... a thermostat's ONLY job in life really is... To make heat, and maintain that setting of heat...
Perzackly. And I don't know about you, Ted, but I've always found more power with more heat. Within reason, of course.
No one could understand why new cars suddenly started appearing in new cars, that last time the government decided it knew more about building cars than the manufacturers did. The Big 3 were all under the gun to increase mileage. So they ran 'em hotter than before.
If you're trying to make horsepressure, you want cool (read: dense) air at the intake and chamber temperatures as hot as you can run them. I think I've said it here before, but start screwing in the timing and taking away the main jet, until it lifts the ring lands. Then, when you're finished rebuilding the engine, take a couple degrees out and stick in a couple numbers of jet before your initial start-up. :nod:
You need a thermostat to slow down water flow throughout the entire system. You want water moving through the block and heads slowly, so it has time to draw heat from the castings. And then you want the water to move slowly through the radiator, so it can transfer heat to the air moving through the core. And you need a fan to pull air through the core. But if it is cold outside, you don't need the fan running like you would if it were 102° outside. And you can wire the fan to a switch, if you know you are good enough to be focused on the temperature gauge enough to turn it on and off as necessary.
Of course, you could look into an alternative means of making power. And
Bruce Crower's six-stroke engine looks like a slick way of going about doing it.
