160 or 180 degree thermostats

As many of you know I recently relocated to Tampa with Bugsy IV my '60 BE. Bugsy is equipped with a 180 degree thermostat, new Aluminum Radiator I bought off of E-Bay, Standard Yellow 6-Bladed? Fan, 10" Electric Fan, and a RevoTec in line fan controller set to come on at 190 degrees.

Summer in Tampa is HOT. While many of you are enjoying Fall Temps and some have even seen frost, it's still Summer here with a Sunny High of 94 degrees today. Rainy season every day at 4:00 has come to an end and it's more desert like this time of year. But nice Fall Driving and FL Winter Driving Season is coming. Heater is currently not connected and heater valve has been rerouted so flow coming out of the Heater Valve returns via the little Y pipe coming off of the large hose coming out of bottom of radiator. Lots od Stop and Go down here and with Snowbirds about to descend traffic is going to get worse.

Temps around town are running about 185 indicated, goes up a hair if I push hard on the Expressway in this heat or if sitting in traffic. Temps get to 190 degrees and Electric Fan kicks on and keeps top temps right at 190-192 max. When I pull into garage and shut down, electric fan will kick on and run for a few minutes to cool radiator down. All is running as intended other than adding a manual override switch that I'll position under the dash along with a Relay when I change out wiring harness.

My question is, seeing that temps in the Summer creep up to the 190 degree mark, should I be dropping thermostat down to a 160 degree unit? or is there some technical reason that says engine runs better with a 180 degree thermostat instead of a 160 degree thermostat.

One other point, I ordered a new fan belt for a 1275. The belt on the car which may have been intended for a BE rides real low in the fan pulley groove. I know belt needs to be tightened as I'll get an initial squeal from the fan belt on startup for a few seconds. Goes away as fan belt gets warm and grows in size. I'm thinking the 1275 pulley needs a little bit thicker belt as after all this belt was also turning an Air Pump after 1968.

In short, any drawback in dropping thermostat to 160 degrees. Even in FL Jan or Feb I don't see needing heater core hooked up.

Jim
Congrats on your move. Yes the snow birds will be arriving soon.
Regarding the thermostat. Remember the purpose is to speed up the heating up of the engine before starting to use the Radiator. IMHO the if you are running at 195 in traffic with a 180 degree you will still be running at 195 with a 160 degree stat. Once the stat allows the coolant into the radiator everything comes to equilibrium with the heat output of the motor and the cooling capacity of the radiator system. Simple thermodynamics. It wont close again until the coolant temp is 160.
On the race cars I ran a blanking plate in the thermostat and if It was too cold (Watkins Glen in October) we added tape to the radiator to raise the temp. Equilibrium
Also there is no reason not to connect the heater core. It just provides a little extra cooling.
BTW, dyno runs have the best HP for the A series at about 185-190 degrees.

Jim,
Joe brings up some good points and I would keep the 180 thermostat. Engines in general run their best when up to temp, but not boiling over. The temp gauges on my truck and Jos car register 210* all day long which is normal...helps remove any possible condensation from the oil among other things. As long as your not boiling over you should be golden!
Rut

So a fix might be to adjust the fan controller if possible to kick on at 195 degrees. I might also have an issue w belt slipping as it fits too far down in the groove. The could also be a contributing factor at speed. New belt on order, here in a couple of days. Belt squeals on initial startup. Thanks Team!

Jim
The question is what temperature does everything run at when you are cruising along at 50 60ish. That is your normal running temperature without the fan.
Remember no fan will pull or push as much air through the rad as the car at 50 mph.
You need to set the temp, say 5 degree, above this so the fan will turn on when at the stop light or in traffic.
I trust you are getting a wider belt than you are using.

Yes I do have the correct belt for a 1275 Ordered.