160* Thermo

[Justin Kirkham]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>There might have been other issues there Justin Kirkham that made your mileage go up.<hr></blockquote>

Like? I have been recording fuel mileage for over 2 years on every purchase. And when I added the thermostat, I added nothing else. After 25,000 miles, which is how many I have driven since the thermostat, my mileage is up. Not noticably in the city, but hugely on the highway. It went from an average of 29mpg, with a best of 31, to an average of 31, and a best of 32.67mpg. I'll see if I can find the dynographs of the power increase thanks to the 25 or so degrees decrease in temperature. Overall, nothing has went wrong on my car, I have gotten no SES lights, and my mileage is better. Power? Probably not all that noticible, but every 1-2hp count.

-Justin

[Justin Kirkham]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I decided to test the effect of engine temperature on horsepower on one of my trips to Woodbridge Dynotech this spring. On three runs, the first produced 172.4 hp and 205.0 ft-lbs. The second showed 173.8 hp and 206.6 ft-lbs. On the third run we turned off the giant fan they had sitting in the shop and allowed the engine to idle for a few minutes until the water temperature needle hit it's maximum of 210°. Sure enough, power dropped dramatically, resulting in 165.3 hp and 195.1 ft-lbs. The engine lost 8.5 hp and 11.5 ft-lb when it was running hot! John Sealock, owner of the dyno shop, exlained that higher engine temperatures are more detrimental to people with less horsepower. My car was running around 170 hp, so a loss of 8.5 hp was quite profound, resulting in noticeable E.T. differences. However, for a hotrod with 700 hp, losing 10 or even 20 hp due to a hot engine does very little to affect the performance of the car. This is why at the track a lot of guys with super-powerful engines don't bother with ice or keeping the hood open in the staging lanes, while many import drivers do. Makes sense.
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Here is a little snipit from our technical archives. It's a review from our database.

-Justin

[ October 13, 2003: Message edited by: Justin Kirkham ]</p>

[V6Bob]

I believe most, if not all of the HP loss was due to the intake charge heating up, not the engine as such.