I have my temp sending unit installed in the intake right close to the water neck. My block doesn't have any other place to install the probe.

Could this be giving me false readings, or is the sufficient? My car stays rock steady at 190*, and gets to about 220* after shutting down.

thanks

I'm not going to say it's "normal", because I really don't know, but I've seen that on a bunch of cars....primarily ones with mechanical temp gauges. I'd say your temp gauge is fine.

Ditto.

I had no other choice on where to put it. I've seen other cars have it there as well. But I was thinking the lower the better. Just in case you loose water, and you're not just reading steam.

I just bought a infared thermometer. Seems what the engine went together this time, something went goofy with my temp gauge. Put a new sending unit in and it will read correctly until it gets just over 170 and then goes right to 210 and on to 250. It freaks me out as the rad and fan are new too and I was a little unsure how well they would work.

I figured if I can hold onto the upper rad hose, its not over 200. Sure enough the infared shows 185 on the water neck right after a pass and shut down right away and the gauge pinned in the red. Time for new gauges I think.

It's gonna be pretty normal for that to rise a bit when you shut it down. Heat continues to bleed into the coolant, but with no more circulation, what's in the block will heat up. Hot water rises, up to the sensor. Maybe a slight amount of boiling, but probably not anything significant, or you'd notice.:)