It's important to remember that what you get on your gauge is only reading the temperature at one point in the entire cooling system. It should be on your water crossover which is essentially your water inlet temperature. That tells you how hot the water is when it goes back into the motor. If your cooling system is being overwhelmed, it will be really hot at this point.
So you are going to have a pretty big split between your inlet and outlet temp, which is why all these comments about needing to boil water out of your oil are nonsense. Your water temp reading isn't your oil temp, or your exhaust manifold temp, and darn sure isn't some kind of "power" equivalent. A well cooled engine runs better, lasts longer, and makes more power. I run a 160 degree thermostat, and it never gets above 175 unless I'm sitting in traffic in the summer (in Texas).
Before I got my Cold Case radiator, I got stuck in the staging lanes and did a pass with the motor around 205, and was .2 slower than the previous run. Go to a drag strip and ask people if they run their engines as hot as possible or as cool as possible.
__________________
77 Trans Am, 469 w/ported E-Heads via Kauffman, matched HSD intake, Butler Performance forged rotating assembly, Comp custom hyd roller, Q-jet, Art Carr 200 4R, 3.42s, 3 inch exhaust w/Doug's cutouts, D.U.I. Ignition. 7.40 in the 8th, 11.61@116.07 in the quarter...still tuning.
|