No thermostats....

[Turbo6Smackdown]

A buddy of mine told me (yea I know, how many times have you heard that one eh? lol) that in his racer, he runs with no thermostat, to keep his car cooler. You know, more flow, etc. etc..... I already have my answer, I just want to hear it from you guys, as I know there are some super intelligent people on here, that never cease to amaze me. Maybe I can learn something new.
The main source of logic I use is, if this 'no t-stat' option is soo awesome, why isnt everyone in the race world doing it then?
I'm guessing that when you remove it, the flow is enhanced soo much, that the water doesn't stay in the radiator long enough to even get a good cooling... Does this theory 'hold water' ? lol. Or am I overthinking it.
Give me your points guys.

 

[Renthorin]

I have always heard if you don't run a thermostat several things happen:

1) takes longer to warm up as the engine has to warm ALL the coolant instead of just what is around the cylinders with the therm closed.

2) takes longer to cool down when hot as (like you mentioned) the coolant never stays in the rad long enough to cool down as much as it could.

3) when the engine gets up to operating tems the therm stops going from closed...to open...to closed...to open...and eventually settles on a partially opened state where it allows enough coolant to pass through to maintain the optimal temp.

I would think on a race car where you make short bursts running without a thermostat could work as long as your car was allowed the time to cool down. It would take longer to heat all the coolant so in theory, you would be running cold longer.

On a street car I think it would work the opposite...you would not cool as efficiently as you would with a therm.



On a side note, you will in theory be faster without a thermostat as you will be that much lighter

 

[87geeinn]

In any motor, it's imperative to get the motor up to operating temp ASAP.

 

[ThikStik]

Dont buy into this one! A motor that isnt up to operating temp wears 3 x as much as one at 175. Thats one of the cardinal rules of car longevity. And to add to Geein's point, get car up to temp fast and never beat on a cold car. Some have theorised that there are 2 sympathetic wear patterns on each wearing surface, 1 from cold useand other from running temp use. So obviously you want to get only 1 dominate wear pattern going.
Plus your heater would be so, so.

 

[Lee Thompson]

also

The ECM needs to see a min. temp. before some thing happen, one being torque convertor LU.

 

[Ormand]

Many, many cars are raced with no thermostat. BUT- they do have a restrictor in the place where the thermostat was originally. The water pump on an engine is just like any other centrifugal pump. It has a max flow that it will supply, and when you try to go over that, you get pump cavitation, and rapid wear, as well as less flow than if you had enough back pressure on the pump. The restriction also serves to pressurize the water in the engine, to keep it from boiling. The radiator pressure cap only controls pressure to the suction side of the pump- pressure is higher on the discharge side, as long as the pump is not allowed to run out because of too little restriction.

 

[Nick Micale]

.......... why isnt everyone in the race world doing it then?............ Give me your points guys.

First, my definition of a race car is one NOT driven on the street. In this case, most of the guys I know in my "race world" do NOT use a thermostat or restrictor plate.

As far as bearing or cyl. wall wear in a race car engine, warm up is not a factor. Cool down is much quicker w/o a t'stat especially with an electric pump and no restriction.

It is important to define specifically the application when a question is asked, like you did for a RACE car. Many opinions and comments from people on the internet that have never had their car to a race track, cross over from street to race cars, and "facts" are born out of mis-information.

 

[Turbo6Smackdown]

yea. i see now. yep, his car is definitely a race car. though, its a circle track car. not a quarter mile blaster. he runs amatuer nascar so to speak.
He says, (and hes a good friend of mine, and a combat buddy as well, hes not going to lie to me) that most of the guys on his track never run a t stat. so i was just going over all the different pros and cons of this, just to see why, what, and how come. maybe i could learn something from it. and indeed i have. thanks to you guys. thanks!