Thank you all for your ideas about my headlight tempered temperature gauge. I've added a direct gauge to ground line and have no more issues when turning on my headlights.

The question of the day is, why does my temp gauge act like a linear gauge now? Specifically, most of the 700/900 gauges I've seen zoom up to the half way point and stay there unless your water temp gets above 240F. Mine goes up to half way, then keeps climbing as the water warms up. The VDO gauge shows 180, but my stock gauge shows 3/4 hot or warmer.

Can the temp compensation circuit get damaged on the gauge? I don't think this is my problem, as I swapped out the gauge for another used gauge.

Is my sending unit having heat soak problems? The boss is in the head between two exhaust runners (2" from each runner). It could be that the gauge is getting some localized radiant heating, causing the issues. Anybody else had similar issues on their v8 swaps? (My vdo sending unit is in the block about a foot away from any exhaust.

thanks for any thoughts.
-simon