oils do not need an extended warm-up. Even on a freezing morning at the Winternationals, all you need to do is take the chill off when you use synthetic oil. Further heating synthetic oil makes no difference - it just needlessly puts heat into internal engine components and the coolant.
If you are not using synthetic oil in your 800-horsepower Super Gas, Super Comp or Top Sportsman engine, you should be. A serious racing engine deserves serious racing oil, not whatever is on sale at the local discount store. Why jeopardize a $20,000 engine with $1 oil?
Our dyno and track tests have repeatedly shown that a drag racing engine runs best with thin oil and cold water. No one is more obsessed with horsepower than Pro Stock racers. Do you see Pro drivers warming their engines in the staging lanes? Never. We tow our cars through the pits, push them in the staging lanes, and fire them up at the last possible minute. After the burnout, the staging process and a six-second quarter-mile run, the water temperature rarely exceeds 150 degrees.
In Pro Stock, a stone-cold engine is best. The fact that Pro engines are often on the ragged edge of detonation is certainly a factor. We have also dyno tested literally hundreds of sportsman engines, however, and it appears that a coolant temperature around 120 degrees at the start of a run is ideal.
I recognize that Pro Stock teams have the luxury of 90 minutes between runs, and that it's tough for a sportsman racer to keep the engine cool during round-robin eliminations. That's just another reason to have an effective cooling system and to refrain from putting unnecessary heat in the engine by warming it up. Once the water temperature reaches a certain point, the cooling system can be overwhelmed. It's like sitting in a traffic jam and watching the needle on your street car's temperature gauge steadily climb. When it reaches the critical point, the cooling system loses its ability to control the temperature. The result is a toasted engine. I've watched racers warm up their engines and then turn off the electric pump and fan to keep heat in the motor. My advice is to leave the pump and fan running to pull heat out of the cylinder heads, which need to be cool. You won't pull much heat out of the oil because it's sitting in the sump of the oil pan. My recommendations to sportsman racers on surviving the long, hot summer are to use synthetic oil and run your engine as cool as you can.
Pro
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 528
Likes: 0
Whoever wrote that must have had a bad thermostat. A 160* thermostat means that it begins to open at 160*, not that your car will run at that temperature. With a 160* stat, your coolant temps will be ~180*. If you can't get warm off of 180* air, you may need to lower your blood thinner medication.
If the ambient temperature is 10* F and the tstst keeps the coolant temp at about 176* F, what temp does the oil run?
Does the heater produce enough heat to warm the cabin?
Drifting
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,682
Likes: 3
Race Director
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 17,373
Likes: 6
From: Chatsworth California
Whoever wrote that must have had a bad thermostat. A 160* thermostat means that it begins to open at 160*, not that your car will run at that temperature. With a 160* stat, your coolant temps will be ~180*. If you can't get warm off of 180* air, you may need to lower your blood thinner medication.
Advanced
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 66
Likes: 1
From: Clifton Springs NY
Just had Jeremy Formato port and dyno tune and put in a 160 thermo.
in Gettysburg.
Ambient temp on way down was 80 and the coolant ran 192-194
Ambient temp on the way back was 94 and the coolant 176-182
all at highway speeds.
For what its worth
in Gettysburg.
Ambient temp on way down was 80 and the coolant ran 192-194
Ambient temp on the way back was 94 and the coolant 176-182
all at highway speeds.
For what its worth
Team Owner
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 27,254
Likes: 136
From: Short Hills, NJ
I've seen oil temps in the 200-210 degree range when the coolant was in the 180-190 range.
Yes, maybe takes a full minute longer to get there than it did before, even on a 10 degree day.
Melting Slicks
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 3,120
Likes: 506
From: Greenville, NC
2025 C8 of the Year Finalist - Modified
Whoever wrote that must have had a bad thermostat. A 160* thermostat means that it begins to open at 160*, not that your car will run at that temperature. With a 160* stat, your coolant temps will be ~180*. If you can't get warm off of 180* air, you may need to lower your blood thinner medication.
I had two bad thermostats that started opening at 140 degrees rather than 160 degrees. They caused all kinds of issues. Now my properly operating 160 degree stat keeps my coolant between 176 and 184 most of the time. It gets slightly higher in stop and go traffic, but usually not higher than 192 with my fans adjusted.