New vs Original Oil Thermostat

[ahendy]

Has anyone found that new production external oil thermostats don’t behave the same as the old ones?

Background: I had some crushed oil cooler lines on my ‘87 w/ 3.6 so figured I’d replace them. They were original and impossible to get off of the original thermostat so I replaced that too.

Immediately noticed that it’s opening at a much higher temp than the original one did. Previously it’d get just above the 8 o’clock mark before plummeting (opening).. now it gets just about to 9 o’clock and it’s not as drastic of a plummet as it was originally.

Thinking maybe I had a faulty unit, I bought another, installed it, and experiencing the same behavior.

If this is normal, and perhaps my original t-stat was just opening too early, then fine. Just seems.. odd. Anyone else see anything similar?

By the way I have dual fender mount coolers with fans, so plenty of cooling for the 3.6.. provided the oil is getting to them!