No. My '93's secondary fan doesn't turn on till the temp is about 236. I never let it go that high, I just turn the AC on.

 

my '96 runs on the highway at a pretty consistant 185-190, regardless of air temp. But idle goes to 230 when the fans go full, and then it cools pretty quickly.

My radiator is going on four years old, and my t-stat, standard LT1 180* is just a bit older.

 

you are about dead on.

 

I've never seen a C4 or C5 (stock) run at thermostat temperatures. Once the stat opens, the temp is controlled by lots of factors like efficiency of radiator, load, fans, air flow. It's easy to run a car at stat temps in very cold weather when moving, but most will run about 200 degrees with operating cooling system (while moving) and hotter when idling. Whether you put in a 160 or a 185, the car will run at the same temp after it opens and the coolant flow is doing the cooling.

 

mine runs dead on 195 stat runs 198 or a little more. and 200 is at the stats setting concidering error for stat of a couple of degrees and senders being off some. And yes there is no way a stat can do a dame thing idling when there is no cool air cooling the rad and dispensing the heat from the cooleant. I hope you also realize a 195 stat is not fully open until 215 or 220 so at 200 it is only about a 1/4 the way open doing its job to maintain the temps at the stats set temps. If it were fully open who know where your temps would be

 

My 94 does around 195 on the highway, and about 200 flat cruising without occasional stops at city street speeds. I get a peak anywhere from 210 - 225 at stop and go traffic. Had a lot of driving in traffic today, so I ran some AC when I saw the temp hitting 220. Always makes me a bit nervous even though its normal.

 

One of the things that has to be considered with the LTx engines is the compression ratios. With the 10.5 in the LT1 and 10.8 in the LT4, these were pretty high for a factory engine. Of course the higher ratios create higher combustion temps.

This being the main reason for the reverse cooling in the LTx. The cooler water goes to the heads first keeping the combustion chamber and the heads as cool as possible, thus saving the valve train and the head gaskets. Point is, because of the higher compression, these engines were designed knowing that they would run hotter, so it's not really anything to worry about. As long as the fans and the radiator are doing their job and preventing temps from rising much beyond the 230 mark, you're fine.

 

How would I do that?