RAT Stat 170* thermostat

[txquailguy]

I would think if there is fuel contaminating the oil in many trucks, we would want to run the higher temps to keep the rings at the correct gap at the higher temps. I don't see how a 20 degree in fuel or timing scaling would do anything useful.

I don't have any fuel in my oil problems so I definitely want to run with a colder thermostat to increase coolant flow in my engine. That will most definitely extend the potential life of my EcoBeast...lol. I'm not an engine guy...I just drive the crap out of mine and believe in the principal's of modern chemistry and metallurgy.

BTW...I noticed last night down on College Ave.....we have a big advantage over the High HP muscle cars off the line with our 4-wheel drive....lmao! My truck is WAY quick and when you drop into 4H the traction is unreal . Ask that lime green Charger HellCat that wanted to play with Papaw last night

In all fairness, the pavement was really wet. It wasn't a fair fight....lol
He would have smoked me if it was dry out.....but I'm not sure he was a real Hellcat...may have just stuck a hellcat emblem on his low end charger, not sure.

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[BassRanger]

I don't have any fuel in my oil problems so I definitely want to run with a colder thermostat to increase coolant flow in my engine. That will most definitely extend the potential life of my EcoBeast...lol. I'm not an engine guy...I just drive the crap out of mine and believe in the principal's of modern chemistry and metallurgy.

A colder tstat isn't going to increase the cooling capacity of your truck. Its not going to do anything to extend your engine life. You're far more likely to run into issues not getting up to proper operating temp than you are to see benefits opening the thermostat 20* lower.

 

[dtech]

I don't have any fuel in my oil problems so I definitely want to run with a colder thermostat to increase coolant flow in my engine. That will most definitely extend the potential life of my EcoBeast...lol. I'm not an engine guy...I just drive the crap out of mine and believe in the principal's of modern chemistry and metallurgy.

BTW...I noticed last night down on College Ave.....we have a big advantage over the High HP muscle cars off the line with our 4-wheel drive....lmao! My truck is WAY quick and when you drop into 4H the traction is unreal . Ask that lime green Charger HellCat that wanted to play with Papaw last night

Well it's good to fantasize about how powerful your Ranger is, but the srt hellcat is a 700 HP + beast of an engine, super charger and all, I think a non srt hellcat is somewhere around 500 ponies. If the hellcat driver was motivated he'd wipe the floor with your Ranger and drag racing down a main thoroughfare in a college town is a recipe for trouble.

Now speaking of the SRT Hellcat - I read an article where it has no less than 7 heat exchangers to keep the engine/tranny cool, and if you run your ecoboost modified and hard it's going to produce additional heat in the cylinder head and running a cooler stat is going to help transfer some of that heat from the cylinder head, you let the head get too hot and it can cause pre-ignition and then the ECU will dial back the boost and ignition timing.
And yes can you give the contact info of that lime green hellcat you trounced, I want to hear their side of the story.

 

[TommyAtomic]

if you run your ecoboost modified and hard it's going to produce additional heat in the cylinder head and running a cooler stat is going to help transfer some of that heat from the cylinder head, you let the head get too hot and it can cause pre-ignition and then the ECU will dial back the boost and ignition timing.

If your concern is additional heat from high HP, I would strongly suggest a radiator upgrade instead of a colder thermostat. A colder thermostat opens coolant flow sooner but does not do anything to change your overall cooling capacity.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

If your concern is additional heat from high HP, I would strongly suggest a radiator upgrade instead of a colder thermostat. A colder thermostat opens coolant flow sooner but does not do anything to change your overall cooling capacity.

HI Tom,

Exactly! You may buy time but BTU removal does not change.... Quarter Mile drag might work but not sustained long term. In the winter, where the thermostat gets its workout, you may experience failure due to the stat opening and closing more than if it was a 192°F. You might gain a bit by installing a higher pressure coolant cap too. Permanent fix is bigger radiator, More fin density.

Okay...another back story. Livernoise started out as a holder of the patent to make radiator fins. They were the producer of what were called fin mills. They could spit out miles of zig zag fins you see in radiators in the blink of an eye. They also made the cooling tubes between the fins. When they opened up to service Ford Prototypes as garage service, the head of Garage Service and I mused about making custom radiators for Motorsports. He and I concocted and idea for Nascar Radiators to insert louvers that could close and block off the air through the radiator in the middle of the radiator. You would have to hide the motor to close the louvers and the wiring, but the NASCAR teams were already clever on that front, so a radiator was built as a prototype and installed in a Ford NASCAR team. Wires were hidden in the top radiator hose. So the driver on the straight could close off the louvers and pick up a 2 mph speed increase... It was used at Daytona in the qualifying races but not the Daytona 500. It did work but way too much chance of "cheating" so we abandoned the project. What we learned was there are way too many people on a team and they leave and the secrete is then out of the bag... Fun to try but not worth the effort to keep it quiet....

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retire

 

[MTB-BRUH]

Some people don’t realize we aren’t in 1970 running a Chevy 350 with barely enough compression to run lol unless you are looking for 100% maximum power and performance out of this 2.3L engine (which I know you aren’t) a colder thermostat will likely just cause you grief..

 

[dtech]

Some people don’t realize we aren’t in 1970 running a Chevy 350 with barely enough compression to run lol unless you are looking for 100% maximum power and performance out of this 2.3L engine (which I know you aren’t) a colder thermostat will likely just cause you grief..

