180 or 160 thermostat

Like Michael Yount said in one of his post, my electric fan controls my temp. So my car warms up just fine even with the 160 thermostat. The fan kicks in at 190 and cuts back off when it cools down. I once was able to drive 60 miles during the summer (in Cali w/good flowing traffic) without my electric fan coming on at all! It stayed at 180. Oh yeah, I have a nice fat 2 core Alum. radiator.

uhh i dunno about the thermostat. so what i was doing was pretty bad then?

i believe that i did figure the wires out but now i cant find any window switches which is where i think the problem may have started. any ideas besides the junkyard i have tried many!!!!

180 gets my vote and i am runnign high compression but i got a new rad and electric fan and 160 is t cool to make a 5.0 run at it full potional

I was using a 160° on the stock 5.0.

When i swap my heads, i found a lot of carbon on the top of the pistons..

not sure if the 160° is responsable for this,but nom i run a 180°

I heard that a 160° wont let the engine to come anought hot. And that the ECC will run in a "choke" mode,so to rich.

bock said:

I was using a 160° on the stock 5.0.

When i swap my heads, i found a lot of carbon on the top of the pistons..

not sure if the 160° is responsable for this,but nom i run a 180°

I heard that a 160° wont let the engine to come anought hot. And that the ECC will run in a "choke" mode,so to rich.

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comes back to what i think i said earlier. it depends much more upon what each car runs at with the given temps t-stat. someone may run at 190 with a 160 stat, while others might run at 170 with that same stat.
just like timing. take two stock engines - some can run 16 degrees and some only 10.
need to be around 170 to make it into closed loop.

First off with a stock engine all the thermo does is limit the fluid from circulating till it reaches a set temp! Now if that temp is 160* then the fluid is subjected to cooling off further as it is circulated. Andi if it is 200* the same thing happens!! Sure the faster you warm up the better emissions and gas mileage. The slower you warm up, if at all, the richer it runs and the worse gas mileage and better, if you normally run too lean, you go!! My Stang seems to run good with stats between 180* and 160*! Why I dont know but what I have been told is that the stock SD system tends to run too lean so the colder stat I use the better mine runs. I kinda fixed that with 42 psi fuel regulator!!