Ok, now I'm confused. I did the boiling water check on my thermo and it opened... This would seem to suggest that my thermo works. However, why would the car run really hot, the temp gauge would sky rocket very shortly after running the car, but then as soon as I removed the thermostat, the problem was solved??
Confused Bill

 

Make sure all of the air is bleed out of the system.

 

how long after the you put the t-stat in is it doing this? if if does it for a few days (long enought all the air works its way out) then its probably not bad...my stock lt1 runs about 190 driving around and at lights it will climb to 215-225
they arent made to run at 180 all the time...thats why we have thermostats...if it does it driving around do you have the lower air dam???
if it does it all the time ive had no ill effects from any of the lt1 around here we removed the plastic shielding from in front of the radiator to the bumper...

 

Well the current thermo was in there for over one year. Inside the car though, the temp gauge started maxing out after only a couple of minutes sitting there. I even tried revving the engine to see if that would make the water pump move some fluid along to cool it down, if even for temporary, but it didn't do anything. I have no issues with cooling normally as I have an extended air dam and manual fans. I'm going to put this same stat back in tomorrow and see what happens. Maybe my car is just being stubborn.

 

Napa does carry the correct thermostat.

http://www.napaonline.com/masterpage...ure+180+Degree