OVERHEATING

The thermostat's specified temperature is the temperature that it is fully open. So that means if you have say a 180 thermostat, it STARTS to open at say 170 or possibly a little before and is fully open at 180. That's why to me, on a high performance build that sees more heat, it's important to run as cool of a thermostat as you can find for the given application and that's normally 160. The reason for that is, you want to curtail any extra heat before it starts happening. The cooler you can make one run, the less chance you have of over heating. It's just that simple. People who say things like "you create extra engine wear running it that cool" simply do not understand that you TUNE the engine to run at those temperatures. A true performance engine will never reach its full potential running 195 and above. It's just not going to happen.