Mike Manzo
Registered User
Someone told me that running my car cooler would hinder top-end lubrication and I wondered if this is true then why do people bother getting 180 thermostats.
I have an EEC Tuner and the stock thermostat (197) and I ran the cooling fans at lower turn on temps, but above 197. I raised the temps recently, but UNDER the seemingly too high numbers ford had programmed.
Funny thing is when I ran AMSOil 20-50, the car sounded like it was cold all the time. The engine is crap, (reman'd with issues from the start), but it always had that "cold clatter" noise that I often hear from 3.x chevy motors and the V6 Ford Windstars and Explorer 4.0 but this was at idle after running for a while.
Anyway, I would beat the crap out of it and then listen to the engine and it was quiet and sounded great. Then it idled for a while, cooled down and clattered again....Wierd. I switched to 0-30 during the dead of winter in an effort to get the oil to the places it needed to be faster, but I worry that the low starting weight was a bad idea considering it never got above operating temperature very often especially in the arctic cold we had here in Chicago.
So I experiment now with Castrol 5-50 (yikes the noise!) I bumped up the fan temps to 207 low speed on and 198 off or something close...I forgot.
The engine is on its final legs anyway and has a rod knock, but I wonder if that knock is due to my running cold-*** for many months. I dont want to duplicate the issue on the new engine that I am getting (hopefully soon)
I am wondering if running it cool with AMSOil was a bad idea. Before the EEC Tuner I ran AMSOil and it in fact did live up to the temperature claims. It in fact took less time to reach op-temp and when it did peak out at 220-230, the fans kicked in, cooled down and it took longer than normal to get back up there.
I dont think the temp settings caused the rod knock by themselves. Hell, I beat the hell out of it, I have it rev 500rpms higher than stock through the gear changes and have done other hellish things to it.
I just want to make damn sure that when I am not beating the hell out of it that I optimize my cooling system for efficiency, power and protection and accompany it with the right oil.
Thanks for any input...
- Mike
I have an EEC Tuner and the stock thermostat (197) and I ran the cooling fans at lower turn on temps, but above 197. I raised the temps recently, but UNDER the seemingly too high numbers ford had programmed.
Funny thing is when I ran AMSOil 20-50, the car sounded like it was cold all the time. The engine is crap, (reman'd with issues from the start), but it always had that "cold clatter" noise that I often hear from 3.x chevy motors and the V6 Ford Windstars and Explorer 4.0 but this was at idle after running for a while.
Anyway, I would beat the crap out of it and then listen to the engine and it was quiet and sounded great. Then it idled for a while, cooled down and clattered again....Wierd. I switched to 0-30 during the dead of winter in an effort to get the oil to the places it needed to be faster, but I worry that the low starting weight was a bad idea considering it never got above operating temperature very often especially in the arctic cold we had here in Chicago.
So I experiment now with Castrol 5-50 (yikes the noise!) I bumped up the fan temps to 207 low speed on and 198 off or something close...I forgot.
The engine is on its final legs anyway and has a rod knock, but I wonder if that knock is due to my running cold-*** for many months. I dont want to duplicate the issue on the new engine that I am getting (hopefully soon)
I am wondering if running it cool with AMSOil was a bad idea. Before the EEC Tuner I ran AMSOil and it in fact did live up to the temperature claims. It in fact took less time to reach op-temp and when it did peak out at 220-230, the fans kicked in, cooled down and it took longer than normal to get back up there.
I dont think the temp settings caused the rod knock by themselves. Hell, I beat the hell out of it, I have it rev 500rpms higher than stock through the gear changes and have done other hellish things to it.
I just want to make damn sure that when I am not beating the hell out of it that I optimize my cooling system for efficiency, power and protection and accompany it with the right oil.
Thanks for any input...
- Mike
