Thermostat Housing Delete on 2.0L/2.2L/2.4L/L61/LE5/LSJ/LNF

Lechlis

Well-Known Member
Anyone got their’s running with this installed yet? I’m going the 16AN route as well.
 

HOBGOBLIN

Active Member
So I read this thread last night after I had the same thought in the shop looking at my thermostat housing. The looped hose is kind of cheap looking. So I was interested in the product you found. The thing is operating temps are designed for a reason. Expansion of metal, clearances , even oil thickness at a certain temp is all designed into the engine. If you were building a drag goblin I would say sure go for it, most drag cars fill the cooling passages any way. So I don’t agree with eliminating the thermostat. The heater core Pipes are press fit into the housing and have a lock tight like sealant on them. I am thinking applying some heat and twisting the pipes will break them free allowing then to tap the holes and install plugs. I will attempt this in the upcoming weeks.
 

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
So I have some questions along the lines of HobGoblin's line of thinking. Since there is much engineering that goes into the engine operation, what, if anything, is everyone doing with the stock oil cooler (TC only?)? Is it being by passed? Or removed? If it is not utilized, does this mess with the thermal engineering of the engine? Will the engine oil temps be running higher than designed if the cooler is not used?

I have been thinking about this for some time and, living in the desert, am thinking the engine oil cooler should be routed through the heater core loop, similar to what was found in the stock set up - using the heater loop to 'cool' the oil heat exchanger to nominal operating temperature (200-210F). The addition of a small heat exchanger in this loop, to remove some of the heat on the return into the engine coolant system, is contemplated, but this would likely take some experimentation to determine the optimum size to not overcool the loop.

Any thoughts or comments?
 

Briann1177

Goblin Guru
So I read this thread last night after I had the same thought in the shop looking at my thermostat housing. The looped hose is kind of cheap looking. So I was interested in the product you found. The thing is operating temps are designed for a reason. Expansion of metal, clearances , even oil thickness at a certain temp is all designed into the engine. If you were building a drag goblin I would say sure go for it, most drag cars fill the cooling passages any way. So I don’t agree with eliminating the thermostat. The heater core Pipes are press fit into the housing and have a lock tight like sealant on them. I am thinking applying some heat and twisting the pipes will break them free allowing then to tap the holes and install plugs. I will attempt this in the upcoming weeks.
http://dfkitcar.com/forum/index.php?threads/base-model-turbo-install.219/page-3#post-6038
 

Briann1177

Goblin Guru
Dumb question and I apologize in advance if my thinking is incorrect, but why would one want to insert the TC oil cooler into the heater loop? Wouldn't you just be running heated water through the oil cooler? If I understand the flow correctly, I think the water that goes through the oil cooler is after it's already been cooled by the radiator. Using the hot side doesn't make sense to me.
 

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
Brian, the short explanation: use the heater loop as an auxiliary cooler for the engine oil cooler - that I have not seen any information on within the forum about anyone cooling the engine oil with it...and not a dumb question and no need to apologize. :)

The plan is to run the outlet of the heater loop through a heat exchanger/radiator to bring the 200 deg coolant down closer to ambient, run it through the engine oil cooler and then back through the heater loop into the engine. This should not be a problem as the engine would normally see a 'hot' return when the heater is not being used in the car, like during the summer - the heater core is not dissipating any heat into the car. Cooling the engine oil in a TC is much more important than in a SC or NA engine, since the turbo adds significant temperature to the engine oil, especially in the summer and living in the desert, and is the main reason the oil cooler is used on the LNF engines.

I put this out there to see if anyone had comment (thanks) or an explanation of how they are utilizing the engine oil cooler on the TC. As it stands now, I will have 4 radiators on my car: the DF engine radiator, X2 air-to-water system heat exchangers for my intercooler, and the radiator for the engine oil cooler I explained above. I'm running out of room to install all of these, plus the electrical load for the fans. :oops:
 
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HOBGOBLIN

Active Member
Brian, the short explanation: use the heater loop as an auxiliary cooler for the engine oil cooler - that I have not seen any information on within the forum about anyone cooling the engine oil with it...and not a dumb question and no need to apologize. :)

The plan is to run the outlet of the heater loop through a heat exchanger/radiator to bring the 200 deg coolant down closer to ambient, run it through the engine oil cooler and then back through the heater loop into the engine. This should not be a problem as the engine would normally see a 'hot' return when the heater is not being used in the car, like during the summer - the heater core is not dissipating any heat into the car. Cooling the engine oil in a TC is much more important than in a SC or NA engine, since the turbo adds significant temperature to the engine oil, especially in the summer and living in the desert, and is the main reason the oil cooler is used on the LNF engines.

