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Drilling Thermostat

7K views 122 replies 30 participants last post by  ShadowDragon 
#1 ·
Anyone ever heard of drilling a 1/16 hole in the thermostat to keep air out of the cooling system?

Mike
 
#3 ·
i drill it all the time whenever i change t-stat.
 
#8 ·
He says: "This prevents one section of the engine from becoming warmer that the other".

Is this the only benefit of this? Seems kind of odd. :2huh:
 
#10 ·
RAYBROADWAY said:
"This prevents one section of the engine from becoming warmer that the other".
That's not the reason for doing this at all. The reason behind drilling a small hole in the thermostat is to make it easier to get the air back out of the system when you fill it up with coolant.

"bleed"hole

-Rod
 
#12 ·
to add to this, so air escapes easier try to postion the thermostat that the hole is at the highest point (ie. up, etc...) :)
 
#14 ·
Actually, it also prevents hotspots from forming when warming up a COLD engine.
Air pockets in the block and heads would also cause one part of the engine from warming up faster than the other. :p
 
#16 ·
If Ford makes a Thermostat with a check valve there must be a reason. A ball check should only be installed in one direction. Flow from below going up. This means that they are allowing flow out of the engine. It has nothing to do with keeping one side of the motor cooler than the other. The purpose of the check is to remove excess air and prevent hot water from siphoning back into the motor. The latter will make the hole a bad thing.

Why not simply buy the Ford thermostat with the check valve built in it? :bangwall:
 
#17 ·
I allways was under the impression that the hole was to prevent overpressuring the system when making" hard " runs while the stat was closed :xpwink:
 
#21 ·
MadeInDade said:
So what will happen if you don't drill the Thermostat? I've never heard of this and I just bought my 180 degree thermostat. I haven't put it in yet, so I'm glad I read this, but what would happen if I didn't drill the hole? Anything real bad?
It would just be harder to bleed all of the air out of the coolant system. Your engine won't explode or anything.

-Rod
 
#23 ·
If you don't bleed the air out of the coolant system when you fill it (after draining the system, for whatever reason), air pockets will create hot spots. Hot spots can equal all sorts of problems, like detonation/pre-ignition.

Bleeding the air out of the coolant system without the bleedhole in the thermostat is done the same way as if you did have the hole. It's just a lot harder/takes more time to get all of the air out.

-Rod
 
#24 · (Edited)
Made in Dade; "will anything bad happen ?"
Naaaah! its just something that can be done to lower stress on your cooling system, and makes getting the system free of air a tad easier.... Makes sense if you are doing a lotta full tilt-boogie passes thru the quarter mile at WOT, and do not want any hoses or gaskets to start leaking, the stock system for regular driving with a non drilled T-stat should be fine.... I drilled mine cause I have a blower, no intercooler, cams , and drive hard in the Fla heat... at a certain power level you have to start looking at cooling a bit more seriously.....
 
#25 ·
!

RAYBROADWAY said:
He says: "This prevents one section of the engine from becoming warmer that the other".
:2huh:
That statement makes absolutely no sense at all! A closed thermostat allows the "whole" engine to warm up to 195 deg, then opens to let the radiator maintain close to that temperature.

Drilling a hole makes the engine warm up slower - which Fords already do!

I used to drill two 1/8" holes in my Talon's t-stat for track use only. It caused the temperature to warm up about 500 times slower - instead of 3 minutes to get to full warm it took about 15. Not good for street use!

If you must drill one for street use, use the smallest bit possible.

Al
 
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