Interesting ideas, but no, I have never ran the car without the hood.
The guages are circa Dec 1969 and I'm sure that the temp guage isn't as accurate as it once was. It rarely ever runs hot and has never boiled over. The guage reads to the left of center.
The engine does run better in the first few minutes before it is totally warmed up. The detonation worsens as it gets warmer. In the winter out here, it gets into the 30s and 40s. It will detonate at that temperature but it is very slight. The 100 degree Summers are much worse. It may be an unfair comparison though because in California, the Winter blends of Gasoline are different that Summer. Not sure how that skews the whole thing.
