[Formulajones]

I prefer cooler rather than hotter. But I build and tune things on the edge for the pump gas available (which isn't that great to begin with) and running the engine a little cooler helps me deal with that a little better.

I also prefer it cooler to help fight/avoid any possible vapor lock issues during the summer months. Especially on my stock mechanical fuel pump cars. The hotter the engine, the hotter things get under the hood. I don't like seeing anything remotely close to 200 degrees on any of my classic cars.

With proper jetting, timing, and a good functioning cooling system I have no issues with the cars running in the 180 range even on the hottest of days. Just yesterday it was 102 degrees up here and the Z never got over 182-183 degrees shooting it with a temp gun. That's with it's original 48 year old radiator. 11:1 compression on pump gas with iron heads, I'm not even going to entertain a hotter thermostat in this thing, lol.

My bird always stays in the mid 170's on days like this with a Griffin radiator. They are calling for 105 degrees up here today.

I think it's just going to depend on a lot of factors. If we had the gas quality now that we had 50 years ago, or if I weren't tuning/building on the edge, I wouldn't be so concerned with it.