thermostat or no thermostat?

[LSiTo5Revo]

one warm day a while back i had an over heating issue. The temp was pinned. now one would think that 15 seconds wouldnt cause much harm. but i guess on a motor with 187,000 it would. also it being the notorious 2.5 liter didn't quite help the situation either. Any way i have always checked my fluids in my subie. after that day i noticed a bit of brown "cakey" sludge on the bottom of the radiator cap and it also lined the inside of the radiator it self. i'd like to say that was the lucas. i also noticed it smelled like gas washed oil. 15 seconds of over heating caused a slight leak in my head gasket. all this is leading up to the topic i titled this, my cars temp was up and down today. if it sat at idle it would jump up. once i get up to faster speeds it would go down. Well after so long i ended up on the side of the road pulling my thermostat out because i didnt want to risk any more harm to my gasgets. I live in PA and its pretty warm here. so im debating on if i should run it with the thermostat or not. But it came to mind that since its not running at operating temperatures the computer will try to compensate for it and increase the fuel consumption to increase the temp. sorta like open and closed loop. so would it effect my fuel mileage if i ran it without the stat in?

[phi11]

:headgaskets:

[green97gt]

running without a thermostat WILL damage your internals due to gas washing your cylinder walls, your car will suck down gas, your car will only get up to operating temp while stopped and if your doing a steady 40/50 mph your cars temp will drop to nothing.


if you really DONT want to FIX the problem...

take out your thermostat and drill a series of small holes in it. (assusming that the reason your overheating is gasses are building up behind the thermostat when it cycles closed ) this will allowthe gasses to pass and the thermostat to act as a restriction stll, and allow the gasses to pass.

[LSiTo5Revo]

Of course i want to change my gaskets but i dont exactly have a thousand dollars to do so. and that estimate about sums it up.

[LSiTo5Revo]

running without a thermostat WILL damage your internals due to gas washing your cylinder walls, your car will suck down gas, your car will only get up to operating temp while stopped and if your doing a steady 40/50 mph your cars temp will drop to nothing.


if you really DONT want to FIX the problem...

take out your thermostat and drill a series of small holes in it. (assusming that the reason your overheating is gasses are building up behind the thermostat when it cycles closed ) this will allowthe gasses to pass and the thermostat to act as a restriction stll, and allow the gasses to pass.
im gonna have to say the holes worked. thanks for the idea.

[racingking951]

i was doing the same thing i replaced the water pump, radiator, hoes ect and it would still overheat at idle. so i took my thermostat out and ran it for about 2 months like that i never saw any major change in gas mileage recently i did the head gaskets on my 2.2 it took me 2 weeks of after school/work to finish it and only cost me 215 plus parts wasn't to hard to do just took some time

[ouch1011]

Your engine probably overheated as a result of the head gaskets failing, not the other way around.

[racingking951]

probably but i didnt want to admit it till after i replaced everything else first lol