[dkozloski]

Originally Posted by JimD

Do tell? You would do well to lose the attitude.

Below is a quote from a three or four year old posting by a qualified and respected former forum member.

And if your question above is sincere, and you are really do not know the answer, I suggest you are facing some time-consuming research before returning to the water pump question.

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The Northstar has the thermostat on the water pump
inlet. Most thermostats you are used to on other engines
are on the exit side of the coolant from the engine, not
the water pump inlet side like the Northstar. In
addition, the Northstar has a large coolant bypass
passage to allow coolant to recirculate thru the engine
to minimize hot spots and maximize flow. Only a portion
of the coolant flow goes to the radiator. The thermostat
controls all of this besides just controlling engine
temperature. If you remove the stat and drive without it
the coolant flow will be totally screwed up and very
little will go to the radiator. There is a spring loaded
paddle on the Northstar stat that controls the bypass
flow independent of the thermostat position or coolant
temperture. Without the stat this paddle is missing and
the bypass port is wide open. You do NOT want to run a
Northstar without the stat. It will cause it to run hot
and overheat.

The guy that wrote that was the leader of the GM Powertrain design team that was responsible for the NorthStar cooling system.