Thermostat blues

[maxwax]

Just wondering if my assumption is correct.

My car was tuned with a stock thermostat.
So I take it upon myself to install a 160 thermo for the summer . and drive it for a week or so and seem to notice terrible gas mileage, loss of power , and a seemingly over rich condition at an idle .

I am sure that it is because the engine is not reaching normal operating temp.

So I remove the thermostat and install a new 187 deg thermostat, and bingo it fixed it.

I think the engine would have been more forgiving of the colder thermostat if I hadn't been running a colder NGK TR6 spark plug for the nitrous .

Does anyone agree or am I just crazy.

[pajeff02]

I'll let someone else tackle the "running bad" issue. The only thing I will note is that when installing a cooler thermostat you also want to reprogram your fan settings to come on sooner. Even with a 160 stat you should be ok as the engine will actually run warmer than that. With my 180 thermostat, and reprogrammed fans, I see a range of 185 to 192 degrees depending upon engine load.

[SSTODD]

I think your 160 would have ran around 180 because nobody on here has ever had a 160 actually run down that low. maybe you had a bad stat?