Does the engine have the steam ports plumbed or plugged?

 

 

Is the heater core plumbed into the water pump?

 

The gauge on my bone stock LS3 2013 SS Camaro runs 210 these days. Not a problem.

Rick

 

The temp of the thermostat is not what the engine runs at, that's just the temp when it begins to open. Engines are supposed to run at 210. How much does the temp rise when you beat on it? If it doesn't really change, then there is nothing wrong.

 

 

The coolant can run well up to 250 before it boils, that's why the system is pressurized. No, you obviously wouldn't want to run that hot, but for reference - the high speed fans don't even turn on til the mid 220's.

 

That's not helping:

That makes a path for a whole bunch of it to come out the hot side of the system, travel about a foot or whatever, and go right back into what should be the cold side without ever being cooled.

Block the fittings off instead.

 

exactly ^^^^
a cooling system doesn't work the way the OP think it does, a tstat doesn't dictate what the engine will run at, its just a way to get coolant temp high quickly. You can take tstat out and the radiator, air flow, engine, cooling flow and pressure will dictate coolant temp. 210 is not hot and trying to keep a engine at 175 in 95 degree heat is alot to ask and thats too cold anyways. A radiator can keep a engine at 210 and control it much easier then trying to keep engine temp at 175 on a 95 degree day. Plus running a Injected engine at that temp will decrease gas mileage due to being in warm up condition and cause excess wear, oil contamination, lower fuel economy, etc: the engineers are not dumb people, they have the engine running at those temps for a reason.

 

I have EFI Live so I have tuned the fans to come on at a lower temp. I have also tuned the car to not be in warm up condition at a lower temp as well. Why do they make 160 stats if they cant keep the car that low? Shouldn't the radiator be able to cool the engine to whatever the thermostat is set to open?

Why is it a bad thing for the car to run at 180? If the car runs too hot the metal will expand to an area that it cant fit. The coolant could boil off. You get cavitation. You can also cook off the oil. The degrades the oil faster.
I get that if the engine is built with loose tolerances its ok to run hotter, what if it was built tight? It can then only expand so much.

I have read a ton of post and things online that guys state they installed a 160 and it lowered their temps to the 170-180 range.

Please don't roast me. I am just trying to understand.

 

IT WOULD TAKE WAY TO LONG TO EXPLAIN IT PROPERLY. THE INTERNET IS FULL OF DUMB PEOPLE TELLING HALF TRUTHS AND TOTAL LIES, VERY UNCOMMON TO GET A PERSON THAT KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.

TRY LISTENING TO THESE PODCASTS AND GOOGLE SEARCH FOR COOLING SYSTEM PODCASTS.

http://www.powerandspeedpodcast.com/

 

Thank you for the information.

 

The thermostat temp rating is supposed to be it's regulated temp. On GM vehicles you normally see a 195 stat, and the gauge normally reads 200-210. So you're fine at those temps. To help a little further, with stock computer programming, GM doesn't command high fan operation until temps are up into the 230's. You'd likely have to be approx min 260 up to 280 ish before it becomes a real problem.

Your 160 degree thermostat should have kept your cooling system about 20 degrees, maybe 30 degrees cooler than previous. If you're still running the same temps then you may have too little flow, not enough radiator, not enough of an opening in the front end to let enough air through, or a fan setup that either A. doesn't pull enough cfm, or B. works good but the shroud is restrictive at vehicle speed.

Hard to say what you have going on here so i'll say this and maybe it'll help. Thermostats are funny, they stay closed to help get an engine up to temp, then they open and fluctuate based on coolant temp to try to regulate coolant temp to their temp rating. One odd thing a lot of people don't think about is without a thermostat you can actually have a really bad over heat situation, thermostats also keep water from going too fast through the radiator and not spending enough time in the radiator to cool down before re entering the engine. I played with this on my first car, 76 280Z. I should say I learned about this not played with it.. I took the thermostat out and it was January, the car overheated immediately and wouldn't cool down. I had to put the thermostat back in. I was a kid and didn't know what I was doing, but later I realized what was going on.

Anyway, that being said, it's hard to say. Your shroud needs to be open enough or have flaps in it to let air flow through it when you're at speed (roughly 35-40 mph and up). You need a good pump and good flowing system but overheating can be from lack of flow or from too much.

200-210 is perfectly fine. Will it maintain that if you go out and hammer on it? If so don't worry, because you're running the same temp as several million other cars on the road.

Want it cooler? Try without a stat and if it runs really cool or overheats, if so then the system has the ability to run cool and move coolant rapidly through the system. Without a thermostat if it runs basically the same temp then you likely have too small of a system or a restriction that is essentially being your thermostat and only letting so much water through and maintaining the temp you're seeing and would explain why it didn't get cooler when you dropped the stat temp.

 

NO! Dont remove and run without the Tstat. Put the STOCK Tstat back in. What good is it going to do for you when it is open all the time? You ARE NOT giving the coolant ample time to cool in the radiator! You are just recycling hot fluid in the system. Operating temp is 215 degrees. Leave it alone and dont touch it unless it is overheating.

 

I can only assume you're referring to what I wrote since i'm the only one that said take it out. You really should re read what I wrote and read thoroughly.

 

 

The thermostat has two valves:
a. one valve opens/closes the the inlet path from the radiator;
b. the other valve closes/opens the engine block recirculation back into the pump (i.e. bypassing the radiator);
these two valves work in the opposite mode of each other (i.e. one opens as the other closes, and vice-versa)...

when the TS is removed, both passages a. and b. are open, so the pump draws cold coolant from radiator and hot coolant from engine block, at the same time...

BUT: the radiator has higher flow resistance than the engine block, so the pump tends to pull more coolant from engine block than it does from radiator, this leads to running hot.

 

Did you bleed the air out at the steam-crossover tube...?

 

If you run say a 180*F TS, engine will run at about 190*F-195*F on the highway

( if you bled out the air )