It Gets Hot

[At-Least-It's-An-Evo]

So after doing my headgasket a couple weeks ago, my car doesn't overheat anymore. I did beat on it a little bit before this all started happening... I'm not too sure if it got hot like this immediately after the HG was replaced. Here's the issue though and what I've done so far.

The car did sputter and stuff while I was beating on it most likely due to the MSD not being hooked up correctly so it'd cut out at 5k rpm. The settngs on the afc at the time were super rich and conservative for not having a real "tune" on the car (afc was in the ++++ in the upper rpms with 650s). I was also on 110 octane only running 14 psi. So little boost, little timing, lotsa octane. The base timing was at 5 degrees and I assume the stock ecu woulda prevented anything from blowing... maybe?

I've changed the thermostat to a 180 degree one, pretty much flushed the coolant system, got a new radiator for it, put a 12" fan on it that is always on whenever the car is, and yadda yadda.

The problem isn't while crusing or driving, it's while idling. The car will cruise at about 180 degrees, but when I come to a stop and/or let it idle for... 2 minutes? The temp gauge starts to move. It moves pretty quickly. Like let's say it's at the "E" in TEMP, it'll start moving to the "M". I've logged it with the AEM EMS and it shows that when it's at the M, it's at about 194-196 degrees. When it gets to the P, it's a little under 200. I let the car idle for about 15 minutes and it got to the P. This is with the fan blowing at ALL times. The hottest I've seen/let it get to was about 205 and on the faulty temp gauge, it is nearing the "hot" part of the gauge which makes me subconsciously paranoid as it would with anyone else. I know the AEM says it's only at about... 205 degrees, but shit, Um..... what I'm really wondering is... if my headgasket is blown again, or if I'm kinda screwed and the block could be warped. I don't feel like doing the HG again, but I guess I will if I have to. I'm more or less wondering if anyone has ever had this issue and has resolved it successfully. ANY input would be greatly appreciated from anyone.

-CP Lee