zelifcam

Today at school I learned that a cooler, 160deg thermostat will make more power by running the engine cooler and in turn allow more air to enter the combustion chamber due to the fact that the air is not expanding as it comes in. Does anyone have any experience with cool thermostats on B16's? Any comments?

Thanks,
zelifcam

Kamin

what?
just because the coolant temprature is lower dosent mean the engine will make more power. even if it DOES make a change, its not gonna be of any significance espically for you to feel or see on a dyno.

zelifcam

everything makes a difference... if i lower the temperature in the chamber by 30 degrees, i can get a 3% horsepower gain for $8. 5 HP for $8 sounds good to me.

Kamin

lol ok if you say so
the only thing a low temp thermostat is good for is prolonged engine life.

poison

'<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by zelifcam &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Today at school I learned that a cooler, 160deg thermostat will make more power by running the engine cooler and in turn allow more air to enter the combustion chamber due to the fact that the air is not expanding as it comes in. Does anyone have any experience with cool thermostats on B16's? Any comments?

Thanks,
zelifcam</TD></TR></TABLE>

technically yes. will it affect a lot in normal driving? nah

I currently run 15% coolant, redline water wetter, and the rest distilled water with removed valve on my thermostat.

Does it run differently? Not really

but being that it's hot as hell, you can put more abuse on the engine w/o it over heating.

zelifcam

i was actually thinking that it will shorten my engine life, as the internal engine parts may not expand as much as they were designed to and may even have problems sealing the rings, keeping the oil hot enough, etc...

Honda didn't put a 195F thermostat in the car so that the engine could have a short life, they did it for emission and fuel economy concerns... keeping a hot cylinder promotes more complete, cleaner combustion...

zelifcam

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by poison &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">'

technically yes. will it affect a lot in normal driving? nah

I currently run 15% coolant, redline water wetter, and the rest distilled water with removed valve on my thermostat.

Does it run differently? Not really

but being that it's hot as hell, you can put more abuse on the engine w/o it over heating.</TD></TR></TABLE>

thanks for the information. do you live where it's hot all the time? I wouldn't really want to run without a thermostat here in the midwest, but maybe when I move south next year..

Kamin

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by zelifcam &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i was actually thinking that it will shorten my engine life, as the internal engine parts may not expand as much as they were designed to and may even have problems sealing the rings, keeping the oil hot enough, etc...

Honda didn't put a 195F thermostat in the car so that the engine could have a short life, they did it for emission and fuel economy concerns... keeping a hot cylinder promotes more complete, cleaner combustion...</TD></TR></TABLE>
BUT heat is the enemy of all internal parts

nothing really expands after the engine is broken in.

zelifcam

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Kamin &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
BUT heat is the enemy of all internal parts

nothing really expands after the engine is broken in.</TD></TR></TABLE>

every metal part of your engine expands all the time. that's why we have valve lash and the like. that's why you heat an exhaust manifold to get an O2 sensor out... it expands... all metals do..

n00baller

I was also told that if you put a resistance load on the CTS wire, you'll get a richer A/F mixture by telling the ECU you're engine is running cooler than it really is.
Not sure if that's what you needed to know, but it might help.

zelifcam

if you lower coolant temperature significantly, the ECU's CTS won't read properly and the ECU will not go into closed loop operation. This, however, is not a concern to me since I'm running a P28 with a Kenji chip that never seems to go into closed loop operation. I'm not even sure if it pays any attention to CTS or not.

-zelifcam