What is Cool-View?

The Cool-View difference.

Cool-View is a new product that allows you to see the condition of the engine coolant and the position of the thermostat while the engine is running. It is placed between the manifold and the thermostat housing. It can be used with your existing thermostat housing or any aftermarket housing designed for the Chevy V8 engine. Having the Cool-View product mounted on your engine has several advantages over using a standard thermostat housing:

• You can see the condition of the coolant in the cooling system without having to remove the radiator cap and you can see it even when the engine is running.
• You can see the actual position of the thermostat. Open to closed.
• It can help you determine the efficiency of your cooling system.
• It helps determine if the engine has a blown head gasket or possibly a crack in the engine somewhere. This is because you can usually see bubbles or oil in the coolant if this happens.
• If you need to change the thermostat you can see when you have drained enough coolant to change it without spilling coolant.
• Way more Cool Factor than a standard thermostat housing.
• Can be used with a restrictor plate instead of a thermostat.
• Easy to install with step by step instructions.

How Cool-View is made.

The heart of the Cool-View product consists of two main parts. They are the glass tube and the thermostat index pointer.

The glass tube is made out of borosilicate glass commonly known as PYREX®. With its pressure, temperature ratings and the thermo expansion coefficient this glass is ideal for this application. This type of glass is used for sight glass tubes on boiler systems. The thick walled glass used here can withstand 150PSI at 500°F. Radiator caps usually pop at 15-20PSI. It is also printed with index lines to show how far open or closed the thermostat is.

The thermostat index pointer, the other key part is mounted to a conventional thermostat that is of the bypass type. A bypass thermostat has a disk attached to it that moves directly with the opening and closing of the thermostat valve. In engines that use this type of thermostat, engine coolant is bypassed back through the engine instead of going through the radiator until the engine warms up. When the thermostat opens about half way the disk blocks off the bypass circuit and all of the coolant goes through the radiator. Most older engines do not use this bypass system. This makes it easy to use this type of thermostat in the Cool-View unit as the Cool-View unit is designed to be used on older engines that don’t use the bypass system.