[MidOHasp]

Latest update -
First, thank you all for your ideas - many of which I had never thought of.
-Went home for our first ever car show, and my dad was switching out our Bosch Platinums for some Champion C57CX's. Fired it up, blowing white vapor out driver's side pipe and missing. Had visions of a blown head gasket and dumping coolant in the cylinder, but the vapor burned my eyes and throat like Sunoco.
-Started car up at show, no more miss, staying cool, pleased the crowd with fish-tailing burnout through first and second.
-Saturday (day after), topped off coolant, checked tire pressure, went for ride - temp was staying at 160-170, fairly cool day. Driving her easy, turned around on a side street, needle started to climb-FAST. Got behind some cars with more behind me on a road with no berm - as for the first time ever, I watched the needle swing past 280F. I was freaking out. Got home, steam blowing out of the overflow bottle which was toasted.
-Found that we also compromised the gasket between the water pump and its backing plate. Tore off the whole front end and in process of rebuilding everything w/ new gaskets.

**As far as improvements, going to drain out all the anti-freeze 50/50 and replace w/ distilled water and water wetter. Picked up springs to put in the lower hose to avoid collapsing. Would've liked to "hand throttle" it to see if they collapsed, but there's no time to run more "tests" now. Replaced stock stat with Robertshaw unit. Have the overdrive water pulley on, now. What else...I guess that's about it.

I will keep you all posted. For those of you wondering, we definitely have the correct water pump and it's rotating in the right direction. I wish it were as simple as buying a new water pump.

One other thing for those of you still reading and wondering why we had that dramatic trip past 280F - we tried a heavier (20lb) cap and I think it was defective. We dumped out at least a gallon of coolant right before the bad overheat - and this was before the temps were high at all. I don't think the cap was keeping coolant from the overflow.

We need a surge tank bad, otherwise as soon as the fluid expands, it's going right into the overflow bottle.

Thanks again for all your help, hope this "brief" (haha) summary answers some of your questions about what we're doing right/wrong.