Update for the peanut gallery. Car did not do well upon restart with the new parts and t-stat (which was supposed to be a 180F but opened at 192F in a pot of water.) Once the car warmed up (which took about 7-8 minutes) temps just continued to escalate as it idled in the driveway. Eventually it got up to 110C, so I killed it, let the fans run 2 minutes, started it and the temp dropped like a rock to 80C. So from that I decided it simply needed more heat dissipation at the radiator. The CSX doesn't leave much room for the Taurus fan or a thick shroud so we ordered the Zirgo 3630 cfm 16" fan from Summit. I installed it and I think we now have the issue in our sights. The car idles at 200F with an outdoor temp of 85F and 30% humidity. Up and down the road in spirited driving it runs right at 195F, which ironically is just a tad above t-stat temp.
We're going to test a couple more t-stats, do some timing and tuning and give the engine a chance to run a few days and see how things look then. Side note....test driving this car makes me realize what it means to be "sorted out." Compared to my Hurricane this car is rough on so many levels, including two things you generally don't want at the same time: Terrible brakes and a throttle linkage that stuck wide open in 3rd gear.
