Hi Shannon, No flutter on the gauge anywhere. I'll try to plug the PCV nipple and see what happens. There is no residue of any type anywhere. These are all new hoses and to get the hose off the nipple takes a pretty good tug. I'll be soldering the decel valves after work today.

I'm also thinking about a colder thermostat...may be worth a try if I can find one.

The overheating problem was very convoluted. The eventual culprit was the in-line block heater. It was plumbed from the head port to the block (Canadian market cars have these sort of things for obvious reasons). The temp sender for my e-fan was inserted in the block at that position, good ground for the switch and everything else was fine. The head, where the temp sender is, was much hotter than the block, in fact the hose going from the head to the heater was hot, the hose from the heater to the block (where the sender is) was not. There was no indication that the heater had a right way to install it - ie a check valve...so I just bypassed it and all is well.