Good idea on the air intake, but I do have to agree with budhayes3 on the thermostat. The thermostat has two jobs in the system. 1) Control the coolant temperature inside the engine block and heads 2) Control the flow of coolant through the radiator for maximum heat transfer.
If it works for you, do it, but I still recommend never removing the thermostat.

 

While it does control the coolant temp in the block and heads it doesn't exactly "2) Control the flow of coolant through the radiator for maximum heat transfer.".
It does control the flow of coolant, but it does this according to the temp rating of the thermostat and the level of heat in the motor. If it controled it for maximum heat transfer it would open to a fixed position and not adjust due to temp.

 

I need to do something with my CAI,too.

I was looking at those engine pix expecting to see a vortec and noticed the alt and tb positions and was,WTF. I've never seen under the hood of an Escalade.

The t-stat situation really does depend on each situation,I guess. I've only seen it lower temps,similar to a stuck-open stat. This was on old 60s and 70s stuff and probably had no ac coolers,etc,to steal air from the radiator.

 

sorry but the t stat does control the flow, if it was out then you would have X amount of flow, if it is in then you would have say .5X amount of flow, there by "controlling" the amount of flow. I am sure if you could get more heat extracted from the water by flowing 50gpm through the radiator vs 10 then i am sure gm would have designed this into the system, there's a reason you have a t stat, and if it was a flow restriction then it would have been designed larger to compensate.

anyhow nice cardboard job, have fun when you drive in heavy rain, MAF's dont like water

 

my brother removed the thermostat from his '68 cutlas and it over heated.

Im still on the fence of running the engine colder. My old camaro got its best time when it was hot lapped. I imagine running the engine cooler would allow more spark timing.

Yeah, Im a fan of the old maro. Too bad the motor broke.

 

Zapata... sux lives on ghetto... you will figure this out if you research his posts a little.

 

The whole idea here is that the flow of coolant is reduced when the thermostat is at it's maximum open condition compared to no flow restriction at all, think of it as two different sized holes for coolant to flow in. It is not meant to control coolant to a maximum temperature, that was never the intended operation of a engine thermostat; as heat exchanger size (radiator), material composition (TDP), total coolant system volume, and rate of airflow across the heat exchanger are what determines the maximum heat carrying capacity of a coolant system.

It is meant to control coolant to a minimum temperature that is determined by engineers to allow the combustion process to occur in the most complete and efficient manner. (lowest emissions, lowest fuel consumption, best throttle response.)

 

Setup looks good. If it gives you results and your not popping your hood at any car shows then it works. There are to many variables to determine if removing your thermostat would cause a vehicle to overheat or perform cooler. Volume flow rate of pump, efficiency of radiator, restriction with thermostat, restriction without thermostat, speed of vehicle, fan efficiency, etc. With so many variables, experience matters.

 

yeah ghetto is cool, but i was just warning about heavy rain with a setup like this

 

Nascar doesnt use a thermostat, but they use a restrictor to maximize the cooling of the radiator. Older cars will overheat without a thermostat. I am not sure why lsx engines dont.