I put this out there to see if anyone had comment (thanks) or an explanation of how they are utilizing the engine oil cooler on the TC. As it stands now, I will have 4 radiators on my car: the DF engine radiator, X2 air-to-water system heat exchangers for my intercooler, and the radiator for the engine oil cooler I explained above. I'm running out of room to install all of these, plus the electrical load for the fans. :oops:
many pictures of your air to water setups for the turbo? Converting from S/C to T/C.
 

OptimizePrime

Goblin Guru
**** DO NOT DO WHAT I POSTED BELOW! YOU WILL OVERHEAT (AND BLOW YOUR QUARTERS OUT LOL) THE WATER NECK REQUIRES THESE PASSAGES FOR THE THERMOSTAT TO FUNCTION CORRECTLY ****

This mod cost me about $.52 - and if it fails, a lot more than that.

10946

10947

10948
 
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JSATX

Goblin Guru
Apologies if I don’t understand what you’re doing, but you can not block off those heater core hoses and expect things to work correctly. There’s dozens of threads on the topic by now.
 

JeffsGoblin

Goblin Guru
If anybody wants one of these, they are on sale this month with 15% off:

13885


 
So I'm new here to the forum and actually built and have a totally different kind of vehicle.


I came across this thread in a search looking for help with cooling an Ecotec LNF.

Hope some of this might help anyone dealing with the same issues.

Copied form another forum I have a build thread in.


I have been dealing with inconsistent cooling from the beginning of this build.
When you bolt an adapter to the Ecotec you are forced to change the thermostat housing.
I chose to bolt the CBM housing to the motor and this housing deletes the thermostat all together.
CMB says they have sold thousands of them and nobody has temp issues, but I find that hard to believe on any engine without a thermostat.
So what did I do I added an external thermostat. It helped and worked ok, but would get some spikes in temp until the system was fully up to temp then the spikes were not as noticeable.
I tried different thermostats, along with drilling different size and number of holes in them. Some made it better, some worse.
Bleeding the air out of the system was always a pain in the ass and would take hours/days at time to get it all out.
I have searched many different boards and others all having the same issue.

I finally did a proof of concept and will work on machining a housing to incorporate the changes.

I took the CMB block off and machined a bypass slot in the block to allow the engine to internally bypass as originally designed.




Then I removed and bored the hose location to accept an screw together inline thermostat housing, then took a light cut on the housing for a press fit into the block.


Now a thermostat will reside near the original location and the original engine bypass works again.


I'm using a 180 deg thermostat with 1x 1/8" hole in it.
I cracked the top turbo cooling line loose and then filled the system.There was very little bleeding to have to do and it worked perfect.

The engine ran all day @195deg with no spikes like before.
 
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ctuinstra

Goblin Guru
I firmly believe anyone that says to remove the theromstat and has no heating/cooling issue is plain full of sh1t! There is a really good reason for the thermostat to be in there and if you think removing it will solve overheating issues, you are searching a desert looking for icebergs. Looks like you are smart and didn't believe all the BS and put it back in and now it's running fine. Good for you!!!

Now there are certain specific racing applications where a thermostat is not used or needed, but in a on-road vehicle, that's a different story. Sorry for the rant. I used to hear about this a lot with ATVs and everyone thought it was the answer to all of their issues when most of the time it was the radiator was caked with mud or some other lack-of-maintenance reason.

I will probably get flamed for this but this is just my personal opinion and I don't mean any disrespect to those that do delete their thermostat.
 

G Atsma

Goblin Guru
I firmly believe anyone that says to remove the theromstat and has no heating/cooling issue is plain full of sh1t! There is a really good reason for the thermostat to be in there and if you think removing it will solve overheating issues, you are searching a desert looking for icebergs. Looks like you are smart and didn't believe all the BS and put it back in and now it's running fine. Good for you!!!

Now there are certain specific racing applications where a thermostat is not used or needed, but in a on-road vehicle, that's a different story. Sorry for the rant. I used to hear about this a lot with ATVs and everyone thought it was the answer to all of their issues when most of the time it was the radiator was caked with mud or some other lack-of-maintenance reason.

I will probably get flamed for this but this is just my personal opinion and I don't mean any disrespect to those that do delete their thermostat.
Any flaming on the above is out of pure ignorance.
 
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