well i can officially say that i now have done the 180* thermo mod, i debated on doing it for the longest time for the simple fact that i didnt want to drain the whole radiator. i then found out something from another thread that i had never thought of, i only had to syphon enough out so it didnt spill all over. i decided to do it for a couple of different reasons.

1. i didnt like how hot the car ran before, usually up towards the 220 mark
2. i have low oil pressure when idling, i was a victim of the UIM failure, so i hope this keeps up a little bit higher.
3. I hope that it will help prolong the life of the engine.

i know many have done this mod and this all seems redundant but im excited so i had to say something, by the way very easy to do, the only hard part was scraping the old gasket off and making sure it didnt fall in the engine

Alot of us (myself included on both cars) don't drain. There isn't much leakage on a cold engine when you pull the stat.

i noticed that when i pulled it, not much came out, i only syphoned some out to make sure it wouldnt spill coolant all over

Regarding your low oil pressure, did you hook up an actual mechanical gauge to confirm the oil pressure? Because the gauge in the dash is horribly inaccurate. I highly recommend taking it anywhere where they can hook up a mechanical gauge to confirm the actual PSI, because you may not have such problem to begin with.

that is true and i know they are inaccurate, i havent had it tested but im willing to bet that it is still low due to the fact that my engine did hydrolock from the UIM failure, the oil was changed afterwards but i think the damage may have been done, besides that before i knew it was failing it had been in an accident and it sat in my garage for 6 months, i just like to keep the pressure up enough so it doesnt ding everytime i come to a stop or in traffic, the ding was driving me absolutely nuts

I would still do it just so that you would know for sure whats going on.

Well done on the T stat..

How long would you say it took to complete from start to finish?

umm without the run to the parts store to get the gasket (i didnt get it when i picked up the tstat for the simple reason they didnt have it when i went there) it probably took me about a half hour with scraping off the old gasket

Nice job on the mod.
Can't be too careful with that sort of thing.

That looks to be in great shape. Any pics to share in Your Ride??

Adam