Drive Line Harmonics

[dream07]

Common stuff. There was a guy on mustangcollective that made cast iron t-stat housings. They sell them on Amazon now under metal 4.0 thermostat housing. Worth every dime to never have to change that plastic crap again.

 

[2008 V6]

Common stuff. There was a guy on mustangcollective that made cast iron t-stat housings. They sell them on Amazon now under metal 4.0 thermostat housing. Worth every dime to never have to change that plastic crap again.

Thank you very much –
I think what caused the housing to split is the high spring seat pressure of my current thermostat – 180 degree not of Ford origin - German made. The only decent one I could find in a lower temp range. It fells stiff but I do not have a stock thermostat to compare it to. I heated the seat spring to relieve some of the tension when fully open last night and drilled a couple of more air bleed holes. I’ll do a search later today for the cast iron housing – thanks again.
By the way, the housing that split is about 15000 miles old, I replaced it as basic service - no reason for it to split unless out of design specs. It is a POS but I think the thermostat had a lot to do with it - Marked Moto Rad on one side and German on the other

 

[Sky Render]

Why do you have a lower-temp thermostat?

 

[2008 V6]

Why do you have a lower-temp thermostat?

The stock one opened at 201 – 202 F – Verified by dipping it in hot water checking with a temp gauge. When I replaced the radiator and added an oil cooler (Oil thermostat opened all the way at 185 degrees), I changed the thermostat to the current one and adjusted the fans to turn on at 195 degrees. This was approximately 25000 miles ago. I do not know what the stock temperature gauge was rated. I replaced the thermostat housing at 85000 miles just for piece of mind and re-used the 180 degree aftermarket thermostat checked for opening temp again (180 – 182) before installation. The car now has around 98000 on the engine. In Southern Kalifornia we rarely see below 40F. The only variance to that is desert region – much lower and where most of our tracks are located. I don’t spend the night there during that time of year and car engine temp is already up when I arrive for an event - too cold for tires in the early hours. With the lower temp thermostat and air bleed holes, the car warms up more evenly (My opinion - bit longer warm up time) but also should run cooler when stressed. I can not verify cooler when stressed because I changed the radiator, fan setting, oil cooler and thermostat at the same time. Yes – The car should run more efficiently at a warmer operating temp but my fans kick on when Idling in traffic 30 – 35 outside temp (Verified once on my way to an event) so the car is getting up to operating temperature – just not as quickly. (I only have the stock gauge but have checked the oil cooler and radiator with a lazar pyrometer) The car is not driven until the temp gauge has moved.

 

[kcbrown]

I was halfway expecting him to reply "because racecar".

I'm not convinced that lowering the thermostat temperature does anything good, since it merely controls the temperature at which coolant is routed through the radiator, and does not affect the efficiency of the heat dissipation mechanism. It does, however, have the drawback of preventing the engine from reaching optimum temperature under conditions where the engine isn't stressed much.

Put another way, if you have a cooling issue, then a lower temperature thermostat won't help you since the engine will go beyond the thermostat's temperature regardless as a result of the inability of the cooling system to dissipate the generated waste energy quickly enough. Conversely, if your cooling system has sufficient capacity to dissipate the waste heat of the engine, then no modification, including a lower temperature thermostat, is needed.

 

[Pentalab]

How much rwhp do you get from your 4.0 L V6 ?
Baffling why a 3.5" DS with a CV joint at the diff end would vibrate. When a CV joint is used, the pinion angle is typ not critical.

 

[2008 V6]

KCBrown – Agree 100% - I’m keeping this short as possible - Work

Thermostat – For street car - Only to help in shortening the warm up time unless - in extremely low temps. The open surface area also works as a restrictor / limiting flow - Most operating systems are designed around orifice size & flow capacity

Stock thermostat opened around 200F+ Degrees. Higher running temp = Better fuel atomization (But Plastic Intake manifold) Better Gas mileage - Not necessarily for optimum HP

I have an accurate lazar pyrometer and have checked the outside surface temps of the entire engine and cooling system under stress and idling – Good

The water Temp at the combustion chamber (Aluminum) is quite a bit higher than thermostat setting – could boil / vaporize and cause hot spots possibly causing pre-detonation. I’ve had had this happen in a different engine configuration even with twice the surface area cooling capacity I now have. Poor design.

I did all of my cooling upgrades at one time so I wouldn’t have to mess with it again. If they didn’t work, I would have made ducting or blocked flow. I also drilled holes in the thermostat to let air pass helping to burp the system.

The system gets up to temp in suitable timely fashion, it runs fine under stress at 107F exterior temp 2000 Ft elevation 145+F track surface temp running the air-conditioning. I had it on while sitting in pit lane and ran almost ½ a session before I was smart enough to turn it off. The car also gets up to sufficient temp in 30F+/- and the heater works great.

I am 90% sure the high spring pressure of the aftermarket thermostat was the main contributing factor of the thermostat housing failure. I was only able to fine one other pic on the internet of a failed housing. The pic showed the rupture in the same location as mine. I ordered and aftermarket thermostat housing which should elevate all further problems.

I will try to keep further posts on the drivetrain harmonic topic so as to not deviate from the original post. This should keep all relevant data manageable.

Pentalab - 195RWHP 3500LBs
Agreed - CV fixes almost everything - CV at trans flange