I have a question that I wanted to pose to you all. I have a 340 six pack setup that idles very well at about 850-900 with a Comp 305/.525 cam in it. The question is that she refuses to idle well until at 170-180 degrees of warmth...anything under that and it idles too low to run. Once she's up to temp, it'll idle all day long. When I assembled the engine, I did put in the heat crossover blockoff style head gaskets, so the manifold is "cold." I'm running a Mr. Gasket 180 High flow thermostat with an aluminum radiator, so it takes a little bit to get some heat into it. Once the car sits for as little as 20 minutes, it wont idle correctly until it gets back up to 180...frustrating at cruise ins and local car shows.

My question is what can I do to either speed up the warming up after not running or how can I get her to idle with lower engine temps?

Thanks everyone.