On Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:34:36 GMT, "Mike Slater"
wrote:

I am not trying to stir anything up by asking this question, but because the
water cooling passages are by design so narrow in the vicinity of the
thermostat on my 1995 Merc 60hp 2-stroke Bigfoot, and small debris was
constantly lodging itself on the waterpump/impeller side of the thermostat I
decided to just run without it. I have been doing it for two seasons now.
I measured the water temperature at the powerhead with a laser unit at about
90 degrees. I am getting ready to advise that my neighbor do the same thing
and I just wanted to hear some comments first. What will it hurt?

The thermostat is there to maintain the engine at its designed
operating temperature. By running it cooler you may be sacrificing
some performance and fuel economy, but even worse, you may be
increasing engine wear and shortening its life.