[patrickt]

FWIW, I took her out today, ran her, then put the infra-red heat gun on her while she was idling in the garage with all fans on (pushers and puller). She was holding steady on the Smiths gauge at 90 Centigrade, which is 194 Fahrenheit. The gun measured the coolant areas on the aluminum intake manifold right at 192 to 193 degrees. The upper radiator hose was at 201 degrees, the lower radiator hose was at 172 degrees. These were pretty consistent numbers, measured a couple of times. I still think 28 degrees timing on an FE could easily make it overheat when you're running it. That's absolutely the first thing I'd change, and I wouldn't touch anything else until she started overheating with a good 34 to 35 degrees of total timing in her.