is thermostat necessary? can i just leave it out, won't that produce a free flow of cooloant?

 

Thermostats don't control the maximum engine temperature, they control the minimum temperature. If you left it out, you would take much longer to warm up, and it would run cooler. Engines are designed to run at certain min. temperatures. I'd leave it in.

 

you are correct, the coolant will flow freely but you're engine will not warm up and your heat will not work great in the winter time. plus, the best combustion takes palce at higher temp.s which w/o a T-stat i imagine you fuel mileage would suffer too.
i ran my ranger like this to limp it home cuz my t-stat stuck close. it ran extremely cold and rough. and sucked the fuel.

josh

 

coolant needs to stay in the block to absorb heat and in the radiator to transfer heat to the atmosphere(residence time), the thermostat controls the resisdence time in the block and radiator. in the case of coolant flow more is not always better. running too cool wastes gas and may cause cylinder waash down. colant temp. is one of the inputs to the computer which controls injector pulse width