Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Zetec Maintenance Interesting question

go ahead and remove it. I've been driving my ZX2 without one for almost 2 years! No probelm what so ever.... Yes the car take longer to warm up in cold weather, but if u get a cold air intake it'll take the same amount of time to warm up with out a thermostat. I really can't say anything for MPG, cuz I running 30lb injectors for the tune that i have, but in the summer in CA without a thermostat keeps my car nice and cool.

are there physical signs of over heating? everyone has to remember that the temp guage isn't calibrated per say. You can not take what the guage reads as an exact tempurature. If you can get a OBDII scanner that lets you read sensors as you drive watch the coolant sensor. If the fans are working they turn on at 212 degrees F. They should cool the coolant to your thermostat temp, stock is 190. Again the temp guage is a rough estimate. If the fans are working correctly you shouldn't be over heating. If you are then I might suspect the water pump. You might want to change the sending unit for the temp sensor also


my zetec has recently been running normally around A in normal, it will go to L but then the fans kick on. It use to run between r and m but would go to a or l in traffic. So the guage is subjective, as long as the fans are coming on that means that part of the cooling system is working correctly. Also if you haven't changed you coolant in some time I would suggest it, go with a 50/50 mix and that might help

but you can't assume it is over heating by just the temp guage, it should give you an idea but look for other signs

Where are you located? Based on your climate (if you don't have a lot of freezing weather) you could always use more water in your mix. Something like 60% water 40% anti-freeze. Add to that a couple of bottles of Redline water wetter. This will significantly lower engine teperatures. I also recomend that you switch to Mobile One over dino oil. If you haven't done a good flush and fill in some time do that first.

i do have physical signs about my car overheating
one is that antifreeze tank is boiling hot
two is that cometimes my car stalls bc ots overheated
three you loose alot of performance when its overheated

i finally figured out whats wrong with my car after long hours of troubleshooting it.
my engine block leaking antifreeze right inside the engine. I pulled out one of my spark plugs and mixture of gas and antifreeze shot out of it and then spark plug chamber was filled with liquit till the top.

my options are
change the head gasked and dry whole engine or just replace whole engine and start with newer one less milage on it.

I'll bet a used engine is the better option. If you don't have VCT (post 98) then you can pick up a Focus engine and drop it in there.