A numerical model of friction stir welding developed by T. DebRoy, R. Nandan, and others has been optimized to fit experimental data of eleven welds of 304L stainless steel at various weld feed rates and spindle speeds. Optimization was used to determine the values of five difficult-to-measure model parameters. The optimal parameter values were then correlated to the weld machine inputs. The mechanical efficiency and the coefficient of friction were not correlated with feed rate, spindle speed, or axial pressure. Tool slip was positively correlated with feed rate, negatively correlated with spindle speed, and not correlated with axial pressure. The heat partition factor was positively correlated with feed rate, negatively correlated with spindle speed, and negatively correlated with axial pressure. The heat transfer coefficient at the bottom face was positively correlated with feed rate, not correlated with spindle speed, and positively correlated with axial pressure. The above welds were instrumented with thermocouples at the mid-plane of the workpiece. Recently acquired three-dimensional temperature data indicates that the two-dimensionally optimized model does not sufficiently capture the thermal profiles in all three directions. However, optimizing the model to fit the three-dimensional data does not yield acceptable results either. Several potential sources for model improvement are identified, primarily the modeling of heat transfer at the bottom surface. It is shown that using a spatially-variable thermal contact resistance approach is more theoretically justifiable and yields better temperature predictions.