Quote:
Originally Posted by Bullshark
The car never had them initially I'm told.
As far as engine efficiency, my old IC engine course taught us best efficiency comes with large temperature differential between intake air/ fuel vs combustion. I run my race engines with 160° Thermostat. Big difference between that and these old flat heads I know. Lol
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Some bad info here! If you were told they didn't have thermostats originally you were told wrong. Original thermostats were in the 160 range. This was partially because of the alcohol based antifreeze. Ford raised the thermostat temperatures through the years as other factors allowed it. Ford engines understood thermodynamics, but there were other practical reasons that limited the ideal, and a lot of these limits do not exist in todays world.
Second issue, there is a big difference between carburetor intake temperature and engine operating temperature. You want the coolest intake temperature (for performance, not necessarily for daily driving) you can get. That is totally different from engine operating temperature and has very little to nothing to do with thermostats. Internal combustion engines are heat engines, you are taking in a fuel/air mixture and converting it to heat. Any lost heat is lost energy. One of the goals of modern engines is operating at and maintaining increased temperatures, which is higher efficiency. That is the principal behind turbo changers, you are recovering some of the lost heat energy in the exhaust gases.
The greater the operating temperature of an engine the greater the efficiency. On a flathead engine with an unpressured coolant system the best you can do is in the 190 to 195 temperature range.
If you are running a race engine with 160 degree thermostats you are losing performance potential. You want the intake air cool, but the engine at as high an operating temperature practical. Any heat loss to the cooling system, exhaust, etc is lost heat energy.