My van and I are going to fight

You probably won't notice much of a difference in the driveability or performance of the car, expect for warming the car up upon start up. The car will run cooler but will never reach the operating temperature it was designed to run at. This can effected emissions and gas mileage. I don't know what part of the country you live in and this may not be a problem now, come winter the car will have very litttle or no heat with the thermostat removed. I would find out what is causing the car to over heat or run hot and then replace the part that is bad. Remember the thermostat was put into the car because it was designed to be there not because the manufacturer wanted to spend extra money to put it there. If you are going to go to through all the trouble to remove it why not just replace it while you have it apart. Good luck :)