Curious. If you put a 180° t-stat in challenger and do not have a programmer what can happen? Any benefits or loses?
Actually I'm pretty sure our cars jump over to the hotter coolant open-loop fuel tables even with the Jet 180, this came up over on the LX forums back in the day and I remember reading it. I would be interested in learning a little more about this though.well that's a lot of passionate comments on a $35 add on
i have mine that i put on for the summer and for thus the track days i spend driving my beast up to 140 mph from 4500 to 6500rpm, oil blasting at 270 deg and water temp thus tapping into the 215/225 deg constantly with the 180 deg tstat
in this above config the engine keeps within the 215/220 deg operating range and you have no risk of overheating, the manifold is nice and warm not hot, you pick more HP on the track and when u do civil driving u have an engine running oil temp at 190/200 deg and it is fine
then winter comes and the 180 deg stat in New York City for me is a big no no
way too cold and not needed so revert to stock
180 t-stat is for tuned car; i have three tunes to choose from depending on what i do with the car and what racing gas i use
if u have no tune, by all means the t-stat is a waste of money and time; the stock does very well but if you live in hot Texas, Arizona, Florida and the south in general, the T stat won't kill ur engine and if u drive the car hard it will be needed but yet again u need to adjust the fan kick off temps; north of Atlanta i don't see the need
i ran my T stat 180 w/o tunes; it was ok but i was running the engine too cool and was enriching the mix by tricking the PCM in making it believe the engine was in warm up mode; not something i wanted to continue to do
so here it is
my experience and conclusions on the matter
keep cool; the winter is coming around
XOXO
lol
ODP
Great points KJ, and with my car running at about 190 most of the time, I feel like it's the perfect temp for both optimal operating temps and maintained performance. If you've ever raced your car around with the stock tstat in it and launched the car at 225-230 degrees coolant temp, well it's much less potent...it's a night and day difference at 180-190.Agree with O-Racing... In Texas, I run the 180 stat year round. I have 180 stats in all three of my hemis but only lower the fans in the SRT for racing. The two jeeps benefit as long as you're rolling which is 90% of the toime.
Cooler head temps = less detonation. Biggest problem with the 93 octane tunes is finding good enough gas that won't cause KNKs. Thousands of tunned challengers trying to combat a few ST KNKs. Cooler temps is one of the best ways to do it so you don't have to run as much octane booster, meth or pull timing. Cooler engine = cooler intake charge. Cooler air = more power. Physics 101. Drag racers run fans to cool them down between runs for a reason...
Engine at 220 degrees heat soaks the under hood components much more than one running 190 or 195 thus heating up your AIT and intake manifold. ECU won't advance as much timing if your IAT and intake temps are high. Hemis hate heat and really lay over when hot. That is why everyone does as much as possible to help them run cooler.
Factory has higher stats for emission BS. Hotter gasses burn more and leave less of a carbon footprint. If concerned about your carbon footprint, should of bought a Prius.
In this case I would be more inclined to believe the drag racing community more than an article or two.
Maybe you guys can help me out with understanding this - I'm a novice at this.People get codes with 180 stat only during the winter, only because the engine does not warm up fast enough during the winter months!
190 stat seems to be the sweat spot!!