Coolant flow

I have only checked high performance t-stats but the multiple ones I tested started opening lower than the advertised rating (10 degrees or so) and were basically full open by the time they reached temp.
Yup, that's my experience as well. I always chuckle on these threads where we are clearly discussing high performance applications and everyone wants to throw stock crap parts in the mix, just so they can be "right" while not realizing that makes them even more wrong.