160 degs should be warm up to properly expand the pistons for good ring life. I think it takes some longer distance driving to clear the water out of the oil so more frequent changes are advised. Ten minutes of driving is not so good.
Which thermostat are you using? Some of these no name thermostats from the vendors seem to be very erratic from comments this year. I installed two recently. I notice that one of them usually does not open until 185 degs and then it drops back to 155 and then tends to level out better but I am thinking of changing it again.
Phil found that Autozone sells a Duralast 3846 thermostat that fits properly....th at is the 160 deg version. I am going that way next time. It seems to be working over a much more narrow range as a good thermostat should.
If you are going to drive the car up there in cold weather, then I would put a 180 deg unit in just to have a warmer heater. You guys seldom have prolonged hot weather by our definition down here so unless you are pushing the boost to the edge of detonation routinely, I don't see a problem with a 180 for a street car.
Eric's chip turns the fan on at 168 so the fan will tend to run all the time in the winter when it does not need to, but, I suspect most cars run at least that hot anyway no matter what the thermostat so that is probably not a matter of concern.
BTW, how is your car running after the work?
I believe I bought the T stat from Kirbans a few yrs back, not many miles on it (3000). When I put in the new engine I also got rid of the original radiator and used a new aluminum one. In the summer it was at 165-170 but I have only about 270 miles on the engine. I wonder if I partially block the air flow for the radiator if that could raise the temps?? Only in the winter of course.
With my new setup the car seems to run fine. When I go WOT (only for 3-5 seconds so far) it hits about 22 lbs of boost and my scanmaster only (if any) shows 1 or less on KR, and my O2 at 780 ish,this is with my ALKY. My TPS/ IAC and BL (123-125) seem to be inline but the engine seems to shake at an idle more that the stock motor did, maybe the bigger cam or vacuum leak. I would like to get my boost down but the rod is about an 1/8 inch of tension and my RJC boost controller (lines set tuner style) is almost all the way out. I guess if the heads were not ported it would be much higher.
My oil pressure is high even when warmed up (30 at a hot idle) with the 20-50 Valvoline racing oil so maybe I should use 10-30 with this cold weather.
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