[THEFERMANATOR]

Also to add onto this, ALL loopers are pretty inefficient at low RPM's. All of your modern 2 strokes since the middle 80's are loopers as well. The inefficiency of a looper at low RPM's results in a very poor burn at idle and alot of fuel going out the exhaust unburned. This is one of the reasons for some outboards having the very black prop hubs and an oil line on the midsection. Also the incomplete burn at idle creates alot of thick wet pasty carbon build-up. At low RPM's this build-up ends up in the piston rings and exhaust chest rather than going out the exhaust. Eventually this can lead to sticking rings, spark knock under load, and the all time favorite of a seized piston which can just shut it down or cause a spectaculiar show of rods flying out the side of the block. Loopers need to be at roughly 130-160 degrees at idle in order to burn the fuel mixture even remotely thoroughly, but they need to run around the 110-125 mark under a load to prevent the pistons from sticking in the sleeves.

2 strokes create alot of concentrated heat inside of the combustion chambers due to the flame following the airflow through the chamber. The piston to cylinder clearance on average will be .002.006 at the bottom of the piston skirt, but will have clearances upwards ot .010-.014 at the top of the piston where the flame front hits. This is to allow enough expansion room to keep the piston from seizing under a hard run. Well at low RPM's the temps are not there to create the expansion in the pistons and this is why you get the all famous slapping sound when cold. If you run without T-stats you will have that extra clearance there all of the time instead of just for a few minutes and over time this will result in a hammering effect on the pistons and cylinders and eventually wear the components out.

There are so many reasons to keep thermostats that it still baffles me how the thinking from 80 years ago still prevails. When t-stats first came out they did give problems, but just like carbs, fuel injection, and electronic ignitions the bugs have pretty well been ironed out. The pros far outweigh the cons to run T-stats, but it's your money.