Jerry Hey wrote:

 I would appreciate the comments of pilots who are flying without a
 thermostat.  Do you have adjustable cowl flaps for exit air or for
 intake air?  If you do, is adjusting them a constant chore?   If you
 don't have adjustable cowl flaps, then do you find  times on cold
 days when your operating temps are too low?  I am sitting on the
 fence as far as a thermostat is concerned.  It offers a lot of
 convenience but is also something that could fail.   I have 250,000
 miles on my Nissan and my wife has the same on her Mitsobishi and we
 have not had any thermostat problems.      Jerry

Do air cooled aircraft engines count Jerry? :-)

So far I have seen no rotary installations  with cowl flaps. I am
not sure why.
I guess after you do all that work installing the engine you don't
want to spend the extra time. In fact the only home built water cooled
AC engines I have seen with a cowl flap is the Lancair Tigress, the Legend
and a GM V6 from Canada.

BTW You could always use air cooled VW engine
thermostats to control the flaps.

Jerry Hey wrote:

Air cooled engines have generous clearances in order to survive temp
fluctuations.  Still, they get too hot on hot days and too cold on
long power off decents.   The only thing I have seen pilots do is
either open the cowl flaps all the way or close them all the way.
Not much real temp. controlling.   I would still like to  hear from
the guys who have no thermostats.   Is there a problem with
over-cooling on cold days?   It seems unavoidable to me.    Jerry

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