Well talk about running in the same circles. I worked for NASCAR during the good times. During motor development you try to make the motor last just as long as its needed. Its Like drag raing. If it blows up the last foot of the 1/4 mile thats fine. Everything is right on the edge. They fill thier blocks with concrete. Everything gets torn down and redone down the road or with drag racing at the track. Plus the things thier in house dynos are seeing daily and what we can see on our motors is not even close.
So play it on the safe side. Run as cool as you can but run an oil t stat to burn off the milkshake and keep your oil flowing. Most oil stats are 140 degree if I remember correctly.

No doubt you all could be right. Normally I try to play down my past experience in motorsport and race engines, especially here on the OSO forum. 25+ years of doing it for a living in other circles doesn't mean I know anything about the marine side, and I'm fully aware of that.

I guess I'm just struggling with how different it really is with water temps compared to other high performance engines. Based on this thread topic, apparently I'm not the only one. Its something that struck me as very odd from the first moment I started playing with higher performance boats. And to be fair, that was very recently.

Please don't think I believe what I'm saying is correct, or that I'm right and others are wrong. I'm looking at it like this is a topic I'm playing with personally on my own boat engines. Time will tell if past experience in other arena's makes sense in my boat, or if I learn WHY these engines are being built to run so cold.

I'm struggling to see why good engine builders want these engines running so cold is all, unless its purely as a safety margin for potentially idiot customers.

BTW, I really enjoy the ability to be able to come on here and discuss differing viewpoints as respcting adults. It makes me keep coming back here almost every day.

I just couldn't keep my big mouth shut in this thread, because its a personal project of mine right now. Treat me like the new guy asking the stupid questions :D

When I first started boating back in 99 I tried to apply all the things I was learning in racing to my boat and shiyat kept coming apart and not having expected results. I met a guy who does motors for the Navy and got to know him. A lot of it was so diff I had to change my thinking. The cleareances etc. were not what I expected.
I use him and him only to this day.
This place is great for knowledge and the people on here are extremely helpful