Couple of links talk about stats and engine cooling, excerpts from each. Agree that it might only be useful for those that have a high output tune and run their machine hard. I wouldn't agree with expanding coolant system capacity as with the high tow rating this has to be adequate, modern engines have very efficient heat transfer systems, but running a high output tune can produce a good deal of additional heat in the head , so the tuner may be supplying a cooler stat soley as a precautionary measure. Will a 10 degree cooler difference trigger a CEL - I doubt it. I think the summit racing article is good one.

A low-temp thermostat gives the cooling system a head start. This will help to prevent Engine Detonation and overheating.

When under a sudden, heavy load, an additional heat source comes into play with the map-controlled thermostat. Once the conditions of the stored operating map have been fulfilled, a heating element integrated in the expansion material is enabled by the engine management system. This additional heat source allows the wax to expand quicker, opening the thermostat fully regardless of actual coolant temperature, so the coolant flow is increased, immediately allowing the engine to operate within the optimum temperature range without danger of overheating.


https://www.motor.com/magazine-summary/electrically-assisted-thermostat/
https://help.summitracing.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5284/~/should-i-run-a-colder-thermostat?

 

[importfighter01]

At what temp does the ECU go into closed loop mode? That to me is the risk of getting too cold of a t-stat. If the engine is in closed loop at 170 then it is operating “normally” from a programming perspective.

 

[outdoorphotog]

Couple of links talk about stats and engine cooling, excerpts from each. Agree that it might only be useful for those that have a high output tune and run their machine hard. I wouldn't agree with expanding coolant system capacity as with the high tow rating this has to be adequate, modern engines have very efficient heat transfer systems, but running a high output tune can produce a good deal of additional heat in the head , so the tuner may be supplying a cooler stat soley as a precautionary measure. Will a 10 degree cooler difference trigger a CEL - I doubt it. I think the summit racing article is good one.

A low-temp thermostat gives the cooling system a head start. This will help to prevent Engine Detonation and overheating.

When under a sudden, heavy load, an additional heat source comes into play with the map-controlled thermostat. Once the conditions of the stored operating map have been fulfilled, a heating element integrated in the expansion material is enabled by the engine management system. This additional heat source allows the wax to expand quicker, opening the thermostat fully regardless of actual coolant temperature, so the coolant flow is increased, immediately allowing the engine to operate within the optimum temperature range without danger of overheating.


https://www.motor.com/magazine-summary/electrically-assisted-thermostat/
https://help.summitracing.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5284/~/should-i-run-a-colder-thermostat?

I don't think a tune would cause you to run hotter unless its causing you to run leaner, and I dont think many tuners would go that direction on a turbo setup. Once you are at say 200F and cannot be cooled, you are just limited by the cooling system capacity.

Personally, it takes a long time for the engine to warm up even here in CA in the winter, seems like the cooling system works pretty well, as most 4-cylinders warm up pretty fast.

 

[BassRanger]

I wouldn't agree with expanding coolant system capacity as with the high tow rating this has to be adequate, modern engines have very efficient heat transfer systems, but running a high output tune can produce a good deal of additional heat in the head , so the tuner may be supplying a cooler stat soley as a precautionary measure.

So if excessive cylinder head temperatures are an issue, increasing the cooling capabilities won't help, but a lower thermostat will? That makes no sense. That summit article is exactly why you shouldn't run a colder thermostat and the other one has nothing with the Ranger as we use regular old mechanical thermostats.

Honestly all of this is theoretic meandering. These trucks have been on the streets over 2 years, tuned, towing, offroad, drag racing, etc. I haven't seen a single thread about anyone experiencing excessive cylinder head , or coolant temperatures. As I often say, there's no point spending money to fix a problem that doesn't exist.

At what temp does the ECU go into closed loop mode? That to me is the risk of getting too cold of a t-stat. If the engine is in closed loop at 170 then it is operating “normally” from a programming perspective.

Most newer Ford vehicles stay in closed loop right from key on cold start. They normally won't see open loop unless you go into LIMP mode.

 

[dtech]

Honestly all of this is theoretic meandering.

Blame the OP or the tuner if the"theoretic meandering" is not to your liking, I don't run a tune but I do know that increased power output = increased heat and published a links to a few articles that some might find informative, up to the individual whether or not they choose to use a lower temp stat or cooler plugs when they add a tune. Perhaps the Ford cylinder head and stock cooling system is fully up to the task, so cooler plugs and cooler stat may be a waste of money, but some aluminum cylinder heads on engines have warped when high output tunes have been installed. Now on to that age old question of how many angels can stand on the head of a pin.

 

[landiscarrier]

Some people don’t realize we aren’t in 1970 running a Chevy 350 with barely enough compression to run lol unless you are looking for 100% maximum power and performance out of this 2.3L engine (which I know you aren’t) a colder thermostat will likely just cause you grief..
[/QUOTE

yup. We’re driving a modern pick up truck meant and designed to handle pretty much everything we throw at it in stock form…not a Ferrari. My 2 cents.

 

[BassRanger]

but some aluminum cylinder heads on engines have warped when high output tunes have been installed.

Links?

 

[Rod B]

Ford performance does not offer cooler plugs or thermostat with their tune. That’s enough evidence for me.

 

[TheRealStreetcommander]

Let us know how the 170 setup works. I’m in the camp that it may not deliver what you hope, but I support your desire and your right to try it.
Also, our engines have Mech fan clutches with some type of magnetic partical brake clutch system —or similar maybe? It will be interesting to see how this would work with a colder stat. .i.e, what inlet temp is it trying to maintain, etc.

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