[stephen low]

Talked with Don and his recommendation is to go back to the 180F - 82C thermostat.

That suits me fine as this is nicely below my current thermo fan sensor operating range kicking in as tested at 88C and off again at 83C.

My replacement water pump arrived last night so I just need to work on removing the old one and replacing it in the next few days.

Plus buy and switch over thermostats and I can have another run up to see what happens.

After that I will leave it to a practical operation as I don't want to go glazing the bores from too much low rev and no load use.

Thanks all for the feedback anyway.