Alright, so you may or may not remember my posts a month or two ago, but I had headers, AL104's, open cone, stock pulley, stock tune. I used the android torque app, and thoroughly tested for KR. Had 1-2* of part throttle KR, but no WOT KR. I took this as a green light to pulley down.
Then, I installed a 3.4" pulley on an MPS I bought online (knew I was going to have to settle for a 3.5, but I got a great combo deal) and scanned for KR again. This time, I got 6* of KR at WOT (IAT~90*F, which was of course unacceptable. I purchased a 3.5" pulley from a member on here, and installed it. I drove lightly until today (finally had day off and nice day to scan).
So today, the air temperature is about 50*F. The IAT was reading +or- 70*F. Remember, stock tune. When I really stomped on it, I was hitting about 6.5* of KR... much worse than I was expecting. It was all during WOT, and at this time I didn't suspect anything is banging around, because I had no KR on stock pulley. I did, however, notice that my coolant temp was about 215*F, which was way higher than I thought it might be... my dial never shows higher than 190ish.
I plan to use a 180* thermostat from now on, but I only expect that will remove 1 or 2 degrees of KR. The KR is fairly steady, peaks on the shifts but shifts aside I'm getting a good 5* of KR at WOT.
I was trying to avoid spending money on tuning, but it appears that I might have no other choice. Please, share your thoughts and ideas. Also, is it normal for the engine temperature dial to be friggin 30 degrees off the sensor's reading?