You guys have given me a lot of good information about this. I think that I'm not going to insulate the intake manifold. What thermostat would be better to use, a 160* or a 180*.
It depends. The 160 will make more power and let you run more cylinder pressure, but with the coolant that cool, it’s hard to vaporize the fuel so booster choice becomes that much more critical.
Any air gap style manifold or tunnel ram is already pretty cold. Dropping the coolant temp makes them cooler yet. If you can get the fuel atomized so it can then vaporize you can make more power. And be more detonation resistant.
You just have to be careful about car/booster selection.