Anyone still running a 195 T-stat?
 

SInce nearly everyone here has switched over to ruinning a cooler T-stat, I was wondering whether or not anyone has decided to stick with the 195 or switch back to a 195 on their Bonneville's. If so, why? Just curious

Although I have not personally done this, some reasons I can think of why people would switch back to the 195 or keep the 195 is because:

1) They don't care about performance so it doesn't matter.
2) They want their heat to be warmer in the winter.
3) They want to keep the engine running warm to make sure the spark plugs don't foul out and the car maintains good gas mileage.

Other than that, I don't why someone would leave it in or switch back.

There's laziness too, guys. Some of us are just REALLY friggin lazy... :wink:

I still have the 195* in mine. I was under the impression that the only real gains from installing a 180 or colder would be by the supercharged cars? Would my NA 3800 see any performance benifits?

I fall in to the lazy category myself. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

And it shouldn't affect the heat. The engine will still get to the same temp, the thermostat just opens sooner allowing coolant circulation earlier.

Right?

Think I will stay with the stock 195. Gets pretty cold here in the winter.

I've changed mine to a drilled 180 for the summer months, then I'll re-install the stock 195 for the winter months. It gets pretty frekkin cold up here! :x

All 3800's benefit from it. But it's more a matter of mechanical insurance than performance.

Thermostats
 

I have seen a lot of chatter on here about switching to a 180 thermostat. I don't see the big advantage. The design of the engine is for a 195 thermostat. The thermostat attempts to keep the engine temp at a particular level, if it can. The downside has got to be efficiency.

I'd like to see if anyone has actually measured a performance gain with this mod, or if it is just an old wive's tale. Hey, why not just take out the 'stat all together. :)

Here in the northeast, most months you want the hot stat in there. The only months that don't matter are June, july and Aug.

Steve

If the cooling system is working well enough and you don't just do a bunch of stop and go driving the engine should not heat up as hot as it did before. If you do a lot of stop and go driving and don't have the fan turn on points altered for lower temps, or your cooling system isn't as efficient as it used to be then it is going to warm up to hotter temps. Our GTP has a 160 T-stat and doesn't run any warmer than 165 degrees. When the engine is running 30-40 degrees cooler than it did with the stock t-stat it is going to effect the heat.

GTP's have dynoed 2-5hp more on the dyno once fully warmed up with a 160 degree as opposed to the stock 195. In a supercharged car that is getting knock retard a cooler t-stat may make a difference because there won't be as much heating, which will lessen the chance of pre-detonation, reducing knock retard, giving you more power. From what I have read, taking out the stat all together is not a good idea. I don't know why but it is bad for it to run open all the time and it makes it overheat or something.

A colder thermostat is only going to hurt the gas mileage in a car that is running plugs that are too cold for the mods. If your plugs are warm enough, then your gas mileage will be fine, but if the plugs are cold enough that cooling the engine down 20 degrees is going to foul them out, your gas mileage will decrease.

Yeah, I was going to add that in my post, but I would've had to write another line for it, and you know, that is just too much work, because I am just about as lazy as everyone else here.