i have a 2001 SS and my stock temps are about at the 210 mark when driving at hightway speeds... i sintalled a hypertech 160* stat today and noticed very little difference if any at all... do i have a lemon for a stat?

 

Did you also have your PCM programmed to turn the fans on sooner? If you don't you could actually cause your engine to run hotter. The fans need to come on sooner to start cooling the hot coolant immediately after it enters the radiator from the engine. If not you can reach a point where the t-stat never closes all the way and you will keep getting hotter and hotter because the collant will just keep on circulating non-stop. But this is really a problem for city, stop-and-go driving.

But on the highway your fans should never come on and you should run at your coolest temps. With a 160* t-stat in there, 210* is hot for cruising steady on the highway, no matter how hot it is outside.

Before you go nuts though, I would get a scanner to check TRUE temps...these guages in our cars can be WAY off.

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Agreed. I installed a 160* thermo and I happend to have a hypertech tuner to turn my fans on earlier, but the gauge is still reading 210. I believe my engine is running cooler since my fans are on alot more and I've read that our temp gauges DO infact suck *****.

 

first off...

1998 was the last year that the temp guages in these cars actually read the temperature. after that they pretty much read the same (~210deg) whether you are at 170-225deg. the guage is nothing more than a "dummy guage".

so going by what IT says as your engine coolant temps is pointless. i know on the scanner my car runs at 175deg...but the guage still says it is 210...go figure.


secondly....

WOW....that sounds so incorrect its incredible.

you don't HAVE TO get reprogrammed!!!
if you DON'T the car will operate the same as stock when in slow moving or stopped traffic. this is because the stat is fully open (just like a stocker would be), and the temps are determined by the fans. and if the stock fan settings are sufficient to keep the engine from blowing up from the factory (why wouldn't they?) than they are fine now.
however, this isn't the best for performance....but that's not my point.

when moving the car will operate at lower temps due to coolant temps being determined by how much air is flowing. so when driving you'll take full advantage of the lower temp stat....even with stock fan settings.



and i don't see how with a stat fully open, you can reach a point that the engine will get hotter and hotter.
well....that's assuming the rest of the cooling system is functional.

i mean a stock stat will be fully open when sitting in traffic....and the fans keep it from overheating.
so why would a stat that opens earlier...and it STILL fully open when sitting in traffic be BAD and cause overheating? with the SAME fan temp settings??


i ran a 160 stat in my old LT1 (have one in the ls1 but it has then nonfunctional guage...the lt1 didnt).
i NEVER changed the fan settings.

driving on the highway it would hover at about 175 all day, even driving in 100deg heat in florida.
in traffic it would heat up to the 220 (or whatever the fan settings were..been a while) and then the fans would kick on and drop it right down to the 200 mark.

i could turn my fan switch on and it would pull the temps right down to 175 if i wanted....all while sitting on the blacktop in 100deg heat.


so explain to me how the 160stat and stock fan temps were damaging things??

 

now days, they design thermostats to fail open. instead of old days where it was luck if it failed open and bad luck if it failed closed. but i never heard of a car overheating with an open thermostat. however if the coolant couldn't circulate(closed thermostat), then it would boil/overheat

no tune is needed, it just a thermostat

 

Deff could be the guage reading wrong= my car does the same thing ..

My car (since i've owned it over 4yrs now) has always run at "210" on the guage but when I check the temp with a temp gun on the engine it's at like 170something.

I also just installed the hyper160 therm and it reads "208" on my guage so something is off with the guage..

 

Re-read

 

Ls6427; you are right a car will run hot with no therm. water does not have time to cool off i took mine out last winter. going down the interstate the temp would read about 120 then in town it would slowly start to over heat! put the thermostat back in problem fixed. but you cant make some people under stand so why argue

 

Yeah, those dumb auto manufacturers, why on earth do they use those pesky t-stats.

Your 175 was probably 210 and your 210 was probably 250.

I'd like to see an LT1 that runs at 175*F.....

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read on a scanner....

basic bolt on lt1....50K miles...why wouldn't it run that cool??



never said that NO stat was good....just that a lower stat doesn't NEED a reprogrammed fan, helpful sometimes yes, but not REQUIRED.


my LS1 reads ~175deg on a scanner while my temp guage still reads ~210.

 

What you are failing to unserstand is that putting in a 160* t-stat...will at some point after the engine gets up to operating temp will be the same as having NO t-stat...because it will never close. Fans don't come on till well over 200*.
If you're in traffic...hot day....with no lower front air dam cooling...you're screwed.

Highway...should be ok, but that depends too.

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Your 2001 guage is a dummy guage.

 

what i think you're failing to understand is that there is a HUGE difference between the amount of flow that a fully open Tstat allows and a completly gutted Tstat housing allows.

the stat alone....wide open...resticts flow enough to allow enough time for the coolant to do its job.


and on a hot day, in traffic...even a stock stat is going to remain open damn near 100% of the time.

regardless of whether the stat is fully open (160stat), or begins to close on the cool side of the fan-temp range (stock stat)....the stock fan settings are still going to maintain the temps in that 210-220deg range

the fans are going to turn off at 210 regardless of whether the stat is wide open or just beginning to close.


HOW does that screw you??

i've driven in south florida heat for over 10yrs with lower temp stats. and not untill i put in the cam a few years ago did i every reprogram the fans. everything worked just fine.