Had a leak from the thermostat housing ... I'll have to replace it sometime ... the aluminum is corroded so it's no longer smooth and true on the mating surface

Anyway.. .said to hell with the gasket and just used RTV .. that gasket's worse to deal with than even the intake manifold . .as far as scraping goes

Now came the point where I needed to drill a few tiny holes .. and hey hey hey ... nope couldn't use the 180 thermostat I had gotten from Jeg's .. safely ... due to it being quite massive

So I had to search and found a really old one I had saved to use in a another project car *lol* ... cheap one from Kragen...

So tomorrow I'll know how it runs when I start the engine.. letting the RTV set properly ... air dam is getting mounted tomorrow.. arrived via mail today

180 thermostat o nthe left .. my other one. with holes in it on the right

 

With air dam installed ... car's running cool .. at last... thing is ... I have to see how it runs during the day.. during the evening the car stayed almost too cool ... because what I had laying around was an old 160 thermostat... however... pull up by a coffee shop and yeah temp goes up so... I may just keep the 160 in there


Question for ya'll ... hood vents ... to extract heat from the engine compartment .. how much do they really do ? My plan for the hood involves heat vents ... so.... didn't want to overdo it ya know

 

OK .. really hot day here ... San Diego ... 80's .. up in the 90's

The car won't heat up a lot on the freeway at all ... heck if it even gets up to (what's the first line o nthe temp gauge .. 160.. or is it .. 180 ??)


But once I get off the freeway... it heats up .... runs as high as 210-220 by the time I get home


I ran the 160 thermostat one day before installing the airdam ... had to run the fan 75 percent of the time .. .the airdam has been cooling the engine almost too much

That and the fact that I got dips and bumps EVERYWHERE here in San Diego .... for \those of you who haven't been here.. imagine the streets of San Fransisco ... slightly flattened ... I keep hitting it...


I may keep the 160 ... and just cut an inch off the airdam