Thought I'd fill you guys in on some things I have learned from this. I bought an OEM sender unit and installed it along with a 180 degree "superstat". I confirmed that the t-stat unit in there before was indeed a 195 degree unit.

Now, the thermostat opens when then temp gauge is about dead center and then falls to the low end of the normal range when left running in place with the electric fans engaged.

I measured the resistance across the units and the OEM unit shows about 320 ohms at room temp where as the aftermarket was closer to 200 ohms. I am guessing this might have been throwing the gauge off.

It's crap like this that makes me wonder why I didn't just buy a friggen Camaro or Mustang!