I want to put a 180 degree thremostat in my car and wonderd if anyone on here have done it. I talked to some folks this weekend at the track that had done it to there srt, so i know it can be done, but i doubt that this little country town that i live in will have a thermostat for an srt-4 on there computer... so is there another vehicle that uses the same one??? most of the thermostats i have worked with are all universal, but the gaskets are different. any suggestions? any one of you done it, and does it make much difference in the temp?

I feel that the cooler i can make it run, the more fuel the comp will give it, and the longer the life on the engine. but that is in my wierd little brain, so that may not be so, but it does make sense...

thanks in advance for the help.

 

I've seen them online but i was wondering if it would matter to the computer. Make the computer think its running cold and run richer and foul plugs or something. I dont know though just a though.

 

stant thermostat number 13788 is the replacement 180 degree for our cars. it costs $4.99 compared to the $16 that howell charges for the same thing. don't use the gasket that comes with the new thermostat, use the stock one. some people say that they've had to put notches in the gasket, but i did not have to do this, and many others did not.

 

so y would you want to do this?

 

changing the thermostat does allow the engine to run in a "richer" condition if I remember correctly... and as we all know, rich is better than lean!

if i am off on this one, someone feel free to correct me, but I am pretty sure I read that somewhere (*scratches head & wishes he could remember where he read it*)

 

rich is better than lean but haveing a properly tuned engine is the best.

 

thank you all for your responses... I want to do this because, like i said, it wil;l give it more fuel, and the more heat you continually put on anything, the quicker it wears out, so less heat means more life???

 

usually, the more heat the quicker things can wear out (depending).. but remember, your engine works best at it's optimum temperature (which is around 200 deg. F usually). The idea of adding more fuel to reduce heat is minimal if at all and is not the cause for richening the fuel. Remember you are spraying fuel into the combustion chamber (well, technically right behind the valve and not directly in the comb. chamber, but... ) this is a vapor mixed with air... ever thrown a match into a bucket of gas?? it (usually) won't light...

the more fuel you add to the system won't decrease temp's... it does however tell the computer that more fuel is being added therefore more air is needed... your car is supposed to run at stoichimetric (sp) conditions (an air/fuel ratio of 14.1 to 1 if I remember correctly). this is theoretical and I don't believe it is actually ever obtained... the car always fights itself to get there (running lean at one moment, and rich the next... but for engineering sake it's "close enough")...

the more fuel added gets more into the combustion process and not a heating issue...

just my $0.02

 

One more penny to throw in here, the DCX design engineers figured in the extra rich fuel mixture when they built the car. If you're just thinking of changing the thermostat and nothing else, I'd leave it alone unless you have an engineering degree from MIT or Cal Tech and specialize in automotive design. Some things are better left undone.

 

the issue of running richer with a lower thermostat is only applicable to the 160 degree thermo. the 180 doesn't lower the operating temperature of the car enough to cause a change like that. on colder days people running the 160 have reported issues of difficulties getting the car up to any sort of operating temperature, and yes fuel does get dumped at these lower temps. no one has reported this problem with the 180, and there are many people using it.

the point of adding a 180 thermo is more for track and highway use than anything. basically a lower thermostat means that coolant flows into the engine sooner than the stock one. this helps reduce temperatures in the engine. lower temperatures on these engines have shown better track results. there's a reason that people ice the exhaust manifold at the track. basically what you're trying to do is to keep the car at a cooler temperature for longer periods of time, allowing the car to pull less timing when you run. for whatever reason, these cars seem to run the best at around 170 degrees. this has been shown on dynos as well, it's not just speculation.

you're not going to see massive changes in the operating temperature of the car. in traffic or city driving it will still sit at around 200 like always. the difference is at warm up and in highway driving.