Quote:
Originally Posted by WorkInProgressK
Unless you track your car often I would suggest not running the lower temp thermostat. Someone starting by "it is actually a fact" and doesn't provide sources isn't credible. Will it break your car? No. Will it give you more power? Maybe for a short period. Most of you change your oil way too often already and cover the consequence of running a lower temp thermostat. If you want to start throwing your money away go for it.
About the water pump, I would love to see pictures of the "chewed up area". They are centrifugal pumps and if you catch the mild leak, you shouldn't build enough play to have contact. Even if there is contact, that gap will provide more flow at higher RPMS since you will be making the path wider.
Source:"http://www.mcnallyinstitute.com/12-html/12-06.html" It talks about trimming the impaller to make more gap, but if the cavity gets bigger it should have the same effect.
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Can't agree to eithier point.
We have run 160F stats on fully insrumented cars and consistenly found both lower coolant and more importantly oil temperatures when operating at steady state (cruise speeds). Coolant temps typically drop from around 205-210 to the mid to high 170F range. Oil temps drop 20-25F. Used oil analysis on cars befor and after adding the low temp stat showed the oil was in better condition after equivlant usage.
We have had multiple cars in the shop that had metal impeller pump failures that resulted in significant damage to the engine cases behind the pump. Several of these cars showed coolant circulation issues after being fitted because the new pump lost efficency due to the increased gap behind the impeller. Trimming impeller blades is a method to slow pump circulation rates, which is an old racers trick to improve high engine RPM cooling as usually the pump is moving coolant too much coolant under those conditions. But like everything else, there is a "too much" limit in doing this, when the reduced flow leads to over heating, particularly at lower engine RPM levels.
There are reasons the factory used compostie impeller pumps on these engines, and why they equip all of their high performance engines (turbos, etc.) with 160F stats from the factory.