Whats the deal with 180º tstat on a 2012 5.7?

[reltserw]

I've been reading thread after thread on replacing the stock tstat with a 180º tstat. Some say on a newer 5.7l hemi, its bad for it, some say it's good. Some say the cold weather is bad, some say they run it in Canada and its fine. What's the bottom line on these swap outs?

 

[greychevy]

You'll be fine. If you plan on doing mods then swap it out. Just stick with the stock stat if you aren't planning mods

 

[I8U4DNR]

10-4 what he said.

 

[retiredfireman]

It allows the motor to run cooler, thus a cooler chamber for the explosion to take place in- the Hemi head. I will run better and more efficient.

 

[Rock$tar]

Without a tune its going to cause your engine to run rich, thus giving you worse fuel economy.

The only reason to put in a tstat is to lower engine temps, to reduce knock. It is not more efficient by itself.

Your stock ECU will cause your truck to run rich a lot if its not tuned with a tstat. It does this to try and get the temps up to were they are spose to be.

 

[BlownGP]

Without a tune its going to cause your engine to run rich, thus giving you worse fuel economy.

The only reason to put in a tstat is to lower engine temps, to reduce knock. It is not more efficient by itself.

Your stock ECU will cause your truck to run rich a lot if its not tuned with a tstat. It does this to try and get the temps up to were they are spose to be.

You will lose a mpg or so on any car with a 180 tstat

It does help, keeps the coolant temp and oil lower cruising and idling for the most part. The best combo is to lower the fan turn on temps too.

 

[Diller]

The 180* thermostat will only help on vehicles that are routinely operated at elevated temperatures. Basically, if you do a 2 mile drive to work in 40* weather, you will be doing more damage than good. The reason for that (as stated above) is that the truck will run richer at 180* than 210*. This is because the engine map has a separate table that adds less fuel as the engine warms up. This is because the fuel evaporates slower at lower temps than higher temps so the injectors must add more fuel to the intake to let it evaporate to the combustible gas that you want.

Also, an engine that never gets oil above 212* will never boil the water out of the oil. This can cause premature wear. Unless you are building a race car, tow a lot, or live in a very warm climate, let the engineers at Chrysler do the work for you and keep the stock thermostat.

Edit: The truck will not actually run "rich", it just uses more fuel to maintain the proper AFR.

 

[Kingcobra423]

I installed a 180 stat in my '05 5.7 HEMI. I a CAI, high flow cat-back exhaust and performance chip. All the 180 stat did for me was lower my MPGs! If there were any performance gains they were marginal at best. Here on Long Island the winter months are consistently in the teens (Fahrenheit). My truck would take forever to get the cabin warm, and I had an hour commute to work. After one season I put the OEM stat back in.